Abstract
This essay represents the final part of a course given at the University of Hamburg during the summer semester of 1965 (the same course was previously referred to in the head note to “Quantum Theory”, Chap. 7 in this volume).
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- 1.
This text was first published as: “Matter and Consciousness”, in: The Unity of Nature (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1980); translation of: Die Einheit der Natur (Munich: Hanser, 1971): III,3.
- 2.
This refers to a discussion of skepticism. It makes sense to doubt any one piece of intended knowledge by adducing other pieces that remain unchallenged in the context at hand; but one cannot doubt all intended knowledge at one and the same time and continue living. For example, given a known fact, one can reflect on its being known. The reflection makes us aware of the circumstance, among others, that the known fact is known to me and is not otherwise available to me except in this knowledge. It thus enables us to doubt whether the fact exists at all or ‘only in consciousness’; i.e., whether it is really known or instead only imagined. One can reflect on this doubt in terms of other, undoubted facts. A searching reflection of this sort is a temporal, always finite process. It presupposes in general what it questions in particular. This ‘presupposing in general’ is part of continued living.
- 3.
Cf. the end of ‘Models…’ [in Michael Drieschner (ed.): Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Major Texts in Philosophy (Cham—Heidelberg et al.: Springer, 2014)—ed.MD].
- 4.
These last remarks are taken up in “Parmenides and Quantum Theory”, in: (as footnote 3)!
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von Weizsäcker, C.F. (2014). Matter and Consciousness. In: Drieschner, M. (eds) Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Major Texts in Physics. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice(), vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03668-7_10
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