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Physics and the Ontological Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

If there is one question which stands forth pre-eminently from among the many problems with which physical science bristles, it is that of the ontological status of the world which physics is exploring. What is reality in the eyes of science, and what are we to understand the physicist to mean when he refers to the “real world”? Can we agree with him when he assures us that physical science represents a progress towards pure truth? There seems to be a certain reluctance on the part of twentieth-century physicists to face the ontological question which I think their colleagues of the nineteenth century did not share to the same extent.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1932

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References

page 404 note 1 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 282.

page 404 note 2 Ibid., p. 283.

page 405 note 1 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 284.

page 405 note 2 Ibid., p. 284.

page 405 note 3 Ibid., p. 285.

page 406 note 1 Space, Time and Gravitation, p. 181.

page 407 note 1 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 286.

page 407 note 2 Ibid., p. 284.

page 407 note 3 Prolegomena to an Idealist Theory of Knowledge, p. 35.

page 409 note 1 Science, Religion and Reality, p. 191.

page 409 note 2 The Mysterious Universe, p. 146.

page 409 note 3 Ibid., p. 140.

page 409 note 4 Ibid., pp. 127–8.

page 409 note 5 Ibid., p. 133.

page 409 note 6 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 287.

page 409 note 7 Ibid.

page 410 note 1 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 285.

page 410 note 2 The Mysterious Universe, p. 142.

page 410 note 3 Ibid., p. 143.

page 410 note 4 Ibid., p. 144.

page 411 note 1 The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics, pp. 9–10.

page 411 note 2 Ibid., p. 8.

page 412 note 1 Jeans, , “The Mathematical Aspect of the Universe” (Philosophy, 01 1932, p. 6).Google Scholar

page 412 note 2 Planck, , The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics, p. 44.Google Scholar