A match not made in heaven: on the applicability of mathematics in physics
| Autor: | Arezoo Islami |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Philosophy of science
Natural law Computer science media_common.quotation_subject 010102 general mathematics 05 social sciences General Social Sciences Metaphysics 050905 science studies 01 natural sciences nobody Epistemology Philosophy of language Philosophy Reading (process) Calculus Heaven Natural (music) 0509 other social sciences 0101 mathematics media_common |
| Zdroj: | Synthese. 194:4839-4861 |
| ISSN: | 1573-0964 0039-7857 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11229-016-1171-4 |
| Popis: | In his seminal 1960 paper, the physicist Eugene Wigner formulated the question of the applicability of mathematics in physics in a way nobody had before. This formulation has been (almost) entirely overlooked due to an exclusive concern with (dis)solving Wigner’s problem and explaining the effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, in one way or another. Many have attempted to attribute Wigner’s unjustified conclusion—that mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences—to his (dogmatic) formalist views on mathematics. My goal is to show that this reading misses out on Wigner’s highly original formulation of the problem which is presented throughout his body of work in physics as well as in philosophy. This formulation, as I will show, leads us in a new direction in solving the applicability problem. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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