cover "Philosophie der Physik"

This volume offers a systematic and generally understandable introduction to philosophical questions in physics and its historical development. It begins with a presentation of important stages in the history of physics in antiquity, the early modern period and the past two centuries, and uses them to illustrate central epistemological features of physics. It discusses typical explanatory strategies, the role of experiments and predictions, the procedure for forming concepts and theories and the importance of mathematics.


2nd edn. München: Beck.

ISBN: 978-3-406-66794-7

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ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht
hierarchy of norms

“If social contradictions are reflected in law, law cannot form a hierarchy of norms free of contradictions.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
power and resistance

“Michel Foucault says: “Where there is power, there is resistance, and […] this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (History of Sexuality I, The Will to Knowledge, 1976, p. 95)”

Gisela Febel
name contradiction

“Contradiction becomes real where someone names contradiction.”

Ingo H. Warnke
decolonial scholarship

“Creating decentralizing and decolonizing scholarship on contradiction, contradictory phenomena, and contradicting processes is a challenging task.”

Kerstin Knopf