Causality, Realism and the Two Strands of Boltzmann's Legacy
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Causality, Realism and the Two Strands of Boltzmann’s Legacy (1896-1936) by Michael Stöltzner Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades im Fach Philosophie an der Universität Bielefeld Bielefeld, Mai 2003 2 Preface The ideas presented here have a relatively long history. It reaches back to the year 1995 when I had finished my master thesis in mathematical physics and became interested in the philosophy of science. In those days, the Vienna Circle had become a great opportunity for me to simultaneously learn philosophy of science and start genuine research work. Here was a philosophy that started with the criticism of the philosophy I knew reasonably well from my earlier studies, by referring to the physics I knew or could quickly understand after working through old textbooks. Quite at the beginning of my reading and writing I bought Karl von Meyenn’s nice collection about the Forman debate. I was stunned. Frank’s book on causality from which I learned quite a lot, to Forman’s mind, contained “largely blather”. There was Hans Reichenbach who despite all scientific world-view (not: weltanschauung) rapidly “confessed” to irrationalism and camouflaged existentialism as Logical Empiricism. I decided to write an essay review which listed all the misunderstandings of Logical Empiricists I had found. For various reasons the review never made it into print until I understood that this was a fortunate outcome. Criticizing Forman by spotting misunderstandings of still widely unknown figures, among them Frank and von Mises, would have been an original contribution, but not an interesting one. The debates about Forman had already been fought in the 1980s. Everyone knew that one could do better now! Since 1971 history of science has undergone a rapid development not the least as regards it methodological abilities. Among them is the perspective of local traditions which has shown its relevance for the Vienna Circle. I mainly owe it to my partner Veronika Hofer that my interest for and insight into the history of science proper has developed over the years. The most important discovery for the present book was the personality of Franz Serafin Exner and his unpublished manuscript Vom Chaos zur Gegenwart (1923). Exner provides the missing historical link between the older generation of Mach and Boltzmann and the younger generation of Schrödinger, Frank and von Mises. It was through his synthesis of Mach’s empiricism, Boltzmann’s indeterminism, and Fechner’s relative frequency interpretation of probability, that Vienna Indeterminism becomes at all a coherent tradition. The first outline of the project was presented in June 1997 in a talk at the University of Trieste. It became more pointed in a paper I contributed to a Synthese volume on Boltzmann and in a talk given at Florence in 1999. But it only reached it final phase when I went to the University of Bielefeld in 2001. That the already existing bits and pieces finally came together in this book owes much to Martin Carrier’s effective insistence to complete it as my belated Ph.D. thesis. His very detailed criticism of earlier drafts has significantly contributed to focusing the book’s main thrust. I am also greatly indebted to Maria Carla Galavotti, Michael Heidelberger, Eckehart Köhler, Friedrich Stadler, and Thomas Uebel, for so 3 many hints and encouragement over the years. Their influence is looming at large in the discussions on probability and the history of the Vienna Circle. In connection with those papers on which chapters of the present book are based, I owe many thanks to John Blackmore, Erwin Hiebert, Paolo Parrini, Merrilee and the late Wes Salmon, and Roger Stuewer for their criticism and suggestions. In the final phase of the project, Don Howard, David Rowe, and Erhard Scholz have made very helpful comments on single chapters. Among the others whom I owe thanks for constructive comments during various presentations are Mitchell Ash, Herta and the late Kurt Blaukopf, Jeremy Butterfield, Nadine DeCourtenay, Henk deRegt, Gregor Schiemann, Matthias Schramm, Peter Weingart, and Paul Weingartner. All my long educational zigzag paths would have been impossible without the almost unconditional support of my parents and grandparents all of whom were still alive when I turned from physics back into philosophy. Sadly, three of them did not live to see the book completed. Bibliographical Notes Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 8 partly draw on material already published before. (Stöltzner, 1999, 2000a, 2002b, 2003a) I also owe thanks to various archives. The Institute Vienna Circle has allowed me to study the papers of Schlick and Neurath. For the permission to quote I thank Anne Kox and the Wiener Kreis Stichting. The Österreichische Zentralbibliothek für Physik has most effectively supplied copies from the Schrödinger letters and other material. I thank them for the permission to quote from letters of Schrödinger. On translations As the book is historically oriented, I put the German texts first. Different translations of different authors often destroy terminological continuities, possible allusions, implicit assent or dissent. Thus I have often intervened into translations, occasionally even into those published during an author’s life time. Several translations have reduced the italics present in the German original. Even though at places this yielded more italics than corresponds to contemporary style, I have reintroduced italics everywhere except for the proper names. If not indicated otherwise, translations are mine. 4 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................8 1. THE FORMAN THESES: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT ..........25 1.1. Forman’s Thesis and Its Extension............................................................................................ 26 1.1.1. Milieu’s Traits .............................................................................................................................................. 27 1.1.2. Ideological Adaptations........................................................................................................................ 29 1.1.2.1. Ideology and Rationality ................................................................................................................... 29 1.1.2.2. Spenglerism ............................................................................................................................................. 32 1.1.2.3. Craving for Crisis.................................................................................................................................. 33 1.1.3. Dispensing with Causality .................................................................................................................. 37 1.2. Reactions on the Forman Thesis .................................................................................................. 41 1.3. Further Forman Theses: Anschaulichkeit and Individualität......................... 47 2. QUANTUM COUNTERFACTUALS AND QUANTUM DIALOGUES: ON THE CLEFT BETWEEN RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION AND HISTORICAL CONTINGENCY........51 2.1 Cushing’s Alternative History and the Issue of Underdetermination ....... 53 2.1.1. Copenhagen and Contingency ................................................................................................................ 54 2.1.2. A Counterfactual History and Its Extrapolation............................................................................. 61 2.2. Beller: On Dialogues and Revolutions .................................................................................... 68 2.2.1. Dialogical Emergence Versus Rhetorical Consolidation........................................................... 68 2.2.2. On Dialogues and Dialogism................................................................................................................... 71 3. THE FIRST PHASE: MACH, BOLTZMANN, PLANCK ...........80 3.1. Mach on Economy, Monism, and Causality...................................................................... 85 3.2 Action Principles, Uniqueness, and Stability ..................................................................... 91 3.3 Boltzmann on Causality and Probability .............................................................................. 95 3.4. Theory Reduction, Pictures, and Ontology........................................................................ 98 3.5 Mathematical Atomism and Constructivism ................................................................... 104 3.6. How Machian Was the Early Planck?.................................................................................. 106 3.7 The Planck-Mach Controversy ..................................................................................................... 112 3.8. Formal Principles and Planck’s Realisms......................................................................... 118 5 3.9. Mechanics, Mechanicism, and Culture................................................................................ 122 4. EXNER’S SYNTHESIS .................................................................................126 4.1 The Inaugural Address and Its Context (1908) ............................................................. 128 4.2 Preconditions of an Indeterminist World-View ............................................................ 131 4.3 Exner and His Circle..............................................................................................................................