Physical Cosmology and Philosophical Physics.CosmologyEssay in Physics

Review of Metaphysics 7 (3):444 - 451 (1954)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Several features of cosmology are of striking philosophical interest. Unlike other branches of physics which deal with kinds of occurrences and relations, cosmology investigates only one unique entity, the physical universe. Hence the science cannot avail itself of standard inductive procedures which depend on the assembling of samples. Cosmologists are therefore obliged to choose between two other procedures. Mr. Bondi calls them the "extrapolative" and the "axiomatic-deductive" lines of thought. The former starts from physical laws known to hold of terrestrial or near-terrestrial phenomena. It then tries to frame an answer to the question: "What is the largest set of phenomena to which these laws can be applied consistently and successfully?" The result of this approach has been the construction of a number of "models" of the universe at large, each patterned on verified laws of physics. The axiomatic-deductive approach starts from certain a priori assumptions which are held to underlie any physical science whatever and which are equivalent to certain suppositions about the structure of the universe. From these assumptions, together with special axioms adopted for the purpose, the laws of cosmology are deduced. Then the deductions are checked with the observational data. Here again, various models of the cosmos have resulted.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,810

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Granice fizyki w kosmologii.Leszek M. Sokołowski - 2015 - Zagadnienia Filozoficzne W Nauce 59:25-81.
The main features of the cosmological picture of the world.Vasyl Prits & Volodymyr Kuznetsov - 2020 - Filosofska Dumka (Philosophical Thought) 2:86-101.
Sociology of modern cosmology.Martín López Corredoira - 2009 - In J. A. Rubiño-Martín, J. A. Belmonte, F. Prada & A. Alberdi (eds.), Cosmology across Cultures. Astronomical Society of Pacific. pp. 66-73.
Physical theories in the context of multiverse.Ivan A. Karpenko - 2018 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 55 (2):139-152.
On the contributions of astroparticle physics to cosmology.Brigitte Falkenburg - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (1):97-108.
The physical principles of the quantum theory.Donald H. Menzel & David Layzer - 1949 - Philosophy of Science 16 (4):303-324.
On the philosophy of cosmology.George Francis Rayner Ellis - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (1):5-23.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-05-29

Downloads
29 (#791,331)

6 months
9 (#514,641)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Philosophical Contexts of the Steady-State Universe.Helge Kragh - 2022 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 12 (1):129-145.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references