Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 6: History and Philosophy of Physics

AGPhil 6.3: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 28. März 2012, 15:45–16:15, H 2033

The postponed Euler-Lambert-Kant discussion in the mirror of the Schlick-Cassirer debate — •Dieter Suisky — Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Striving for a discussion with the leading mathematicians of his time was a crucial peculiarity in Kant’s attempts to reconsider the basic principles of physics and metaphysics (compare Kant’s letter to Euler in 1749 and the correspondence with Lambert between 1765 and 1770). In a letter to Johann III Bernoulli (1781), Kant commented in retrospect that it would be worthwhile "seine (Lambert’s) Bemühung mit der meinigen zu vereinigen, um etwas Vollendetes zu Stande zu bringen". Though in fact it was Kant who postponed all opportunities which were offered to him by Lambert, he was right in demanding and expecting a completion of his works.
It will be argued that the missed opportunity was revived, first of all in the debates between physicists, mathematicians and the schools of Neo-Kantianism and logical empiricism initiated and performed by Cassirer, Schlick, Reichenbach, Einstein and Weyl. The keystone, however, was delivered by Einstein whose theory of space and time replaced not only the former versions constructed by Newton, Leibniz and Euler, but provided the basis of a new philosophical interpretation. As an unpleasant result for the Kantians, Schlick questioned some of Kant’s previously groundbreaking assumptions ("Nun müssen wir freilich in ihrem ... Dogma, die Philosophie biete unbedingt wahre apriorische Grundsätze dar, eine höchst unglückliche Äußerung erblicken.").