Abstract
The aim of the following considerations is to point to some problems, partly of epistemological, partly of more technical character, raised by the concept of irreversibility and its position in the framework of statistical thermodynamics. Opinions concerning such questions arc divided; but the origin of the confusion still prevailing in this domain must be sought more in the insufficient care taken by writers on the subject to analyse the epistemological basis of their point of view than in some inherent obscurity of the situation. I shall therefore try in the following to develop one consistent line of argument, which has the advantage of making use of well-established epistemological conceptions, namely those which have proved decisive in the elucidation of the foundations of quantum theory. I hope in this way to provide at least a convenient starting point for further discussion.
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Cohen, R.S., Stachel, J.J. (1979). Questions of Irreversibility and Ergodicity [1962b]. In: Cohen, R.S., Stachel, J.J. (eds) Selected Papers of Léon Rosenfeld. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9349-5_56
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9349-5_56
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