Abstract
When some days ago I learnt of the plan for today’s ceremony, it was at first my firm intention to ask you to refrain. For how, I asked myself, can an individual deserve being honoured in this way? Surely, all of us are just collaborators in a great enterprise, and everyone who does his duty in his post deserves equal praise. If therefore an individual is singled out from the community this can in my view never be aimed at him as a person but only at the idea that he represents; only by completely giving himself over to an idea can the individual gain enhanced importance.
Populäre Schiften, Essay 5. In reply at a farewell ceremony, 16 July 1890, at Graz, when the author had been called to a professorship at Munich.
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Boltzmann, L. (1974). On the Significance of Theories. In: McGuinness, B. (eds) Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems. Vienna Circle Collection, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2091-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2091-6_3
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