•  453
    Aus dem vielfältigen Werk von Hermann von Helmholtz versammelt diese Ausgabe die im engeren Sinne philosophischen Abhandlungen, vor allem zur Wissenschaftsphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie, sowie Vorträge und Reden, bei denen der Autor seine Ausnahmestellung im Wissenschaftsbetrieb nutzte, um die Wissenschaften und ihre Institutionen in der bestehenden Form zu repräsentieren und zu begründen. Ein Philosoph wollte Helmholtz nicht sein, aber er legte der philosophischen Reflexion wissenschaftlich…Read more
  •  429
    The mind-body problem in the origin of logical empiricism: Herbert Feigl and psychophysical parallelism
    In Paolo Parrini, Wes Salmon & Merrilee Salmon (eds.), Cogprints, Pittsburgh University Pres. pp. 233--262. 2001.
    In the 19th century, "Psychophysical Parallelism" was the most popular solution of the mind-body problem among physiologists, psychologists and philosophers. (This is not to be mixed up with Leibnizian and other cases of "Cartesian" parallelism.) The fate of this non-Cartesian view, as founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner, is reviewed. It is shown that Feigl's "identity theory" eventually goes back to Alois Riehl who promoted a hybrid version of psychophysical parallelism and Kantian mind-body theo…Read more
  •  380
    Alternative Interpretationen der Repräsentationstheorie der Messung
    In Ulla Wessels & Georg Meggle (eds.), Analyōmen 1 =, De Gruyter. pp. 310-323. 1994.
    Four different interpretations of measurement are distinguished that are compatible with the formal frame of the representational theory of measurement: (1) the classical interpretation, the additive, (3) the operationalis, (4) the correlative one.
  •  347
    Ludwig Büchner wrote one of the most popular and polemical books of the strong materialist movement in the later nineteenth-century Germany, his Kraft und Stoff (Force and Matter) (1855). He tried to develop a comprehensive worldview, which was based solely on the findings of empirical science and did not take refuge in religion or any other transcendent categories in explaining nature and its development, including human beings. When Büchner tried to expose the backwardness of traditional philo…Read more
  •  218
    Functional relations and causality in fechner and Mach
    Philosophical Psychology 23 (2). 2010.
    In the foundations of Fechner's psychophysics, the concept of “functional relation” plays a highly relevant role in three different respects: (1) in respect to the principles of measurement, (2) in respect to the mind-body problem, and (3) in respect to the concept of a law of nature. In all three cases, it is important to explain the difference between a functional dependency of a variable upon another and a causal relationship between two (or more) variables. In all three respects, Ernst Mach …Read more
  •  210
    How was the hypothetical character of theories of experience thought about throughout the history of science? The essays cover periods from the middle ages to the 19th and 20th centuries. It is fascinating to see how natural scientists and philosophers were increasingly forced to realize that a natural science without hypotheses is not possible.
  •  132
    Origins of the logical theory of probability: Von Kries, Wittgenstein, Waismann
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 15 (2). 2001.
    The physiologist and neo-Kantian philosopher Johannes von Kries (1853-1928) wrote one of the most philosophically important works on the foundation of probability after P.S. Laplace and before the First World War, his Principien der Wohrscheinlich-keitsrechnung (1886, repr. 1927). In this book, von Kries developed a highly original interpretation of probability, which maintains it to be both logical and objectively physical. After presenting his approach I shall pursue the influence it had on Lu…Read more
  •  74
    Nature From Within: Gustav Theodor Fechner and His Psychophysical Worldview
    with Translator: Cynthia Klohr
    University of Pittsburgh Press. 2004.
    Michael Heidelberger's exhaustive exploration of Fechner's writings, in relation to current issues in the field, successfully reestablishes Fechner'...
  •  62
    This article deals with Moritz Schlick's critical realism and its sources that dominated his philosophy until about 1925. It is shown that his celebrated analysis of Einstein's relativity theory is the result of an earlier philosophical discussion about space perception and its role for the theory of space. In particular, Schlick's "method of coincidences" did not owe anything to "entirely new principles" based on the work of Einstein, Poincaré or Hilbert, as claimed by Michael Friedman, but was…Read more
  •  60
    The term “historical epistemology” can be read in two different ways: (1) as referring to a program of ‘historicizing’ epistemology, in the sense of a critique of traditional epistemology’s tendency to gloss over historical context, or (2) as a manifesto of ‘epistemologizing’ history, i.e. as a critique of radical historicist and relativist approaches. In this paper I will defend a position in this second sense. I show that one can account for the historical development and diversity of science …Read more
  •  57
    Applying models in fluid dynamics
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 20 (1). 2006.
    The following article treats the 'applicational turn' of modern fluid dynamics as it set in at the beginning of the 20th century with Ludwig Prandtl's concept of the boundary layer. It seeks to show that there is much more to applying a theory in a highly mathematical field like fluid dynamics than deriving a special case from a general explanatory theory under particular antecedent conditions. In Prandtl's case, the decisive move was to introduce a model that provided a physical/causal concepti…Read more
  •  53
    In this paper, I would like to show that considering technological models as they arise in engineering disciplines can greatly enrich the philosophical perspective on models. In fluid mechanics, (at least) three types of models are distinguished: mathematical, computer and physical models. Very often, the choice of a particular mathematical, computer or physical model highly affects the type of solutions and the computational time needed for it. Technological models not only aim at a correct des…Read more
  •  40
    The Probabilistic Revolution, Volume 1 (edited book)
    with Lorenz Krüger and Lorraine J. Daston
    Mit Press: Cambridge. 1987.
    Preface to Volumes 1 and 2 Lorenz Krüger xv Introduction to Volume 1 Lorraine J. Daston 1 I Revolution 1 What Are Scientific Revolutions? Thomas S. Kuhn 7 2 Scientific Revolutions, Revolutions in Science, and a Probabilistic Revolution 1800-1930 I. Bernard Cohen 23 3 Was There a Probabilistic Revolution 1800-1930? Ian Hacking 45 II Concepts 4 The Slow Rise of Probabilism: Philosophical Arguments in the Nineteenth Century Lorenz Krüger 59 5 The Decline of the Laplacian Theory of Probability: A St…Read more
  •  27
    Review (review)
    with Manfred Stöckler, A. F. Chalmers, and Gregory Currie
    Erkenntnis 16 (1): 444-446. 1981.
  •  25
    Since the late 1950s one of the most important and influential views of post-positivist philosophy of science has been the theory-ladenness of observation. It comes in at least two forms: either as a psychological law pertaining to human perception (whether scientific or not) or as conceptual insight concerning the nature and functioning of scientific language and its meaning. According to its psychological form, perceptions of scientists, as perceptions of humans generally, are guided by prior …Read more
  •  18
    Aspects of Current History of 19TH Century Philosophy of Science
    In F. Stadler, D. Dieks, W. Gonzales, S. Hartmann, T. Uebel & M. Weber (eds.), The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 67--74. 2010.
  •  15
    Reviews (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (4): 406-410. 1983.
  •  14
    Helmholtz als Philosoph
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 43 (5): 835-844. 1995.
  •  14
    Wackermann, Jiří (Ed.)
    Philosophical Psychology 23 (2). 2010.
  •  14
    Origins of Logical Empiricism (review)
    Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 6 307-311. 1999.
    Alan Richardson, one of the editors of the present volume, dryly remarks in a footnote to the introduction: “Logical empiricism remains alive in philosophical memory chiefly by the significance of its death.” I think that this pertinent paradox can be enlarged to generally characterise the relation of present-day philosophy of science to logical empiricism : the more philosophy of science has struggled in the past to distance itself from central tenets of the movement of LE, the more it had to r…Read more
  •  13
    Die Logik der Kriterien (review)
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 4 (1): 172-184. 1977.
  •  9
    Contingent Laws of Nature in Émile Boutroux
    In Michael Heidelberger & Gregor Schiemann (eds.), The Significance of the Hypothetical in Natural Science, De Gruyter. pp. 99-144. 2009.
    In 1874, the French philosopher Émile Boutroux wrote a dissertationon the contingency of the laws of nature that highly influenced academic philosophy during the French Third Republic and led to a more hypothetical view of the natural sciences and mathematics. Boutroux took over the concept of contingency from the neo-Kantian philosopher Eduard Zeller who had insisted against Hegel on the role of contingency in history, and carried it over to nature. From this he tried to show that the science…Read more
  •  8
    In philosophischen wie nichtphilosophischen Darstellungen wird heutzutage der Ursprung des Leib-Seele-Problems überwiegend mit dem kartesischen Dualismus in Verbindung gebracht. Es wird die Meinung vertreten, daß erst durch Descartes’ Aufteilung des Menschen (und damit der Welt) in die beiden einander ausschließenden Substanzen der res extensa und der res cogitans das philosophische Grundübel in die Leib-Seele-Philosophie gekommen sei.1 Folgerichtig ist man fest davon überzeugt, daß sich das Pro…Read more
  •  8
    Was ist eine Art?
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58 (5): 816-822. 2010.