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Experimental Life: Heelan on Quantum Mechanics

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Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh’s Eyes, and God

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 225))

Abstract

“Measurement is not an impersonal event that occurs with impartial universality,” says Niels Bohr in Michael Frayn’s Tony-award winning play Copenhagen. “It’s a human act, carried out from a specific point of view in time and space, from the one particular viewpoint of a possible observer.”1

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Notes

  1. M. Frayn, Copenhagen (London: Methuen, 1998), 73.

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  2. N. Bohr, Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), 54.

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  3. F. Wilczek, “What Did Bohr Do?” Science 255 (1992): 346. Cf. M. Beller, “The Rhetoric of Antirealism and the Copenhagen Spirit.” Philosophy of Science 63 (1996): 183–220.

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  4. P. A. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity (Nijmegen: Nijhoff, 1965), 95–7, 133.

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  5. R. Crease, The Play of Nature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 140–1.

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  6. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity, ix.

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  7. W. Heisenberg, “Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen,” Zeitschriftfür Physik, 33 (1925): 879–893.

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  8. See M. Beller, “The Rhetoric of Antirealism and the Copenhagen Spirit.” Philosophy of Science 63 (1996): 183–204 for a technical review, and R. Crease and C. Mann, The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in 20th Century Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1986. Repr. Rutgers Univ. Pr. 1996). Ch. 4 for a nontechnical review.

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  9. Heisenberg, “Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik.” Zeitschrift fir Physik, 43 (1927): 172–198.

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  10. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity, 48.

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  11. Heelan, “Heisenberg and Radical Theoretical Change,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, 6 (1975): 113–136, and following: 136.

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  12. Heelan, “Heisenberg and Radical Theoretical Change,” following 136.

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  13. Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity (Nijmegen: Nijhoff, 1965).

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  14. Ibid.

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  15. B.J.F. Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1972).

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  16. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity, 166.

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  17. Ibid., 16.

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  18. Ibid., x; also 3–4.

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  19. Ibid., 30–1.

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  20. Heelan, Space-Perception and the Philosophy ofScience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); “The Scope of Hermeneutics in Natural Science,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 29/2 (1998): 273–98; and [with Jay Schulkin], “Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science,” Synthese 115 (1998): 269–302.

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  21. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity.

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  22. Ibid., 107.

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  23. Ibid., 109.

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  24. Ibid., xii.

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  25. Ibid., 184.

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  26. Ibid., 156.

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  27. Ibid., 141.

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  28. For example, Heelan, “Horizon, Objectivity and Reality in the Physical Sciences.” International Philosophical Quarterly 7 (1967): 375–412.

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  29. Heelan, “Quantum Logic and Classical Logic: Their Respective Roles,” Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science XII, 318–349; “Complementarity, Context-Dependence and Quantum Logic.” Foundations of Physics 1 (1970): 95–110.

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  30. Heelan, “Quantum Logic and Classical Logic,” 322; or, one might add, to the Riemannian geometry of vision; Heelan, Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

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  31. Heelan, “Quantum Logic and Classical Logic,” 335.

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  32. Ibid., 341.

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  33. Heelan, Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science (Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, 1983), 178–187.

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  34. “Why a Hermeneutical Philosophy of the Natural Sciences?” in R. Crease, ed., Hermeneutics and the Natural Sciences (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 13–40.

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  35. Ibid.

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  36. Heelan, “The Logic of Changing Classificatory Frameworks” in J. Wojcicchowski, ed., Proceedings of the International Conference on the Classification of Knowledge (Munich: Verlag Documentation, 1974) 260–274.

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  37. Heelan, “An Anti-epistemological or Ontological Interpretation of the Quantum Theory and Theories Like it,” in B. Babich, et al., eds., Continental and Postmodern Perspectives in the Philosophy of Science, (Aldershot/Brookfield, VT: Avebury Press, 1995), 55–68.

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  38. “Toward a New Analysis of the Pictorial Space of Vincent van Gogh.” Art Bull. 54 (1972): 478–492.

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  39. Heelan, Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science, Ch. 5.

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  40. Heelan and Schulkin, “Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science.”

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  41. Crease, The Play of Nature.

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  42. Crease, Hermeneutics and the Natural Sciences, 262–3.

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  43. Heelan, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity, x.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York at Stony Brook/Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA

    Robert P. Crease

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  1. Robert P. Crease
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fordham University, New York, N.Y., USA

    Babette E. Babich

  2. Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA

    Babette E. Babich

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Crease, R.P. (2002). Experimental Life: Heelan on Quantum Mechanics. In: Babich, B.E. (eds) Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh’s Eyes, and God. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 225. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5926-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1767-0

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