Interesting!...perhaps, there is a link to the later discussion between the representatives of the Deutsche Physik (Lenard, Stark and perhaps including Debye) who objected the (in their eyes) too speculative abstraction underlying the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics which violated their sense that the 'experimental-observational-experiential' needed to have primacy over the 'abstracting-conceptual-ideative'. Might one see them as self-declared 'realists' more convinced by the 'normative force of the factual' than by what might unify and transcend?
It might. But the truth of the matter is that to a certain extent this discussion has already been had towards the end of the 19th century with an overall winning of the abstract side of things, that afterall in mathematics gave us "Cantor's heaven", and in physics the ability to describe phenomena with more exactness better. I think we can, and should, think about the implications. Phenomenology, as a whole, and books such as Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra provide a non-reactionary framework. At the same time, it is essential to recognise that physics, for instance, can't occupy the same roles it had during the 18th and 19th century - and I know more than a few people who went into physics and quit after realising it is somewhat different today than unlocking the mystery of the physical universe.
Interesting!...perhaps, there is a link to the later discussion between the representatives of the Deutsche Physik (Lenard, Stark and perhaps including Debye) who objected the (in their eyes) too speculative abstraction underlying the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics which violated their sense that the 'experimental-observational-experiential' needed to have primacy over the 'abstracting-conceptual-ideative'. Might one see them as self-declared 'realists' more convinced by the 'normative force of the factual' than by what might unify and transcend?
It might. But the truth of the matter is that to a certain extent this discussion has already been had towards the end of the 19th century with an overall winning of the abstract side of things, that afterall in mathematics gave us "Cantor's heaven", and in physics the ability to describe phenomena with more exactness better. I think we can, and should, think about the implications. Phenomenology, as a whole, and books such as Jacob Klein's Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra provide a non-reactionary framework. At the same time, it is essential to recognise that physics, for instance, can't occupy the same roles it had during the 18th and 19th century - and I know more than a few people who went into physics and quit after realising it is somewhat different today than unlocking the mystery of the physical universe.