Abstract
Heidegger’s position on science and technics has been analyzed in very many papers and essays in a very general philosophical context. Indeed, Heidegger’s hermeneutical criticism of science has been neglected as irrelevant or dangerous by the majority of physicists and philosophers of science.1 On the contrary, recently some works have been developing a first hermeneutical interpretation of science and have also been dealing with Heidegger’ s particular ideas about physics, sometimes by trying a comparison between hermeneutics and the implications of a physical theory like quantum mechanics.2 However, in my opinion, one should neither a priori reject Heidegger’ s criticism of science, nor try to understand science on the ground of any pre-constituted philosophy like hermeneutics. Furthermore, on the one hand the general philosophical analysis has missed an actual deep insight into physics and on the other the specific comparison has been performed within the image of classical and modern physics as reconstructed by the scientific community on a very superficial level.
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Notes
See, for instance: I. Prigogine & I. Stengers, La Nouvelle Alliance. Métamorphose de la Science Gallimard, Paris 1979.
R. Rorty, Is Natural Science a Natural Kind?, in Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Philosophical Papers I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991, pp. 46–62; M. A. Arbib & M. B. Hesse, The Construction of Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1986; T. Winograd & T. Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition, Ablex Pub. Cor., Norwood, New Jersey 1986; C. Chevalley, La Physique de Heidegger, Les études philosophiques, v. 3 (1990), pp. 289311; C. F. von Weizsäcker, Der Garten des Menschlichen, C. Hanser Verlag, München 1977, 19922, pp. 404–431; C. F. von Weizsäcker, Zum Weltbild der Physik, Hirzel, Stuttgart 1957’.
M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Neske, Pfullingen 1954. 4 M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Wissenschaft und Besinnung, in Vorträge und…, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Identität und Differenz, Neske, Pfullingen 1957, 1978: M. Heidegger (1962), Überlieferte Sprache und technische Sprache, Erker, St. Gallen 1989; M. Heidegger (1938), Holzwege, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1950; M. Heidegger (1939), Von Wesen und Begriff der tpvatç Aristoteles, Physik B, 1, in Wegmarken, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1976; M. Heidegger (1931), Aristoteles, Metaphysik Q 1–3. Von Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Kraft, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1981; M. Heidegger (1965)
Zur Frage nach der Bestimmung der Sache des Denkens, Erker, St. Gallen 1984; M. Heidegger (1936–40), Nietzsche,Neske, Pfullingen 1961; M. Heidegger (1951–52), Was heisst Denken?, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1954; M. Heidegger (1949–50), Die Kehre, Neske, Pfullingen 1962; M. Heidegger (1949–50), Die Technik und die Kehre, Neske, Pfullingen 1963; M. Heidegger (19511973), Vier Seminare. Zürcher Seminar, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1977; M. Heidegger (1955–56), Der Satz vom Grund, Neske, Pfullingen 1957; M. Heidegger (1935), Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von den transzendentalen Grundsätzen, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1962; M. Heidegger (1959–69), Zollikoner Seminare. Protokolle-Gespräche-Briefe, ed. by M. Boss, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1987; M. Heidegger (1936–39), Beiträge zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis),Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1989; M. Heidegger, Hebel. Der Hausfreund, Neske, Pfullingen 1957; M. Heidegger (1935), Einführung in die Metaphysik, Niemeyer, Tübingen 19764.
M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit,Niemeyer, Tübingen 1927.
M. Heidegger (1962), Zeit und Sein & Protokoll zu einem Seminar über den Vortrag “Zeit und Sein ”, in Zur Sache des Denkens, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1969. See also: M. Heidegger, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1979; M. Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1975; M. Heidegger (1924), Der Begriff der Zeit, Niemeyer Tübingen 1989; M. Heidegger, Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtwissenschaft, in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, CLXI (1916), pp. 1173–188 and reprinted in Frühe Schriften, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1972, pp. 355–376.
For such an interpretation, see also: the introduction and notes by G. Vattimo to the Italian translation of M. Heidegger, Vorträge und…, Saggi e discorsi, Mursia, Milano 1976. For a more general interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy, see for instance: M. Cacciari, Pensiero negativo e razionalizzazione, Marsilio, Venezia 1977; M. Cacciari, Salvezza che cade,in Il Centauro, n. 6 (1982), pp. 70–101; G. Vattimo, Essere,storia e linguaggio in Heidegger, Marietti, Genova 1963; J. Derrida, De la grammatologie, Minuit, Paris 1967; C. Sini, Passare il segno. Semiotica, cosmologia, tecnica, il Saggiatore, Milano 1981; K. O. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1973, 1976; J. Habermas, Texte und Kontexte, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1991; E. Giannetto, La pratica ermeneutica del dialogos, in Ermeneutica e Filosofia Pratica,ed. by N. De Domenico, A. Escher Di Stefano & G. Puglisi, Marsilio, Venezia 1990, pp. 99–112.
M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.: translation is mine.
E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, in Husserliana, Gesammelte Werke, v. 6, Nijhoff, Den Haag 1954, 1959.
H. Marcuse,One-Dimensional Man. Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society Beacon Press, Boston 1964; H. Marcuse On Science and Phenomenology in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science II ed. by R. Cohen & M. Wartofsky, Humanities Press, New York 1965; H. Marcuse, Beiträge zu einer Phänomenologie des Historischen Materialismus, in Philosophische Hefte, v. I (1928), pp. 45–68.
F. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by G. Colli & M. Montinari, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag/de Gruyter, München/Berlin-New York 1988; M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Neske, Pfullingen 1961; M. Cacciari, Krisis, Feltrinelli, Milano 1976.
J. Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe, Gallimard, Paris 1972.
J. Baudrillard, Pour une critique…, op. cit.; E. Giannetto, Physis, Bios, Psyché e Logos: note verso una fisica come dissoluzione delle pratiche simboliche, in Metaxù, n. 8 (1989), pp. 43–60.
M. Heidegger (1938), Die Zeit des Weltbildes, in Holtzwege,op. cit.
See also: M. Heidegger, Platon Lehre von der Wahrheit, in Wegmarken,op. cit., pp. 201–236; M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1988.
E. Husserl, Die Krisis…,op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Der Zeitbegriff in der…, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Wissenschaft und…, op. cit.
H. Marcuse, On Science and…,op. cit.
See also, for instance: C. A. Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics, Springer Verlag, Berlin 1968.
See for example: M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.
E. Giannetto, Physis…, op. cit.
H. Helmholtz, Über die Erhaltung der Kraft, Reimer, Berlin 1847 & in Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften, ed. by W. Ostwald, Engelmann, Leipzig 1889, n. 1; G. W. Leibniz, Leibnizens mathematische Schriften, ed. by C. G. Gerhardt, Halle 1850–63; E. Cassirer, Leibniz’ System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen, Elwert, Marburg 1902 & Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1962. See also: M. Jammer, Concepts of Force. A study in the foundations of dynamics, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1957; M. B. Hesse, Forces and Fields. The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics, Nelson & Sons, Edinburgh 1961.
M. Heidegger, Aristoteles…,op. cit.; Aristotle, Physica; De caelo, ed. by W. D. Ross, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1930.
Indeed, Nietzsche’s idea of will to power (Wille zur Macht) is explicitly related to the idea of a physical variable generating forces like potential energy: F. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke, op. cit.; G. Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie, P.U.F., Paris 1962.
Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. by H. Diels (1903) and by W. von Kranz, Berlin 196612; La Sapienza greca II, ed. by G. Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1978; see also: E. Giannetto, The Epistemological and Physical Importance of Gödel’s Theorems, in First International Symposyum on Gödel’s Theorems,ed. by Z. W. Wolkowski, World Scientific, Singapore 1993, pp. 136–147; G. Calogero, Storia della logica antica,Laterza, Roma-Bari 1967.
See also: J. Baudrillard, Pour une critique…,op. cit.
C. Smith & M. N. Wise, Energy and Empire,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989.
See also: E. Cassirer, Leibniz’ System…,op. cit.
See also: R. Thom, Esquisse d’une sémiophysique,Intereditions, Paris 1988.
M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Wissenschaft und Besinnung,op. cit.
E. Husserl, Die Krisis…, op. cit.; H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man…, op. cit.; H. Marcuse, On Science…,op. cit.
E. Giannetto, La logica quantistica tra fondamenti della matematica e della fisica, in Foundations of Mathematics & Physics, ed. by U. Bartocci & J. P. Wesley, Wesley, Blumberg 1990, pp. 107–127; E. Giannetto, L’epistemologia quantistica come metafora antifondazionistica, in Immagini Linguaggi Concetti, ed. by S. Petruccioli, Theoria, Roma 1991, pp. 301–322; E. Giannetto, On Truth: A Physical Inquiry, in Atti del Congresso ‘Nuovi problemi della logica e della filosofia della scienza’, I, ed. by C. Cellucci & M. Dalla Chiara, CLUEB, Bologna 1991, pp. 221–228; E. Giannetto, The Epistemological…, op. cit.
M. Kline, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1980.
See notes 31 & 32 and references therein.
J. L. Bell, From Absolute to Local Mathematics, in Synthese,v. 69 (1986), pp. 409–426.
B. C. van Fraassen Formal semantics and logic Macmillan Co., New York 1971. For the physical importance of free logics, see: K. Lambert Logical Truth and Microphysics in The Logical Way of Doing Things ed. by K. Lambert, Yale University Press, New Haven 1967, pp. 93–117; E. Giannetto La logica quantistica… op. cit.; E. Giannetto, Il crollo del concetto di spazio-tempo negli sviluppi della fisica quantistica: l’impossibilità di una ricostruzione razionale nomologica del mondo in Aspetti epistemologici dello spazio e del tempo ed. by G. Boniolo Borla, Roma 1987, pp. 169–224.
See note 35.
See for instance: G. Helm, Die Energetik nach ihrer geschictlichen Entwiclung, Leipzig 1898; W. Ostwald, Die Überwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus, Leipzig 1895; C. G. Jung, Über die Energetik der Seele, Psychologische Abhandlungen II, Rascher, Zürich 1928; W. Pauli & C. G. Jung, Naturerklärung und Psyche, Zürich 1952.
See also: S. Brush, Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter from Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager Princeton University Press, Princeton 1983; E. Morin, La Méthode. I. La Nature de la Nature Seuil, Paris 1977; M. Serres Hermes I-V Minuit Paris 1969–1980; M. Serres La naissance de la physique dans le texte de Lucrèce. Fleuves et turbulences Minuit, Paris 1977.
See also: G. Deleuze, Nietzsche et…,op. cit.
J. Piaget & R. Garcia, Les explications causales P.U.F., Paris 1971; E. Giannetto Note sull’interpretazione della relatività generale di A. S. Eddington in Atti del XII Congresso Nazionale di Storia della Fisica (LXXVII S.I.F., L’Aquila 1991), ed. by F. Bevilacqua, Goliardica Pavese, Pavia 1993 (in press); E. Mach Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung historisch-kritisch dargestellt Brockhaus, Leipzig 1883; H. Hertz Die Prinzipien der Mechanik in neuem Zusammenhang dargstellt Brockhaus, Leipzig 1894.
See E. Giannetto, Physis…, op. cit.
See, for example, some of the most important papers written by Poincaré in which he gave the conceptual foundations and then the complete formulation of special relativity: H. Poincaré,La Science et l’Hypothèse Flammarion, Paris 1902; H. Poincaré L’état actuel et l’avenir de la Physique mathématique in Bulletin des Sciences Mathematiques v. 28 (1904), pp. 302–324; H. Poincaré, Sur la dynamique de l’électron in Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences v. 140 (1905), pp. 1504–1508; H. Poincaré, Sur la dynamique de l’électron in Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo,v. 21 (1906), pp. 129–175. Poincaré was the ignored author of the four-dimensional space-time formulation of special relativity; see also: E. Giannetto, Poincaré and the rise of relativity, conference delivered at LXXIX S.I.F., Udine, October 1993 (in press) and references therein.
S. Brush, Statistical Physics…, op. cit.; E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità: Max Born e la nascita della nuova fisica del caos, conference delivered at the International Congress S.I.LF.S., Lucca, January 1993 (in press).
See also: M. Deakin, Nineteenth Century Anticipation of Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems, in Archives for History of Exact Sciences, v. 39 (1988/89), pp. 183–194; I. Hacking, Nineteenth Century Cracks in the Concept of Determinism, in Journal of the History of Ideas (1983), pp. 455–475.
See also: E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità.., op. cit.
See note 42 and M. Jammer, Concepts of Space. The History of Theories of Space in Physics, Harvard University Press, Harvard, Massachusetts 1954.
For his criticism, see note 6. An idea of temporalization of space was already present in Leibniz: see H. Poser, La teoria leibniziana della relatività di spazio e tempo, aut-aut, v. 254–255 (1993), pp. 33–48. It was also present in M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, op. cit., § 70. It is not known whether he knew Whitehead’s formulation of special relativity — where, at variance with all the other formulations, temporalization of space is a fundamental feature — but he certainly was aware of relativity (see the texts quoted in note 6) and of Bergson’s critical analysis, in particular, on the seeming spatialization of time: H. Bergson, durée et simultanéité, P.U.F., Paris 1922, 1968. Indeed, Whitehead was also influenced by Bergson’s philosophy of temporal evolution and becoming: H. Bergson, Oeuvres, P.U.F., Paris 1959–1972; A. N. Whitehead, An Enquiry on the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1919; A. N. Whitehead, The Concept of Nature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1920; A. N. Whitehead, The Principle of Relativity with applications to Physical Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1922. However, in M. Heidegger, Zeit und Sein, op. cit., he rejected the idea of a fundamental temporalization of space as given in the § 70 of Sein und Zeit, stressing the priority of events beyond space-time. This temporalization, Heideggerian idea has been recently reconsidered by J. Derrida, without quoting Whitehead: J. Derrida, De la grammatologie, op. cit., chh. II & III.
M. Heidegger, Zeit und Sein, op. cit.
For such an idea of pre-geometry, see: J. A. Wheeler, Pregeometry: motivations and prospects, in Quantum Theory and Gravitation, ed. by A. R. Marlow, Academic Press, New York 1980; E. Giannetto, Il crollo…,and references therein.
For such an indeterministic interpretation of relativity, see: E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità: Max Born…, op. cit. and references therein. Very briefly, one can say that the relativistic invariants like the scalar products of quadrivectors by themselves express the mixed indeterminacies of space and time, energy and impulse, and so on.
E. Giannetto, Notes on Non-Separability, conference delivered at the Congress on `Quantum Mechanics’, Lecce, October 1993 (in press). Here, I use the word Dasein without any Heidegerian, anthropocentric, specist connotation.
M. Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Wissenschaft und Besinnung,op. cit.
E. Giannetto, Il crollo…,op. cit.
E. Giannetto, Il crollo…,op. cit. and references therein.
E. Giannetto, Il crollo…,op. cit.; E. Giannetto, Teoria quanto-relativistica delle fasi macroscopiche della materia condensata: la transizione fluido-solido,ph. d. thesis, University of Messina, Messina 1992.
E. Giannetto, Notes on Non-Separability, op. cit.; A. Einstein, B. Podolski & N. Rosen, Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be considered complete?, in Physical Review, v. 47 (1935), pp. 777–780.
D. Finkelstein, Matter Space and Logic, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,v. 5 (1969), p. 199; E. Giannetto, Il crollo…,op. cit.;; E. Giannetto, Toward a Physical Superlogodynamics,conference delivered at the Logic Colloquium `88, Padova, July 1988 (in press; an abstract was published in Journal of Symbolic Logic, v. 55 (1990), pp. 404–405).
E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità…, op. cit.; M. Heidegger, Die Zeit des Weltbildes, op. cit.
E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità…, op. cit. and references therein; see also: I. Prigogine, Le leggi del caos, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1993.
E. Giannetto, Note sulla complessità…, op. cit.; M. Born & D. J. Hooton, Statistical Dynamics of Multiply-Periodic Systems, in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, v. 52 (1956), pp. 287–300; see also: K. R. Popper, The Open Universe. An argument for Indeterminism, in Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery,ed. by W. W. Bartley III, Rowman & Littlefield, Totawa, & Hutchinson, London 1982–83.
M. Heidegger Die Zeit des Weltbildes op. cit.
M. Heidegger(1965) Zur Frage nach der Bestimmung der Sache des Denkens op. cit.
See note 62 and P. Virilio, L’inertie polaire,Bourgois, Paris 1990.
E. Giannetto, Toward a Natural Physics, unpublished.
E. Giannetto, Physis… op. cit.
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Giannetto, E. (1999). Heidegger and the Question of Physics. In: Fehér, M., Kiss, O., Ropolyi, L. (eds) Hermeneutics and Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 206. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9293-2_17
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