Abstract
Among the “Ernest Nagel Papers 1930–1988” at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, there is a file at Box 7, entitled “The Philosophy of Science: University of Delaware 1961”. This is the edited text with some editorial comments and polishing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
We edited this talk and reproduce it with the kind permission of Yvonne, Sidney, and Alexander Nagel. All rights reserved. We are also grateful for the help of Steve Bayne. Adam Tamas Tuboly was supported by the MTA BTK Lendulet Morals and Science Research Group and by the MTA Premium Postdoctoral Scholarship.
- 2.
One might recall here the attempts of one of Nagel’s close friends from the logical empiricists, namely Philipp Frank who formulated a similar thesis to that of Snow’s although years earlier. With his teaching, lecturing, and publications Frank made a lot to find bridges, or as he called them, “links”, between philosophy (human sciences) and science (natural sciences). For him, it was the philosophy of science (see Frank 1957; 2021).
- 3.
Norwood Russell Hanson’s lecture was published in the conference proceedings, see Hanson (1963).
- 4.
- 5.
Frederick William Herschel (1738–1822) was a German-British astronomer. He discovered Uranus in 1781and became a well-known scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society.
- 6.
Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980) was an American botanist, known, however, for his work on parapsychology. He founded a parapsychology lab at Duke University after he moved there in 1927.
- 7.
One might recall here Feyerabend’s early review of Hanson’s Patterns of Discovery, which shows interesting similarities with Nagel’s criticism. Nonetheless Feyerabend is not mentioned in the lecture; neither did he pop up in Nagel’s The Structure of Science. See Feyerabend (1960, pp. 250–251).
- 8.
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a legislative initiative to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the Court had ruled the New Deal unconstitutional previously, he hoped to obtain more favorable rulings with the increased number of justices. The legislative initiative failed after all.
- 9.
Percy W. Bridgman’s most important work regarding operational definitions is his early book, Bridgman (1927).
- 10.
See Northrop (1963, pp. 16ff.).
- 11.
See Margenau (1961).
- 12.
Margenau (1961, pp. 114–115).
- 13.
Margenau (1961, pp. 126–127).
- 14.
Margenau (1961, pp. 161–162). Double brackets are our corrections to Nagel’s quotations.
- 15.
Margenau (1961, pp. 199–200); emphasis in the original, Nagel did not reproduce it.
- 16.
A word seems to be missing here from the typescript.
- 17.
Nagel’s talk contained the word “reality” but was crossed out and corrected to “realities”; in fact, Margenau’s book says “reality”, and continues with “whose historicity can be but an illusion” (1961, p. 200).
- 18.
Margenau’s text does not contain the sentence, “Our very decision is determined by all sorts of antecedent conditions.” The last two words are pencil additions to Nagel’s typescript. “Therefore” is also Nagel’s addition.
- 19.
Margenau’s text says, “Along with these developments”.
- 20.
Margenau (1961, pp. 200–202).
- 21.
This is a quite free quote from Margenau. In Open Vistas (1961, pp. 167–168) we read the following: “[S]tatistical reasoning, long regarded as appropriate and necessary in the social sciences, has now been recognized as the last resort for physics as well. In saying this we are speaking about fundamental matters of principle. Practically very little has been changed in the visible world around us. For it happens that the probabilities of quantum mechanics, when calculated for the large and heavy objects of our common experience, congeal to certainties, much as they would for a die so biased that it must always fall one way.”.
- 22.
- 23.
William Srecko Fellar (1906–1970) was a Croatian-born American statistician who worked on probability as well.
- 24.
See, for example, Einstein (1921/1954).
- 25.
Break to change tapes.
- 26.
See Bridgman (1927).
- 27.
Nagel has in mind, perhaps, Max Born’s Physics in my Generation: A Selection of Papers, see Born (1956). Cf. page vii of the “Preface”. Born’s volume, which is a collection of his previously published essays, contains an article, titled, “Physics in the Last Fifty Years,” see Born (1956, pp. 109–122).
- 28.
See Snow (1961a).
References
Baumrin, B. (ed.) (1963a). Philosophy of science: The delaware seminar, Vol.1 1961–1962. Interscience Publishers.
Baumrin, B. (ed.) (1963b). Philosophy of science: The delaware seminar, Vol. 2 1962–1963. Interscience Publishers.
Born, M. (1956). Physics in my generation: A selection of papers. Pergamon Press.
Bridgman, P. W. (1927). The logic of modern physics. Macmillan Co.
Eddington, A. (1928). The nature of the physical world. The Macmillan Company, Cambridge University Press.
Einstein, A. (1921/1954). Geometry and Experience. In: Ideas and opinions. Bonanza Books (pp. 232–246).
Feyerabend, P. (1960). Review of Patterns of Discovery. The Philosophical Review, 69(2), 247–252.
Frank, P. (1957). Philosophy of Science: The link between science and philosophy.. Prentice-Hall.
Frank, P. (2021). The humanistic background of science. Edited by G. Reisch & A. T. Tuboly. SUNY Press.
Hanson, N. R. (1958). The Logic of Discovery. Journal of Philosophy, 55, 1073–1089.
Hanson, N.R. (1961). “Is There a Logic of Discovery?” In H. Feigl and G. Maxwell (eds.), Current issues in the philosophy of science. Holt, Rinehart and Winston (pp. 20–35).
Hanson, N.R. (1963). Retroductive Inference. In: Baumrin (1963a), pp 21–37.
Margenau, H. (1961). Open vistas: Philosophical perspectives of modern science. Yale University Press.
Nagel, E. (1954). Eddington’s philosophy of physical science. Sovereign reason and other studies in the philosophy of science (pp. 216–222). The Free Press.
Northrop, F.S.C. (1963). The Relation between the Natural and the Normative Sciences. In: Baumrin (1963a), pp 3–19.
Snow, C. P. (1961a). Science and government. Harvard University Press.
Snow, C. P. (1961b). The two cultures and the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Neuber, M., Tuboly, A.T. (2022). Ernest Nagel’s “The Philosophy of Science” Lecture at the Delaware Seminar. In: Neuber, M., Tuboly, A.T. (eds) Ernest Nagel: Philosophy of Science and the Fight for Clarity. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81010-8_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81010-8_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-81009-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-81010-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)