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Nature, Knowledge, and Scientific Theories in G. C. Lichtenberg’s Reflections on Physics

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) is perhaps best known for his aphoristic writings collected in his Sudelbücher (Waste Books) and his critique of the substantial view of the self in which he argues that we should say “it thinks,” that is, “thinking is happening” rather than “I think.” However, Lichtenberg also reflects in the Waste Books and his lectures on physics on a wide range of issues in epistemology and metaphysics concerning realism and idealism that inform his thoughts on the natural sciences. In this paper, I argue that Lichtenberg rejects epistemological realism in favor of idealism and that he focuses on the heuristic and explanatory value of scientific theories rather than their ability to depict nature accurately as it is independent of our minds. I show how his reflections on idealism and the uses of scientific theories also inform his positions on natural laws, causation, induction, and debates between atomists and dynamists about the nature of matter and the cause of gravity.