Hermann von Helmholtz’s Mechanism: The Loss of Certainty
A Study on the Transition from Classical to Modern Philosophy of Nature
Authors: Schiemann, Gregor
Free Preview- First English comprehensive contribution to one of the leading German physicists in the 19th century
- An informative account of a highly important part of the history of science and a reconstruction of a conception of science that is greatly widespread to this day
- Profound analysis of the interaction between classical physics and philosophy of nature
- New insights into the impact of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of science and metaphysics of nature on the philosophy of physics
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- About this book
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Two seemingly contradictory tendencies have accompanied the development of the natural sciences in the past 150 years. On the one hand, the natural sciences have been instrumental in effecting a thoroughgoing transformation of social structures and have made a permanent impact on the conceptual world of human beings. This historical period has, on the other hand, also brought to light the merely hypothetical validity of scientific knowledge. As late as the middle of the 19th century the truth-pathos in the natural sciences was still unbroken. Yet in the succeeding years these claims to certain knowledge underwent a fundamental crisis. For scientists today, of course, the fact that their knowledge can possess only relative validity is a matter of self-evidence.
The present analysis investigates the early phase of this fundamental change in the concept of science through an examination of Hermann von Helmholtz's conception of science and his mechanistic interpretation of nature. Helmholtz (1821-1894) was one of the most important natural scientists in Germany. The development of this thought offers an impressive but, until now, relatively little considered report from the field of the experimental sciences chronicling the erosion of certainty.
- Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-11
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The Conception of Mechanism
Pages 15-22
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The Classical Conception of Science
Pages 23-31
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Three Traditions in Mechanism
Pages 33-41
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Contours of Modern Philosophy of Nature
Pages 43-54
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Hermann von Helmholtz’s Mechanism: The Loss of Certainty
- Book Subtitle
- A Study on the Transition from Classical to Modern Philosophy of Nature
- Authors
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- Gregor Schiemann
- Translated by
- Klohr, C.
- Series Title
- Archimedes
- Series Volume
- 17
- Copyright
- 2009
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-4020-5630-7
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-1-4020-5630-7
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-4020-5629-1
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-90-481-7413-3
- Series ISSN
- 1385-0180
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- X, 284
- Topics
