The aim of this article is twofold. First, we shall review and analyse the neo-kantian justification for the application of probabilistic concepts in science that was defended by Hans Reichenbach early in his career, notably in his dissertation of 1916. At first sight this kantian approach seems to contrast sharply with Reichenbach’s later logical positivist, frequentist viewpoint. But, and this is our second goal, we shall attempt to show that there is an underlying continuity in Reichenbach’s thought: typical features of (...) his early kantian conceptions can still be recognized in his later work. (shrink)

The PreambleIn the early seventies the newly discovered gauge symmetries had made it possible to give a unified description of three of the four basic forces in nature.Dawid [1]. However, it remained a mystery how the force of gravity was to be incorporated in the resulting standard model. In 1974 it was proposed by Joel Scherk and John Schwarz that string theory—which until then was regarded as a theory only of hadrons—was a theory that could unite the whole of microphysics. (...) The promise of full unification attracted many researchers to the field of string theory. A lot of work was done which expanded the mathematical framework and in 1984 Scherk and Schwarz finally succeeded in formulating the Lagrangian of the superstring: a quantised string that includes a matter field. With the mathematical formalism now firmly in place, the scientific community waited for experimental verification of the string hypothesis. And it waited.The Current DebateToday, more than 40 years after the earlies. (shrink)