Kant and Contemporary Philosophy of Science
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{'SignBlockName': 'Alicia Armstrong', 'PO_EMAI': 'aarmstro@nsf.gov', 'PO_PHON': '7032924743'}
Within the history of philosophy, Immanuel Kant stands as the                   towering figure serving as a kind of watershed in modern philosophy.            His task, as he saw it, was to resolve the scepticism concerning the            nature of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, which had been            generated by the English philosopher, David Hume.  Hume essentially             argued that there are only two kinds of knowledge: analytic which is            true by definition and synthetic which is contingent and can never be           known with certainty.  Kant introduced a third category of knowledge,           the synthetic a priori, which is knowledge about the real world which           is not simply true by definition, and which can also be known to be             true with certainty because the human mind is structured a priori to            perceive things according to these fixed categories.  Euclidean                 geometry and Newtonian physics were examples for Kant of scientific             knowledge which must be true about the real world.  Unfortunately for           Kantian theory, within a few years of its enunciation, non-Euclidean            geometries were developed.  Within a century, Einstein replaced                 Newton's physics with one based on a non-Euclidean geometry.  Given             these facts, philosophers have tended to dismiss Kant's philosophy of           science.  Dr. Friedman argues that such a dismissal is short-sighted            and that Kant's philosophy of science has an enduring philosophical             significance.  While Kant's philosophy should indeed be seen as based           on a commitment to specifically Euclidean geometry and specifically             Newtonian physics, nevertheless, it is still worthy of careful                  attention today.  For, on the one hand, Kant has a particularly acute           grasp of the physics and mathematics of his time.  His insight into             the foundational issues surrounding space, time, and motion in                  Newtonian theory is unparalleled, and his work therefore illuminates            the status of these fundamental physical concepts even from a                   sophisticated modern point of view.  Yet on the other hand, our own             philosophy of science develops by evolving directly from Kant's: by             attempting to adjust basic Kantian themes to the revolutionary                  development of non-Euclidean geometry and non-Newtonian physics.  Dr.           Friedman will show in detail how Kant's conception of the necessary             and a priori character of the principles of both Euclid's geometry              and Newton's physics makes perfectly good sense in the context of               17th and 18th century science.  At the same time, however, it will be           possible to illuminate the radical changes that have since occurred.            In particular, Dr. Friedman's study aims to shed light on the                   emergence of logical positivism as the dominant philosophy of science           of the first half of the 20th century.  This study thus promises to             make a major contribution to our understanding not only of Kant's               philosophy of science but also of our own contemporary understanding            of the development of science.
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{'Code': '135300', 'Text': 'Hist & Philosophy of SET'}
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