Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Ontological Phenomenology by James G. Hart
Author:James G. Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030448424
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
4.5 The New Physics and Aether
To a significant extent the question of aether is the critical juncture for all theoretical considerations in the philosophy of nature .85 The chief problem in satisfactory philosophical solution to the problem of the aether has been the fixed attitude of the physicists to the matter. The Maxwell Equations, as the significant interpretation of the wave theory of light , were a stroke of genius. But since then physicists have repeatedly asked why bother assuming a mysterious something through whose oscillations the electro-magnetic field processes and the radiation appearances originate, when the complex entirety of these processes can be handled with a clean mathematical equation and without any such assumptions.86 Furthermore, there have been the classical paradoxes in the concept of aether : seemingly it must be, on the one hand, a solid or extraordinary elasticity, and on the other, it must be like a liquid, without any friction or compressability. In short, a nonsensical or impossible notion.
But are the mathematical formula really to take the place of a “being”? Is it really superfluous to ask “what” oscillates and “what” grounds through its very real oscillations the radiation appearances , and light in particular, if in fact each component of this process of oscillation is calculable? James Jeans thought that aether could be left out of the considerations in as much as it only burdened the mathematical “explanation” of the appearances . Arthur Eddington felt it was still a necessary supposition. Heisenberg’s remarks on the general situation—if they were taken ontologically and not mathematically—could be considered programmatic for confronting the contemporary crisis in physics. According to Heisenberg one should not understand the matter in such a way that the changes in the natural sciences would be understood to disclose the limits in the application of rational thinking. It is not rational thinking which is shown to be wanting but only certain forms of categories of thinking. New regions of experience should lead to new concepts and systems which are not less rational than those that have preceded. Heisenberg emphasizes, in contrast to Louis de Broglie , that these new, yet-to-be-conceived dimensions should not be without clarity and precision.87 And, in this connection, Conrad-Martius observes that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle refers to the limit-dimension where the macroscopic-classical concepts are applied to the quantum phenomena. Often it is taken as an ultimate guiding principle.88 Heisenberg was so far correct. And the philosophical explication of his remarks is that one must bring to light, to essence-intuition , the pre-physical dimensions. One should not, similarly, be disturbed that the properties of aether are completely other than what classical physics has determined concerning matter. Heisenberg , however, in his early writings did not draw these philosophical consequences of his own program but fell under the biases of the positivism of most physicists. We are bound to our macrocosmic language, and the microcosmic dimension cannot be captured in this categorical framework.89 Pascual Jordan refers to the quantum dimension as irrational in that it can only be expressed as a mathematical system.
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