Difficulties with Absolutism: The Case of Von Weizsäcker’s Philosophy

Abstract

The book is a collection of essays and treaties in which the author outlines, though incompletely, his own philosophical system for which physics is both a source of inspiration and a groundwork for justification. The author takes into account not only the present, but also the anticipated state of scientific knowledge up to the limits of its possiblities. His views of science — as is well known — are backed by almost 50 years of work in the field of quantum mechanics, crowned with discoveries which lie at the root of present-day nuclear physics. Let us recall, then, that von Weizsäcker was a co-discoverer of the so-called carbon-nitrogen cycle (a very important process in astrophysics), developed the formula for bonding energy which has become the basis for the liquid drop model, and explained the occurence of nuclear isomerism.

In this work we would like to offer our views of Weizsäcker’s philosophy of physics as presented in his book, The Unity of Nature (Weizsäcker 1980).