The Determinate World: Kant and Helmholtz on the Physical Meaning of Geometry

by David Hyder

Book Overview

This book offers a new interpretation of Hermann von Helmholtz's work on the epistemology of geometry. A detailed analysis of the philosophical arguments of Helmholtz's Erhaltung der Kraft shows that he took physical theories to be constrained by a regulative ideal. They must render nature "completely comprehensible", which implies that all physical magnitudes must be relations among empirically given phenomena. This conviction eventually forced...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 311048157X
• ISBN13: 9783110481570
• Release Date: June 2016
• Publisher: de Gruyter
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary