Phenomenological Approaches to Physics

Harald A. Wiltsche is Professor of Philosophy of Science at Linköping University, Sweden. He is also P.I. of a 4-year, externally funded research project on Hermann Weyl’s philosophy of physics, which is financed by the Austrian Science Fund. Harald’s research interests include philosophy of science (with a special focus on the physical sciences), epistemology and phenomenology. Philipp Berghofer is a Post-Doc researcher and lecturer at the Philosophy Department of the University of Graz, Austria. His research focus centers around epistemology, phenomenology, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of science. Having finished his dissertation project in June 2019, Philipp’s position is now externally funded by the research project “Intentionality and Symbolic Construction: The Phenomenological Background of Hermann Weyl’s Philosophy of Physics” granted by the Austrian Science Fund (P. I.: Harald Wiltsche).​.

• Phenomenological approaches to physics. Mapping the field.- Part I. On the origins and systematic value of phenomenological approaches to physics. 1. Husserl's phenomenology and scientific practice.- 2. Unities of knowledge and being – Weyl’s late operationalism and Heideggerian phenomenology.- 3. Gaston Bachelard on how philosophy should follow physics’ path beyond phenomenology.- Part II. Phenomenological contributions to (philosophy of) physics. 4. Explaining the value of phenomenology to physicists.- 5. A match made on earth: A phenomenological critique of Wigner's puzzle.- 6. A revealing parallel between Husserl's philosophy of science and today's scientific metaphysics.- 7. Weyl, gauge invariance and symbolic construction from the 'purely infinitesimal'.- Part III. Phenomenological approaches to the measurement problem. 8. From a lost history to a new future: Is a phenomenological approach to quantum physics viable?.- 9. QBism from a phenomenological point of view.- 10. A phenomenological ontology for physics: Merleau-Ponty and QBism.

“Phenomenological Approaches to Physics is to be commended for its relative accessibility to non-phenomenologists, the sophistication with which it engages with physics … . The audience for the present volume is specific: systematically oriented phenomenologists who are not afraid to dive into the physics or physicists who are not scared of philosophical concepts … . once this book has found its audience, it makes for an exciting read, because there is very little like it.” (Gregor Bös, Husserl Studies, Vol. 39 (1), 2023)