The Growing Dissonance between the Kosmos and the Anthropos: A Hermeneutic Study of the Mechanistic World View brought by Classical Physics and the New Rationality introduced by Einstein’s Relativity Theory and Heisenberg’s Indeterminacy Principle in Quantum Physics

Authors

• Maria Eliza Cruz, San Beda University, ManilaFollow

Keywords

hermeneutics, philosophy of physics, quantum physics, classical physics, ecological crisis

Abstract

This paper centers on the implicit metaphysics beyond the Theory of Relativity and the Principle of Indeterminacy – two revolutionary theories that have changed 20th Century Physics – using the perspective of Husserlian Transcedental Phenomenology. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) abolished the theoretical framework of Classical (Galilean-Newtonian) physics that has been complemented, strengthened by Cartesian metaphysics. Rene Descartes (1596-1850) introduced a separation between subject and object (as two different and self- enclosed substances) while Galileo and Newton did the “mathematization” of the world. Newtonian physics, however, had an inexplicable postulate of absolute space and absolute time – a kind of geometrical framework, independent of all matter, for the explication of locality and acceleration. Thus, Cartesian modern metaphysics and Galilean- Newtonian physics go hand  in hand, resulting to socio- ethical problems, materialism and environmental destruction. Einstein got rid of the Newtonian absolutes and was able to provide a new foundation for our notions of space and time: the four (4) dimensional space- time; simultaneity and the constancy  of velocity of light, and the relativity of all systems of reference. Heisenberg, following the theory of quanta of Max Planck, told us of our inability to know sub- atomic phenomena and thus, blurring the line between the Cartesian separation of object and subject,  hence, initiating the crisis of the foundations of Classical Physics.

Recommended Citation

Cruz, Maria Eliza (2022) "The Growing Dissonance between the Kosmos and the Anthropos: A Hermeneutic Study of the Mechanistic World View brought by Classical Physics and the New Rationality introduced by Einstein’s Relativity Theory and Heisenberg’s Indeterminacy Principle in Quantum Physics," Mabini Review: Vol. 11: No. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://scholar.pup.edu.ph/mabrev/vol11/iss1/2