The loss of world in the image

origin and development of the concept of image in the thought of Hermann von Helmholtz and Heinrich Hertz

Gregor Schiemann

pp. 25-38

in: Davis Baird, Hughes, Alfred Nordmann (eds), Heinrich Hertz, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

In searching for the origins of current conceptions of science in the history of physics, one encounters a remarkable phenomenon. A typical view today is that theoretical knowledge-claims have only relativized validity. Historically, however, this thesis was supported by proponents of a conception of nature that today is far from typical, a mechanistic conception within which natural phenomena were to be explained by the action of mechanically moved matter.

Cited authors

von Helmholtz Hermann

Hertz Heinrich