Between Rationalism and Empiricism Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Physics

Erhard Scheibe is one of the most outstanding German philosophers of science. He has written extensively on all the problems that confront the philosophy of mathematics and physics: rationalism versus empiricism, the laws of nature, and reductionism. He has published books on the logical foundations of quantum mechanics and on the reduction of physical theories. Little of his work has been translated into English. This collection of 38 essays is intended to remedy this omission and to help to make Erhard Scheibe's philosophical ideas better known to an international audience.

I. Between Rationalism and Empiricism.- I.l Remarks on the Concept of Cause (1969).- 31.2 Aspects of Wholeness in Science and Philosophy (1987).- 61.3 Kant’s Apriorism and Some Modern Positions (1988).- 41.4 C. F. von Weizsiicker and the Unity of Physics (1993).- 91.5 Between Rationalism and Empiricism: The Path of Physics (1994).- II. The Philosophy of the Physicists.- II.6 The Physicists’ Conception of Progress (1988).- II.7 Erwin Schrodinger and the Philosophy of the Physicists (1991).- II.8 Albert Einstein: Theory, Experience, Reality (1992).- II.9 Heisenberg’s Concept of a Closed Theory (1993).- II.lO The Origin of Scientific Realism: Boltzmann, Planck, Einstein (1995).- III. Reconstruction.- III.l1 On the Structure of Physical Theories (1979).- III.l2 A Comparison of Two Recent Views on Theories (1982).- III.13 Towards a Rehabilitation of Reconstructionism (1984).- III.l4 Paul Feyerabend and Rational Reconstructions (1988).- IV. Laws of Nature.- IV.15 Coherence and Contingency. Two Neglected Aspects of Theory Succession (1989).- IV.16 Predication and Physical Law (1991).- IV.17 Substances, Physical Systems, and Quantum Mechanics (1991).- IV.18 General Laws of Nature and the Uniqueness of the Universe (1991).- IV.19 On Limitations of Physical Knowledge (1998).- V. Reduction.- V.20 The Explanation of Kepler’s Laws (1973).- V.21 Are There Explanations of Theories? (1976).- V.22 A Case Study Concerning the Limiting Case Relation in Quantum Mechanics (1981).- V.23 A New Theory of Reduction in Physics (1993).- V.24 The Rationality of Reductionism (1995).- VI. Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.- VI.25 Quantum Logic and Some Aspects of Logic in General (1985).- VI.26 What Kind of Hidden Variables Are Excluded by Bell’s Inequality? (1986).- VI.27 The CopenhagenSchool and Its Opponents (1990).- VI.28 J. von Neumann’s and J. S. Bell’s Theorem. A Comparison (1991).- VI. 29 EPR-Situation and Bell’s Inequality (1991).- VI.30 Three Remarks Concerning Bell’s Inequality (1993).- VII. Spacetime, Invariance, Covariance.- VII.31 Invariance and Covariance (1982).- VII.32 Hermann Weyl and the Nature of Spacetime (1988).- VII. 33 Covariance and the Non-Preference of Coordinate Systems (1991).- VII.34 A Most General Principle of Invariance (1994).- VIII. Mathematics and Physics.- VIII.35 Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics (1977).- VIII.36 Mathematics and Physical Axiomatization (1986).- VIII.37 Calculemus! The Problem of the Application of Logic and Mathematics (1988).- VIII.38 The Mathematical Overdetermination of Physics (1997).- Acknowledgements.- Literature.