Abstract
This chapter originates from the introduction to a lecture course on “The Conceptual Structure of Theoretical Physics” that I held at Göttingen during the summer semester of 1948.
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Notes
- 1.
This text was first published in: Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Zeit und Wissen [literally: ‘Time and Knowledge’] (Munich: Hanser, 1992), pp. 35–59. It was translated for this volume by Ms. Ann Hentschel with the financial support of the Udo Keller Foundation—Editor [MD].
- 2.
von Weizsäcker (2004)—Editor [MD].
- 3.
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Wahrnehmung der Neuzeit [‘Perception of Modernity’] (Munich: Hanser, 1983). Cf. there the sections Bohr und Heisenberg, eine Erinnerung aus dem Jahr 1932 [‘Bohr and Heisenberg. A Recollection from the Year 1932’], pp. 134–146, and Begriffe: Bewußtsein als unbewußter Akt [‘Concepts: Consciousness as an Unconscious Act’], pp. 359–362.
- 4.
This text comprises only the first section of the first part of the introduction to the book, cf. footnote 2—Editor [MD].
- 5.
Note 1983: When I quoted this statement: “He who errs doesn’t know that he is erring,” to my uncle Viktor von Weizsäcker in 1948, he spontaneously rebutted: “That’s not right. He does know it, all right, but he doesn’t want to know it.” Thus a discussion was opened that did not feature in this lecture; one can say: the moral aspect of epistemology. The closing passage of the section on doubt is rather commented on by it. Despair is not just despair about my knowledge and known reality but also about my will and the willed good. Ivan Karamazov did not despair about God’s existence but about His kindness; Dostoyevsky saw this as the deeper atheism.
- 6.
I later took this notion as the point of departure of the lecture The Relevance of Science (London: Collins, 1964).
- 7.
Goethe: “Ein großer Teich war zugefroren …” [“A large pond was frozen over …”]. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Poetische Werke [Berliner Ausgabe. vols. 1–16], vol. 1 (Berlin 1960 ff): 603.
- 8.
i.e. in the lecture this text is a part of—Editor [MD].
Reference
von Weizsäcker, Carl Friedrich, 2004: Der begriffliche Aufbau der theoretischen Physik, edited by Holger Lyre (Stuttgart–Leipzig: Hirzel).
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von Weizsäcker, C.F. (2014). Preliminary Epistemological Considerations. In: Drieschner, M. (eds) Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Major Texts in Philosophy. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice(), vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03671-7_2
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