Marij van Strien, MSc PhD

2023 March, 1 - May, 31

Affiliation: Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Research for a study about:

Overcoming Newton in the Twentieth Century: The Development and Rhetorical Uses of the Concept of Classical Physics

Project 1: The classical worldview: Its overcoming and its creation
During the 1920s and 1930s, many authors, physicists as well as non-physicists, argued that the framework of classical physics had turned out to be too narrow and restrictive. New developments in physics were seen as bringing an end to the strict mechanism and determinism of the nineteenth century, and even as a liberation from an oppressive worldview.
As Richard Staley has shown, the terms ‘classical mechanics’ and ‘classical physics’ itself date from the early twentieth century. This means that the physics of the eighteenth and nineteenth century only became classical in retrospect, when contrasted with the ‘modern’ physics of the early twentieth century.
In this project, I will look not only at the emergence of the term ‘classical physics’, but I will look more broadly at how the corresponding image of classical physics developed during the 1920s and 1930s. I will ask in how far this image fits the scientific worldview of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I plan to argue that no sharp boundary between the classical and the modern can be drawn, and that physics in the nineteenth century was less homogeneous, unified, mechanistic and deterministic than we tend to think. Furthermore, I will reflect on the rhetorical uses of the term ‘classical’.  

Project 2: Reichenbach and Jordan on the implications of quantum mechanics for free will.
The idea that through modern physics, the ‘classical’, mechanistic and deterministic worldview of the nineteenth century was refuted and that this created space for e.g. free will, religion or a holistic approach to organic life, which was widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, was viewed critically by members of the Vienna Circle, in particular Moritz Schlick and Philipp Frank. They were particularly critical of the quantum physicist Pascual Jordan, whose views on the implications of quantum mechanics for free will and organic life were highly speculative and could be ideologically linked to national socialism. The logical empiricist philosopher Hans Reichenbach, on the other hand, was supportive of Jordan’s views, which may have been similar to his own views on free will. In this research project, I plan to examine the relation between Reichenbach and Jordan, and compare their accounts of free will. 

Lecture

The classical worldview: Its overcoming and its creation

Philosophy of Science Colloquium

This talk is going to be a in-person and hybrid event, at NIG (SR 2i) and can be followed via online Plattform.

Date: 2023 March, 23

Time: 3.00-4.30 pm CET

Online Plattform  access:

univienna.zoom.us/j/63035484129
Passcode: 226427
 
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Abstract:

During the 1920s and 1930s, many authors, physicists as well as non-physicists, argued that the framework of classical physics had turned out to be too narrow and restrictive. New developments in physics were seen as bringing an end to the strict mechanism and determinism of the nineteenth century, and even as a liberation from an oppressive worldview.
As Richard Staley has shown, the terms ‘classical mechanics’ and ‘classical physics’ itself date from the early twentieth century. This means that the physics of the eighteenth and nineteenth century only became classical in retrospect, when contrasted with the ‘modern’ physics of the early twentieth century.
In this talk, I will look not only at the emergence of the term ‘classical physics’, but I will look more broadly at how the corresponding image of classical physics developed during the 1920s and 1930s. I will ask in how far this image fits the scientific worldview of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I will argue that no sharp boundary between the classical and the modern can be drawn, and that physics in the nineteenth century was less homogeneous, unified, mechanistic and deterministic than we tend to think. Furthermore, I will reflect on the rhetorical uses of the term ‘classical’.