Philosophical Consequences of
Great Scientific Discoveries
Friedel Weinert
The whole of modern thought is steeped in science; it has made its way into
the works of our best poets, and even the mere man of letters, who affects to
ignore and despise science, is unconsciously impregnated with her spirit, and
indebted for his best products to her methods.
T. H. Huxley
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Philosophical Dimensions of Research
 Awareness of
 philosophical presuppositions [implicit assumptions]
 ‘All effects have a prior cause’ {?radioactive decay}
 ‘All events are uniquely predictable’ [?quantum mechanics]
 ‘All observers measure the same length of objects & the
same duration of events [?theory of relativity]
 Social Sciences: assumptions about their nature and the nature of
social reality
 Naturalism versus Hermeneutics
 Holism versus Individualism
 causality
 Philosophical Implications and Consequences
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
Great Scientific Discoveries
Revolutionary
Conceptual Innovations
Chemistry
Astronomy, Physics
and Biology
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Effects on Everyday Thinking
 Copernicus (1543): Loss of Centrality
 Darwin (1859): Loss of Rational Design
 Effects on Science and Philosophy
 Newtonianism
 Special Theory of Relativity
 Quantum Theory
Old notions are
discarded by new
experiences.
M. Born (1949)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Newtonianism
 Mechanism  Cosmos as a clockwork
The universe not not like a puppet, whose strings have to be pulled
now and again, but it is like a clock, such as may be that at
Strasburg, where all things are so skilfully contrived, that the
engine being once set a-moving, all things proceed according to
the artificer’s first design, and the motions do not require the
peculiar interposing of the artificer, or any intelligent agent
employed by him, but perform their functions upon particular
occasions, by virtue of the general and primitive contrivance of the
whole engine. (R. Boyle, 1672)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Newtonianism
 Determinism
We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its
antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An
intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given
instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the
universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the
motions of the largest bodies as well as of the lightest atoms in the
world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to
subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the
future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. (Laplace,
1820)
If the whole prior state of the entire universe could occur again, it
would again be followed by the present state. (Mill, 1843)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Theory of Relativity (Einstein)
 new conceptions of space and time (4 dimensional space-time)
The views of time and space, which I have to set forth, have their
foundation in experimental physics. Therein is their strength. Their
tendency is revolutionary. From henceforth space and time in itself
sink to mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two
preserves an independent existence. (Minkowski, 1908)
Invariant
length
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 block universe
According to the principle of relativity in its most extended sense, the
space and time of physics are merely a mental scaffolding in which
for our own convenience we locate the observable phenomena (A.
Eddington, Nature 98, 1916)
In the realm of physics it is perhaps only the theory of relativity which
has made it quite clear that space and time are forms of perception
and have no place in the world constructed by mathematical
physics. (H. Weyl, 1918)
For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and
future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one. (A. Einstein,
1955)
Modern physics is beginning to suggest that all the motions of the
whole universe and time are an illusion. (J. Barbour, 1999)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Quantum mechanics
 indeterminism
 acausality?
If Gessler had ordered William Tell to shoot a hydrogen atom off his
son’s head by means of an -particle and had given him the best
laboratory instruments in the world instead of a cross-bow, Tell’s
skill would have availed him nothing. Hit or miss would have been
a matter of chance. (M. Born, 1935)
In quantum physics, determinism no longer obtains but causality still
does. A cause, C, can be followed by one of several phenomena E1,
E2, E3…with a certain probability of occurrence. (L. de Broglie,
1941)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Change of world view due to Social Sciences?
 Freud (1905): Loss of ego transparency
 theory of infantile sexuality
In the course of centuries the naïve self-love of men has had to submit
to two major blows at the hands of science. [Copernicanism: loss
of centrality; Darwinism: loss of rational design]. But human
megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow
from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to
prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house, but
must content itself with scanty information of what is going on
unconsciously in its mind. (S. Freud, 1916)
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
 Experiments
Foucault’s Pendulum
Experiment (1851)
Lüscher Colour Test (1948)
 proof of earth’s diurnal
rotation
universal association of primary colours
with psychological & physiological needs
closed system
open system
oscillation of pendulum in
‘absolute’ space
evolutionary origin of association
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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Philosophical Consequences
Awareness of Philosophical Pitfalls
 clear definitions of parameters involved
 clear, precise determination of relationship claimed to exist between
parameters
 awareness of alternative explanations
 danger of spurious correlations
 exclusion of alternatives
 awareness of importance of exceptions
 apparent exceptions
 genuine exceptions
 awareness of the nature of inductive support
 awareness of representative samples
FWeinert, Bradford University (UK)
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