Philosophy of physics

Bridgman had strong views on the importance of empirical research, influenced as little as possible by theory, and this helped him test the influence of numerous variables that lesser mortals failed to heed. He kept clear of quantum mechanics and dislocation theory, for instance. He became deeply ensconced in the philosophy of physics research for instance, he published a famous book on dimensional analysis, and another on the logic of modern physics . When he sought to extrapolate his ideas into the domain of social science, he found himself embroiled in harsh disputes this has happened to a number of eminent scientists, for instance, J.D. Bernal. Walter s book goes into this aspect of Bridgman s life in detail. 

Because science has been highly successful in dealing with the physical world, it has been historically associated with a philosophy of physical ism, the belief that reality is all reducible to certain... 

The philosophy of chemistry What would that be In what respects would it be similar to a philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, and/or a philosophy of mathematics In what respects different What relationship would it have to each of these Would it yield up the same sorts of insights, or entirely new, unanticipated ones ... 

Murdoch D (1987) Niels Bohr s philosophy of physics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, chap 4, p 59... 

Hendry and Vemulapalli nicely frame the space for the work taken up in the next section. Fundamental physical theories such as quantum mechanics raise difficult foundational questions that have demanded the efforts of many powerful minds in physics and the philosophy of physics. As chemistry is not reducible to physics, there is an autonomous space for chemical theory and for foundational issues in chemical theory. Three such issues are raised in this section. Joseph Earley examines the role of symmetry in chemistry and argues for closer attention to group theory on the part of his fellow chemists. Ray Hefferlin seeks to extend the idea of a periodic law from elements to compounds. Jack Woodyard takes on the fundamental obstacles that get in the way of a more straightforward application of quantum theory to molecules. 

Second, struggling with reductionism is for the most part, but not always, a topic of infancy regarding chemistry, albeit a topic of maturity for the philosophy of physics. Once more, I emphasize, it is important for the philosophy of chemistry. It prepares the grounds for more relaxed and deeper studies of subjects whose logical independence has been proven before and thus moves toward topics of maturity. Furthermore, it places the philosophy of chemistry in the context of general philosophy and thus contributes to its broader acceptance. It helps us develop a better understanding of the much more complex relationships between the sciences, both historical and logical. 

Eddington, A. 1939. The Philosophy of Physical Science. New York MacMillian. 

Philosophy—literally, the love of wisdom—is concerned with the theory of knowledge and with ethics. When we speak of the philosophy of a particular academic discipline or science—for example, the philosophy of history or philosophy of physics—we refer to a critical inquiry into the principles and values that determine what counts as knowledge in the field. Typical philosophical in-... 

Because science has been highly successful in dealing with the physical world, it has been historically associated with a philosophy of physicalism, the belief that reality is all reducible to certain kinds of physical entities. The vast majority of phenomena of d-ASCs have no known physical manifestations thus to physicalistic philosophy they are epiphenomena, not worthy of study. But since science deals with knowledge, it need not restrict itself to physical kinds of knowledge. 

Let me outline how these claims might be addressed by looking at two cases, one limited to specific issues in a local area of the philosophy of physics and the other of a grander, more global nature. What I want to show, in both cases, is that considerations from within science itself play the ctucial role when the implications of methodological pluralism for claims... 

Muller FA (1998) Structures for everyone contemplations and proofs in the foundatirais and philosophy of physics and mathematics. Gerits Son, Amsitadam Muller FA (2003) Refutability revamped how quantum mechanics saves the phtaiomena. Erkenntnis 58(2) 189-211... 

Brading K, Castellani E (2007) Symmetries and invariance in classical physics. In Butterfield J, Barman J (eds) Handbook of the philosophy of physics. North-Holland, pp 1331-1367 Brading K, Castellani E (2013) Symmetry and symmetry breaking. In Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, Spring 2013 edn. http //plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/ entries/symmetry-breaking/... 

Sneed, Joseph. 1994. Structural explanation. In Philosophy of physics, theory structure and measurement, ed. Paul Humphreys, 195-213. Dordrecht Kluwer. 

HP, Box 154 iv. Letter Hartree to Lindsay, October 20, 1935. Lindsay s interest in foundational issues in physics materialized in some books such as Foundations of Physics written with H. Mar-genau in 1936, reprinted in 1957, and in 1981 as a Dover publication. Some of his publications in the history and philosophy of physics are Lindsay (1968, 1970a, 1973). 

At the end of the nineteenth century, German physicists were often engaged, next to physics, in the philosophy of physics. Physics textbooks were often preceded by long introductions dealing with philosophical issues. Especially, Hertz s introduction to The principles of mechanics, presented in a new form (Hertz 1956), published after his death in 1894, is still a philosophical classic. Hertz s view on physics illuminates quite a few of the issues we will encounter later on. 

Much of the continental philosophy of chemistry and physics was a variety of the sort of conventionalism which we discussed above. We have pointed out already that physics and the philosophy of physics were, on the continent, much more continuous disciplines than they are in academia today. 

Even a cursory review of contemporary literature in the philosophy of science reveals an interesting fact while there are separate sub-disciplines for the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology , there is one foundational science that is missing. Why has there been no philosophy of chemistry ... 

But while the quality of the literature that has appeared so far has been very high, the quantity is out of all proportion to that of the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology, and what has appeared has not yet convinced most philosophers of science of the legitimacy of chemistry as an area of philosophical concern. That is, even if one wishes to argue the point of whether there does already exist a small sub-discipline of the philosophy of science called The Philosophy of Chemistry , even its practitioners must admit that it is still in its infancy, or at least that it is pre-paradigmatic . And, perhaps most obvious, the philosophical literature on any aspect of chemistry is extremely sparse, especially when considering that physics, chemistry, and biology are the dominant triumvirate in the... 

But even if one did happen to believe that all of the interesting facts about chemistry as a philosophical subject were eclipsed by the concerns of the philosophy of physics, such a position would need to be motivated. That is, one would need to feel confident that the sources of possible philosophical concern within chemistry had at least been identified by philosophers of physics, then to show that they could be happily abandoned as a result of the foundational level at which such issues were already being dealt with by philosophers of physics. One does not, however, gain such confidence in looking at contemporary literature in the philosophy of science. Indeed, far from looking to other fields like chemistry for philosophical fodder, until the relatively recent appearance of the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of science itself was dominated by the philosophy of physics, which in turns appears to be practically exhausted by quantum mechanics, relativity, and space-time (Hull 1979, Cartwright 1979). 

Cartwright, N. 1979, Philosophy of Physics , in P. Asquith and H. Kyburg Jr. (eds.). Current Research in Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science Association, East Lansing, MI, pp. 381-385. 

Philosophy of Physics, edited by Jeremy Butterfield and John Barman. 

Until about 1960, English-language dominated philosophy of science mainly consisted of philosophy of physics. In the eighteen parts of the Foundations of the Unity of Science Toward an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, published between 1938 and 1970, the only references to chemistry can be found in... 

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