Philosophy of Science: From Problem to Theory, Volume 1

This volume provides a broad perspective on the state of the art in the philosophy and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. Its essays take their starting point in the work and influence of Itamar Pitowsky, who has greatly influenced our understanding of what is characteristically non-classical about quantum probabilities and quantum logic, and this serves as a vantage point from which they reflect on key ongoing debates in the field.

John von Neumann (1903-1957) was undoubtedly one of the scientific geniuses of the 20th century. The main fields to which he contributed include various disciplines of pure and applied mathematics, mathematical and theoretical physics, logic, theoretical computer science, and computer architecture. Von Neumann was also actively involved in politics and science management and he had a major impact on US government decisions during, and especially after, the Second World War.

This volume explores the reorganisation of knowledge taking place in the course of Galileo's research process extending over a period of more than thirty years, pursued within a network of exchanges with his contemporaries, and documented by a vast collection of research notes. It has revealed the challenging objects that motivated and shaped Galileo's thinking and closely followed the knowledge reorganization engendered by theses challenges. It has thus turned out, for example, that the problem of reducing the properties of pendulum motion to the laws governing naturally accelerated motion on inclined planes was the mainspring for the formation of Galileo's comprehensive theory of naturally accelerated motion.