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Chapter VIII

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Niels Bohr: His Heritage and Legacy

Part of the book series: Science and Philosophy ((SCPH,volume 6))

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Abstract

Most of us have from childhood had strongly realistic intuitions in the sense that we believe the physical world to exist independently of whether or not it is observed or can be observed; similarly, we feel quite certain that the properties things have do not depend for their exemplification on whether we cognize them or not. Almost everyone believes that the moon is there without looking to check, and that it would have the mountains it has even if it were not possible to send a space shuttle around it. So facts about the physical world are not something we produce but exist independently of our mental capacities. This view underlies our everyday dealings with the natural world and other human beings, but it has also played a crucial role in the presuppositions underlying most scientific activity. Thus the aim of science has been to produce an objective description of the world to the extent that its nature and structure is undisturbed by human interests, emotions and values. At length, after a great deal of labor, scientists have succeeded in constructing an objective picture of the world according to which physical reality consists of entities which are built out of atoms and the forces at work among them.

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Notes

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  1. Jan Faye
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Faye, J. (1991). Chapter VIII. In: Niels Bohr: His Heritage and Legacy. Science and Philosophy, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3200-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3200-8_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5411-9

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