Abstract
This is a vast and vague topic. In order to do justice to it one has to write a book or maybe more than one. For it can be understood in quite different ways and on different levels For example you may think mainly of the historical aspect, that is how philosophy of science developed in the last hundred or so years and how its influence on education changed; you may think of quite different schools of philosophy, from Marxist or positivist to such exotic but at some places influential philosophic positions like that of Rudolph Steiner; of course, you may limit the subject to special fields like epistemology, theory of scientific methodology, or, what has become fashionable recently, sociology of knowledge which may have a considerable bearing on physics teaching (Collins and Shapin 1983; Jung 1985). Again we may think of the topic treated by a philosopher, a scientist, an educationalist, a teacher, which would mean quite a difference. I am trying here to speak as an educationalist, with the physics teacher in mind: this is my vocational perspective as someone who educates physics teachers. Of course, our main concern is the contribution of science, especially physics, to general education, which integrates many of the special topics mentioned. Philosophy of science comes in because it is not at all clear what science and physics is, and what of it should be taught, and how such chosen parts should be taught. I also take this opportunity to give an idea of the longstanding tradition of this discussion in Germany, connected with names like Wagenshein, Litt, Heisenberg and many others.
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Notes
The following quotation translated from a paper of Matilde Vicentini illustrates the point quite clearly:
I conclude with an observation of a friend, an adult, with whom the kinetic model of gases and its educational relevance had been discussed at length, in view of the possibility of a programme (TV or radio) of popularization of science:
You see, the problem is not the acceptance that in a gas or in a liquid the molecules are in motion, the possibility of movement of gases and liquids is obvious; it is this piece of marble (pointing to a paperweight on my desk) that makes it difficult for me to accept it. It is so compact, smooth, solid, static…..that, following my intuition, molecules inside it must be so rigidly connected to be still. (M. Vicentini, Le rappresentazioni mentali: problema di ricerca ed esempi. Manuse)
The scheme is illustrated in the dialogue: “Why are you drunk?” “I always get drunk”—nice explanation.
See 1987, p. 53, quoted later on.
The following short quotation shows a very mundane reason for preferring theory over experimentation, which, moreover, illustrates qualitative changes in the way research is done today:
If you were a bright young scientist, would you go into high-energy physics now? I think you could still say there is glamour in doing theory and that great cosmic questions are being addressed. But what is the attraction for an experimentalist …? (West in Cooper and West 1988, p. 194 C)
It will become more and more difficult to get people to go into high-energy physics as the time-scale for doing experiments grows an order of magnitude equal to a person's lifetime. (Raby in Cooper and West 1988, p. 194 C)
Hacking (1983, espec. p. 155ff.) has many historical examples of experimentation being not a test of theoretical predictions, it is just—in Glashow's words—“sit back and see what surprises us.”
This is the phrase of Peirce in his statement referring to Kant:
Nothing can be more completely false than that we can experience only our own ideas. (6.95)
As far as I can see, only Schlick (1925, chap. 18) tackled that problem, in vain as I think.
The recovery from this shock is obvious by many published books and articles, e.g. Rescher (1987), Batens and van Bendegem (1988), Siegel (1987) to name a few. The following statement from the preface by Batens and van Bendegem sets the motor for the new phase:
The progressive destruction of the received view has been a fascinating and healthy experience. At present, the period of destruction is over. A richer and more equilibrated analysis … is possible and is being carried out. (p. vii)
This conception of explanation as reduction is extensively discussed with a lot of examples from physics discussed in Aronson (1984), a valuable contribution to the discussion.
An example of such a debate between eminent philosophers can be found in Cohen et al. (1976).
You need not go as far as Peirce writing:
People wonder, too, how dead matter can excite feelings in the mind. For my part, instead of wondering how it can be, I feel much disposed to deny downright that it is possible … and I prefer to guess that it is a psychic feeling of red without us which arouses a sympathetic feeling of red in our senses. (Coll. Pap. 1.311)
Nevertheless, some categorical extension of physics seems to be unavoidable. An example is, of course, W. Sellar's introduction of sensa. The structure of his argument can best be learned not from his many books but from his Reply to Cornman (Sellars 1971, esp. 423–428).
See also my review of van Fraassen's The Image of Science, Physica Didactica (1982), 103–106.
Thirty years ago, Achinstein (1969) argued that observation terms and theoretical terms cannot be separated. The debate has wandered off this language level in the direction of the question: what can be termed observation? Brown's “definition”: p. 93 is too complicated to discuss here. “Observation” in this sense has much to do with what Hacking (1983) has termed “intervening”.
I think it is again Peirce who very clearly discriminated between sensation and perceptual judgment and who pointed to the fact that only perceptual judgments are part of science: no judgment, no application of logic. (See e.g. Coll. Pap. 6.95) It should be noted that we do rely on perceptual judgments only when there are proper circumstances, e.g. “normal functioning” of bodily organs—which can now be partially controlled by science.
Of course, idealisation on this level depends on perspective idealisation, i.e. “pattern recognition” (cf. Ziman 1979, chap. 3.2). The problem is well-known in the philosophy of mathematics. Peirce, with his background of historical knowledge, was already quite clear on this point: a “token” has to be identifiable and this implies a “lawlike” character.
Fashionable eastern doctrines lurk in the background: without the vice of thinking and thus discriminating, there is the blissful, salvaging all-is-one. But the fundamental supposition is that nature (or “being”) is not a process of differentiation and discrimination in itself, and that in nature apart from our fictional attacks there is no conceptual functioning. Eastern doctrines gain some appeal with western irritated and stress intellectuals. We should not follow that trend.
For examples, see for instance Laudan's (1981).
This is another of my “first books”, a gift again in 1943.
This message can easily be drawn from Goodman's (1986).
He died in his nineties in 1988 after receiving the first didactic aware of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft in 1987.
We owe to the French philosopher Ellul a balanced analysis of the political movements “Nazism” and “fascism” as expression of this romantic protest, see 1974, espec. IV 1: “Revolt and revolution in national socialism”.—The Marxist analysis of "fascism" is one-sided for the simple reason that Marxists unwaveringly believed in science and technology and the progress ensuing. In this respect, they are simply fulfilling capitalism, see also Ellul's (1974).
In modern system theory, this is expressed by terming man a “self-referential” system. Though system theory is beginning to spread to educational philosophy now (see Schmidt 1987), I cannot go critically into this important new approach. The reductionist program has recently been analysed by Halstedt (1988) and Sutter (1988).
My disagreement begins with his “primary world”. He has no theory of the way different aspects are connected as for example. Whitehead has constructed. I cannot accept that the results of science are merely a superstructure. As Aristotle put it: What is first for man need not to be first for nature. There are good reasons to believe that science gains much more intimate knowledge of reality than a superstructure could carry.
This is reminiscent of Tillich's teaching in Frankfurt in the early thirties before emigrating to USA. He spoke of a “kairos”, a state of awaiting and avoiding premature fixations.
Of course, a similar position is Whitehead's in his doctrine of societies. Around the same time Bertallanfy developed his biological theory of a stratification of systems, a forerunner of today's “synergetics” and thermodynamics of open systems.
I only know it from a German translation.
It is decades ago that Hund wrote:
To bring in too much of the results of modern physics is not advisable. In order to understand even relatively simple things such as the constitution of the atom from nucleus and electrons, such a big chain [made] out of observations and arguments is necessary, that only very few students are able to experience in that way what it means to think physically. (Hund 1930, p. 382)
Some years ago I asked him if he still agrees with this old statement. He did not remember having written it.
But my first reading about quantum mechanics—apart from listening to Madelung's lectures—was Reichenbach's Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics.
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Appendices
Appendix A, Walter Jung Biographical Statement [Provided by W.J., June 1992]
Walter Jung was born on February 6th 1926 in Darmstadt, Germany. He was a member of the Germany forces in the Second World War and after returning from American and English Prisoner of War camps studied mathematics, physics, philosophy and sociology in the years 1946–1951. Important influences on him were Madelung in physics, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Charles Hartshorne in philosophy, and Theodor Adorno in sociology. He worked with Adorno in preparing a German edition of Studies in Prejudice. He was a teacher in an experimental school 1953–1961; director of an institute for further training of teachers (science and mathematics) in Frankfurt (1961–1967); and professor for the teaching of physics (Didaktik der Physik) in the Hochschule für Erziehung and professor in the physics department at the University of Frankfurt (1967–1970) where he was Dean of the faculty for two terms, and a member of numerous university committees. He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Leibniz-Institute for Science Education (IPN) at the University of Kiel; editor of the journal Physica Didactica; and was granted an honorary degree from the University of Frankfurt.
His early philosophical papers on Whitehead and Pierce were published in Philosophia Naturalis, Zeitschrift Für Philosohical Forschung, and Philosophia Rundschau. He conducted research and published over 150 articles and books in the field of mathematics and physics teaching. He participated in the writing of physics curricula, and studied student conceptions in various areas of physics (mechanics, optics, electricity, quantum mechanics); he reflected and wrote on the aims of physics teaching and on the bearing of history and philosophy on physics teaching. In 1991 he was appointed an Emeritus professor of Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.
[Walter Jung died May 29, 2011]
Appendix B: English Publications of Walter Jung
Jung, W.: 1983, ‘Toward Preparing Students for Change: A Critical Discussion of the Contribution of the History of Physics to Physics Teaching’. In F. Bevilacqua & P.J. Kennedy (eds.) Using History of Physics in Innovatory Physics Education, Pavia University, pp. 6–57.
Jung, W.: 1986, `Cognitive Science and the History of Science’. In P.V. Thomsen (ed.) Science Education and the History of Physics, University of Aarhus, pp. 24–54.
Jung, W.: 1987, ‘Understanding Students’ Understanding: The Case of Elementary Optics, Proceedings of the Second International Seminar: Misconceptions and Educational Strategies in Science and Mathematics, Vol. 3 Cornell University Press, Ithaca, pp. 268–277. Available at: http://www.mlrg.org/misconproceedings3and4.html.
Jung, W.: 1993, ‘Uses of Cognitive Science to Science Education’, Science & Education 2(1), 31–56. [Jung 1986].
Jung, W.: 1994, ‘Preparing Students for Change: The Contribution of the History of Physics to Physics Teaching’, Science & Education 3(2), 99–130. [Jung 1983].
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Jung, W. Philosophy of Science and Education. Sci & Educ 21, 1055–1083 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9497-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9497-x