Isaac Newton’s mechanics is based on a theology: his God is a geometer and an architect who has known how to combine the materials of the system in such a way that result a stable state of equilibrium and a … Read More
Let us indicate, in its essential features, the change of mind produced by the prodigious success and by the diffusion of Newton’s celestial mechanics: at the beginning of the 18th century, a sort of Cartesian orthodoxy reigned almost everywhere in … Read More
The interpretation of Isaac Newton’s texts has sparked controversy to this day. One of the most heated debates relates to the action between two bodies distant from each other (the gravitational attraction), and to what extent Newton involved God in … Read More
About the possibility of time traveling based on several specialized works, including those of Nicholas J. J. Smith (“Time Travel“), William Grey (”Troubles with Time Travel”), Ulrich Meyer (”Explaining causal loops”), Simon Keller and Michael Nelson (”Presentists should believe in … Read More
The two scientific disciplines that seem most likely to be able to bring elements to the question of free will are physics (which studies the laws of nature) and neurosciences (which studies the functioning of the nervous system and therefore … Read More
Criticisms (Scientific method in the three worlds. ) To introduce this section, it is useful to recall the central points of Popperian philosophy which are conducive to a critical analysis of refutability. For Popper, falsifiability concerns only the logical relationship … Read More
This debate is particularly highlighted in the polemic which opposed at the beginning of the 18th century (from 1714 to 1716) Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in a famous epistolary exchange where Samuel Clarke made himself the lawyer of … Read More
Popperian falsifiability Karl Popper remarked that general relativity made it possible to make predictions which very well might not have been verified, whereas other theories found confirmation in everything. Moreover, Einstein himself said that there is no logical method to … Read More
Before Popper, Kant had proposed a solution to Hume’s problem that also called for knowledge that relates to the world of observations while preceding those observations. The difference is that, for Kant, this knowledge is a priori truths, which puts … Read More
Among the attempts to dismantle the first horn of Hume’s fork, Henderson mentions Kant’s approach discussed later and that of Bayes. Bayesian logic is not ampliative: it does not provide more information than that contained in the premises and observations. … Read More
According to Popper, falsifiability provides a solution to the problem of induction, raised by Hume, and to that of demarcation, which he also calls Kant’s problem. Popper explains that he was influenced by Kant, but benefited from a different context: … Read More
Complementarity between analytical and synthetic methods The study and understanding of phenomena, for example biological, requires the use of different scientific methods of research and reflection. The two major scientific methods, complementary, are reductionist analysis and systemic transdisciplinary synthesis. Reductionist … Read More
