The Determinate World

Kant and Helmholtz on the Physical Meaning of Geometry
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-3-11-018391-7
Verlag: De Gruyter

Buch, Englisch, Band 69, 229 Seiten, HC runder Rücken kaschiert, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 518 g

Reihe: ISSN

This book offers a new interpretation of Hermann von Helmholtz’s work on the epistemology of geometry. A detailed analysis of the philosophical arguments of Helmholtz’s Erhaltung der Kraft shows that he took physical theories to be constrained by a regulative ideal. They must render nature “completely comprehensible”, which implies that all physical magnitudes must be relations among empirically given phenomena. This conviction eventually forced Helmholtz to explain how geometry itself could be so construed. Hyder shows how Helmholtz answered this question by drawing on the theory of magnitudes developed in his research on the colour-space. He argues against the dominant interpretation of Helmholtz’s work by suggesting that for the latter, it is less the inductive character of geometry that makes it empirical, and rather the regulative requirement that the system of natural science be empirically closed.

Zielgruppe

Academic Departments, Libraries, Scholars, Students

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hyder, David

Hyder, David J.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 18. Jahrhundert
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Physik Allgemein Geschichte der Physik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Wissenschaften: Theorie, Epistemologie, Methodik

Über Autor(innen)

David Hyder, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.