Brigitte Falkenburg - Böcker

Erhard Scheibe is one of the most outstanding German philosophers of science. He has written extensively on all the problems that confront the philosophy of mathematics and physics: rationalism versus empiricism, the laws of nature, and reductionism. He has published books on the logical foundations of quantum mechanics and on the reduction of physical theories. Little of his work has been translated into English. This collection of 38 essays is intended to remedy this omission and to help to make Erhard Scheibe's philosophical ideas better known to an international audience.

Erhard Scheibe is one of the most outstanding German philosophers of science. He has written extensively on all the problems that confront the philosophy of mathematics and physics: rationalism versus empiricism, the laws of nature, and reductionism. He has published books on the logical foundations of quantum mechanics and on the reduction of physical theories. Little of his work has been translated into English. This collection of 38 essays is intended to remedy this omission and to help to make Erhard Scheibe's philosophical ideas better known to an international audience.

This volume offers a broad, philosophical discussion on mechanical explanations. Coverage ranges from historical approaches and general questions to physics and higher-level sciences . The contributors also consider the topics of complexity, emergence, and reduction.Mechanistic explanations detail how certain properties of a whole stem from the causal activities of its parts. This kind of explanation is in particular employed in explanatory models of the behavior of complex systems. Often used in biology and neuroscience, mechanistic explanation models have been often overlooked in the philosophy of physics.The authors correct this surprising neglect. They trace these models back to their origins in physics. The papers present a comprehensive historical, methodological, and problem-oriented investigation. The contributors also investigate the conditions for using models of mechanistic explanations in physics. The last papers make the bridge from physics to economics,the theory of complex systems and computer science .This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers with an interest in the philosophy of science, scientific explanation, complex systems, models of explanation in physics higher level sciences, and  causal mechanisms in science.

This book provides a comprehensive account of Kant’s development from the 1755/56 metaphysics to the cosmological antinomy of 1781.

This book provides a comprehensive account of Kant’s development from the 1755/56 metaphysics to the cosmological antinomy of 1781.

Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. The ?rst is this: it can solve the problems thrown up by the enquiry of mind, when it uses reason to spy after the more hidden properties of things. But hope is here all too often disappointed by the outcome. And, on this occasion, too, satisfaction has escaped our eager grasp. [...] The second advantage of metaphysics is more consonant with the nature of the human understanding. It consists [...] in knowing what relation the question has to empirical concepts, upon which all our judgements must at all times be based. To that extent metaphysics is a science of the limits of human reason.[...] Thus, the second advantage of metaphysics is at once the least known and the most important, although it is also an advantage which is only attained at a fairly late stage and after long experience. 1 Immanuel Kant The tradition of the particle concept goes back to traditional metaphysics and ancient philosophy. The idea that matter is made up of microscopic constituent parts stems from ancient atomism. At the very beginnings of modern physics, it was taken up by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Newton thought that there are atoms of matter and light, but with the methods of Newtonian mechanics and optics they were beyond the reach of experiments.

Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. The ?rst is this: it can solve the problems thrown up by the enquiry of mind, when it uses reason to spy after the more hidden properties of things. But hope is here all too often disappointed by the outcome. And, on this occasion, too, satisfaction has escaped our eager grasp. [...] The second advantage of metaphysics is more consonant with the nature of the human understanding. It consists [...] in knowing what relation the question has to empirical concepts, upon which all our judgements must at all times be based. To that extent metaphysics is a science of the limits of human reason.[...] Thus, the second advantage of metaphysics is at once the least known and the most important, although it is also an advantage which is only attained at a fairly late stage and after long experience. 1 Immanuel Kant The tradition of the particle concept goes back to traditional metaphysics and ancient philosophy. The idea that matter is made up of microscopic constituent parts stems from ancient atomism. At the very beginnings of modern physics, it was taken up by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Newton thought that there are atoms of matter and light, but with the methods of Newtonian mechanics and optics they were beyond the reach of experiments.

The physics of condensed matter, in contrast to quantum physics or cosmology, is not traditionally associated with deep philosophical questions. However, as science - largely thanks to more powerful computers - becomes capable of analysing and modelling ever more complex many-body systems, basic questions of philosophical relevance arise. Questions about the emergence of structure, the nature of cooperative behaviour, the implications of the second law, the quantum-classical transition and many other issues. This book is a collection of essays by leading physicists and philosophers. Each investigates one or more of these issues, making use of examples from modern condensed matter research. Physicists and philosophers alike will find surprising and stimulating ideas in these pages.

The physics of condensed matter, in contrast to quantum physics or cosmology, is not traditionally associated with deep philosophical questions. However, as science - largely thanks to more powerful computers - becomes capable of analysing and modelling ever more complex many-body systems, basic questions of philosophical relevance arise. Questions about the emergence of structure, the nature of cooperative behaviour, the implications of the second law, the quantum-classical transition and many other issues. This book is a collection of essays by leading physicists and philosophers. Each investigates one or more of these issues, making use of examples from modern condensed matter research. Physicists and philosophers alike will find surprising and stimulating ideas in these pages.

Kurt Gödel was not just a brilliant logician but contributed also important results to the general theory of relativity. In the 1940s he found a solution to Einstein's field equations which (roughly speaking) allows for time-travel, i.e. compromises our very notion of time. This book brings together the contributions to the Kurt Gödel essay competition on the question: "What does it mean for our world view if, according to Gödel, we also assume the non-existence of time?”  Kurt Gödel war nicht nur ein brillanter Logiker, sondern trug auch wichtige Ergebnisse zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie bei. In den 1940er Jahren fand er eine Lösung für die Einsteinschen Feldgleichungen, die (grob gesagt) Zeitreisen ermöglicht, d.h. unsere Vorstellung von Zeit in Frage stellt. Dieses Buch versammelt die Beiträge zum Kurt-Gödel-Aufsatzwettbewerb zu der Frage: "Was bedeutet es für unser Weltbild, wenn wir mit Gödel die Nichtexistenz der Zeit annehmen?"

Aus der Sicht der Neurobiologie regiert im Kopf das neuronale Geschehen. Doch was wissen die Hirnforscher genau über die Mechanismen des Hirngeschehens und ihren Einfluss auf den menschlichen Geist? Dieser Frage geht Brigitte Falkenburg nach.Die Physik hat sich längst vom mechanistischen Weltbild gelöst, in der Neurobiologie bleiben überholte mechanistische Vorstellungen bis heute wirksam. Dabei sind die "mechanistischen" Erklärungen der Hirnforschung ganz anders als ihr Name suggeriert; und wer annimmt, der Geist sei so strukturiert wie die Materie, zieht atomistische und kausale Fehlschlüsse über das Bewusstsein. Falkenburgs Buch möchte die Debatte um Geist und Gehirn, freien Willen und Determinismus endlich davon befreien. Es liefert Grundzüge einer Wissenschaftstheorie der Hirnforschung und eröffnet den Weg zu einem differenzierteren Naturverständnis und Menschenbild.Das beliebte Sachbuch ist für die zweite Auflage vollständig überarbeitet und aktualisiert worden.

The scope of the book is to give an overview of the history of astroparticle physics, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) and its background (X-ray, radioactivity). The book focusses on the ways in which physics changes in the course of this history. The following changes run parallel, overlap, and/or interact: - Discovery of effects like X-rays, radioactivity, cosmic rays, new particles but also  progress  through non-discoveries (monopoles)  etc. - The change of the description of nature in physics, as consequence of new theoretical questions at the beginning of the 20th century, giving rise to quantum physics, relativity, etc. - The change of experimental methods, cooperations, disciplinary divisions. With regard to the latter change, a main topic of the book is to make the specific multi-diciplinary features of astroparticle physics clear.