IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001561193

The Doctrine of Description: Gustav Kirchhoff, Classical Physics, and the “Purpose of All Science” in 19th-Century Germany (2008)

Carson, Cathryn L.
University of California, Berkeley

Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: Advisor: Carson, Cathryn
Physical Details: 431 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

Philosophy of science Science and culture Physics Philosophy 19th century Germany Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Bunsen, Robert Wilhelm von Kirchenpauer, Gustav Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond, Emil Heinrich

In 1875 Berlin University hired Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887) to fill its first chair in theoretical physics. When he introduced his inaugural series of lectures that summer, on mechanics, Kirchhoff argued that physics should avoid seeking causal explanations and limit itself only to simple and accurate descriptions of natural phenomena. He held to this position, a brand of epistemological phenomenalism, until his retirement nearly ten years later. Kirchhoff's 1875 lectures represent a manifestation of the complicated relationship between philosophy and physics, which characterizes the history of nineteenth-century German science. Using Kirchhoff's story as a wedge, this dissertation examines that relationship. Kirchhoff's philosophical and methdological stance foreshadowed a rising tide of ambivalence about claims to absolute truth in the natural sciences. Looking at episodes from the history of classical physics (electrodynamics, physical chemistry, and thermodynamics) and the history of philosophy of science, this dissertation highlights the complex ways in which physics and philosophy intertwined in the nineteenth century. A close-knit group of professors--including Kirchhoff, Hermann von Helmholtz, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Robert Bunsen, and Eduard Zeller--negotiated the boundaries of their particular disciplines as they debated the purpose and limits of scientific inquiry in general. While philosophical reflections by natural scientists were not uncommon, the methodological and epistemological positions developed by Kirchhoff and his colleagues--at Heidelberg and Berlin--are important because they provided a framework for discussions of the foundations of modern theoretical physics. Occurring in the generation after Kirchhoff's, these foundational discussions paved the way for the modern revolutions in physics and their profound philosophical implications. Kirchhoff's decision to divorce the natural sciences from metaphysical notions, therefore, had significant consequences for science and philosophy in the years around the fin de siècle . The audience for this dissertation will include historians of German physics, historians of nineteenth-century science in general, scholars interested in the intersection between the history of science and philosophy, and those interested in the broader interaction between science and culture.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/10 (2009). Pub. no. AAT 3331743.

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561193/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Henning Schmidgen; (2015)
Leviathan and the Myograph: Hermann Helmholtz's “Second Note” on the Propagation Speed of Nervous Stimulations (/isis/citation/CBB627949969/)

Article Wegener, Daan; (2009)
Science and Internationalism in Germany: Helmholtz, Du Bois-Reymond and Their Critics (/isis/citation/CBB000952852/)

Article Darrigol, Olivier; (2003)
Number and Measure: Hermann von Helmholtz at the Crossroads of Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology (/isis/citation/CBB000340891/)

Article Pesic, Peter; (2013)
Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Sirens: Sound, Color, and the “Problem of Space” (/isis/citation/CBB001320409/)

Chapter Gregory, Frederick; (2012)
Proto-Monism in German Philosophy, Theology, and Science, 1800--1845 (/isis/citation/CBB001201835/)

Article James, Frank A.J.L.; (1995)
Science as a cultural ornament: Bunsen, Kirchhoff and Helmholtz in mid-19th-century Baden (/isis/citation/CBB000045444/)

Book Pietro Gori; (2018)
Ernst Mach: tra scienza e filosofia (/isis/citation/CBB991429309/)

Thesis Hui, Alexandra; (2008)
Hearing Sound as Music: Psychophysical Studies of Sound Sensation and the Music Culture of Germany, 1860--1910 (/isis/citation/CBB001561163/)

Article Palma, Armando de; Pareti, Germana; (2007)
The Ways of Metaphor in Neuroscience, or Being on the Right or Wrong Track (/isis/citation/CBB000800280/)

Thesis Anderton, Keith M.; (1993)
The limits of science: A social, political, and moral agenda for epistemology in 19th-century Germany (/isis/citation/CBB001564343/)

Article Jurkowitz, Edward; (2002)
Helmholtz and the Liberal Unification of Science (/isis/citation/CBB000202614/)

Article Cahan, David; (2012)
The Awarding of the Copley Medal and the “Discovery”of the Law of Conservation of Energy: Joule, Mayer and Helmholtz Revisited (/isis/citation/CBB001251433/)

Essay Review Ursula Klein; (2020)
Science, Industry, and the German Bildungsbürgertum (/isis/citation/CBB173266813/)

Article Pourprix, Bernard; (2007)
De la reconstitution de la physique allemande du XIXe siècle: Les exemples de Georg Simon Ohm et Hermann Helmholtz (/isis/citation/CBB000954360/)

Chapter Cahan, David; (2005)
Hermann von Helmholtz und die Ausgestaltung der amerikanischen Physik im Gilded Age (/isis/citation/CBB001022592/)

Article Cahan, David; (2010)
Helmholtz in Gilded-Age America: The International Electrical Congress of 1893 and the Relations of Science and Technology (/isis/citation/CBB000953437/)

Thesis Pantalony, David Alexander; (2002)
Rudolph Koenig (1832--1901), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821--1894) and the birth of modern acoustics (/isis/citation/CBB001562537/)

Article D'Agostino, Salvo; (2013)
Fenomenologia e matematica nell’opera di Helmholtz e di Kirchhoff (/isis/citation/CBB883375337/)

Article Vagt, Christina; (2011)
Complementary Correspondence: Heidegger and Heisenberg on the Question Concerning Technology (/isis/citation/CBB001250244/)

Book Helmholtz, Hermann von; Du Bois-Reymond, Emil; (1986)
Dokumente einer Freundschaft: Briefwechsel zwischen Hermann von Helmholtz und Emil Du Bois-Reymond, 1846-1894. Bearbeitet von einem Herausgeberkollektiv unter Leitung von Kirsten, Christa. Mit einer wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Einordnung in die naturwissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Bewegungen ihrer Zeit von Hörz, Herbert und Wollgast, Siegfried (/isis/citation/CBB000048382/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}