Physics and Philosophy

Abstract

IF Sir James Jeans finds difficulty in defining philosophy (p. 16), there is no doubt of his qualifications for the task. Emerson, in his essay on Plato as a “representative man”, defines philosophy as the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world. It has been given to Jeans to participate effectively in our quest for the “constitution of the world” as physicist, as mathematician, as astronomer, as cosmologist, he has opened windows on Nature-on the origins of planetary, stellar and nebular masses and on the interplay of matter and radiation. Now he attempts what he has earned the right to do : he speaks to us his account of the nature of reality, his views on materialism and what he calls mentalism, on determinism and free-will.

Physics and Philosophy

By Sir James Jeans. Pp. vii + 222. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1942.) 8s. 6d. net.