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An Epistemological Basis for Quantum Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

W. H. Werkmeister
W. H. Werkmeister*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
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Extract

Philosophy of science and, more specifically, philosophy of quantum physics can be but special fields of a general philosophy of knowledge; and the problems arising in these fields can be evaluated properly only when they are seen under the perspective of the whole range of human knowledge. This paper deals with problems of quantum physics and, in particular, with the problem of scientific objects in quantum physics from the epistemological point of view previously defined in the author's books, A Philosophy of Science (1940) and The Basis and Structure of Knowledge (1948). The argument of the paper, however, has not been stated before in the direct and concise manner here attempted and may therefore contain elements of novelty even for those readers who are familiar with the books just mentioned.

Type
Symposium on Quantum Mechanics, II
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1950 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1950

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Footnotes

1

Continued from the October, 1949 issue of Philosophy of Science.

References

1a The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 101–104.

2 Ibid., 210–221; 333–419.

3 A Philosophy of Science, 15–48.

4 The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 226–227.

5 Ibid., 256–258.

6 Ibid., 369–376.

7 Ibid., 388–399.

8 Ibid., 343–353.

9 Ibid., 353–365.

10 Ibid., 365–369.

11 Ibid., 256–258; A Philosophy of Science, 22–23.

12 Cf. Oldenberg, O., Introduction to Atomic Physics, chapters 1 and 2.

13 The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 346.

14 A Philosophy of Science, 238–243.

15 In an analogous manner the laws of Newtonian mechanics were shown to be “contained” in the broader formulations of Einstein's relativity theory.

16 Oldenberg, op. cit., 85–98.

17 A Philosophy of Science, 246–266.

18 de Broglie, L., Wellenmechanik, chapters 3–6.

19 Ibid., chapters 7–10.

20 The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 369–376.

21 Dirac, P. A. M., The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Oxford, 1930; revised edition, 1935. Neumann, J. von, Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik, Berlin, 1932.

22 The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 388–399.