Philosophy and the Physicists (1955)

Abstract

(1) It is a well known fact that periods of great scientific discoveries and correspondent changes in scientific theories are at the same time periods of increased philosophical production. This phenomenon is the result of a superposition of various causes. First of all many philosophical systems are only petrified scientific beliefs. A substitution, within science of certain theories by others forces philosophers either to revise their views as well or to write an apology for those views by saying either that the new theory is no good, or that it is only a good means for prediction but by no means an account or even partial account of the properties of the universe, or that one had always been in favour of the new theory and that any other opinion was the result of a wrong interpretation of ones 〈sic〉 philosophy.^E