This project foregrounds two undertheorized features of Heidegger’s philosophy of science: his critique of physicalism and the positive counterpart to his critiques of modern science. Chapters 1–2 examine Heidegger’s early work up to Being and Time. Chapters 3–4 focus on Heidegger’s post–Being and Time work.
Chapter 1 refutes the widespread view (advanced, for instance, by Joseph Rouse, Hubert Dreyfus, and Robert Brandom) that the early Heidegger thinks science generally studies entities that instantiate a mode of being that he calls presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit). I call this the Vorhandenheit claim; I reconstruct and refute three arguments on its behalf. I argue that Heidegger thinks modern physicalistic science, rather than science or natural science as such, privileges the study of present-at-hand things.
Chapter 2 develops my positive interpretation of the early Heidegger’s philosophy of science. Heidegger’s “existential” conception of science (which, I argue, has roots in Aristotle’s ethics) posits a special connection between science, truth, and authenticity. Heidegger also thinks that modernity is physicalistic. I discuss physicalism’s negative consequences and trace Heidegger’s analysis of its roots in Aristotle and Descartes. I also compare Heidegger with key Anglophone philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, W. V. Quine, and Helen Longino.
Chapter 3 discusses Heidegger’s analysis of quantum physics and his dialogue with Werner Heisenberg. Many (such as Taylor Carman and Trish Glazebrook) interpret Heidegger as a deflationist on quantum physics’s historical significance vis-à-vis classical physics. But on my reading, Heidegger is ambivalent. I unpack Heidegger’s non-deflationary remarks about quantum physics. I then argue that his ambivalence about physics reflects and informs his ambivalence about the relationship between early modernity and the late-modern “technological” age.
Chapter 4 asks how science might be reformed in response to Heidegger’s criticisms. I examine why Heidegger’s vision for science reform led him to support the Nazis. I then offer a sketch of a Heideggerian science consistent with liberal-democratic principles. Heideggerian science would promote pluralistic and philosophically-historically informed research at the potential cost of highly specialized research and technological development. I also compare liberal-democratic Heideggerian science with the accounts offered by Paul Feyerabend, Helen Longino, and Philip Kitcher. / 2025-01-24T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/45514 |
| Date | 24 January 2023 |
| Creators | Goldberg, Paul |
| Contributors | Dahlstrom, Daniel O. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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