Phenomenological Reviews

Book | Chapter

176773

The "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics and phenomenology

Ragnar Fjelland

pp. 53-65

Abstract

The conflict that has come to be known as the "Science Wars" started when the biologist, Paul R. Gross, and the mathematician, Norman Levitt, published the book, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. The book was a fierce attack on certain quarters within the history of science, philosophy of science and sociology of science — such as existentialism, phenomenology, postmodernism, feminism, multiculturalism and so on. The next year, 1995, the book was followed up with a conference in New York given by the New York Academy of Sciences titled The Flight from Science and Reason. The conflict gained momentum when the physicist Alan Sokal published the article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" in the journal for cultural studies, Social Text. Soon after the article was published, Sokal revealed that the entire thing had been a hoax. He had intentionally written an article that contained a lot of nonsense, however it was written using fashionably correct terminology with references to a range of "postmodern" thinkers. The hoax gained worldwide publicity, and many of the participants in the debate have claimed that this debate shows that C.P. Snow's "two cultures" still exist.1

Publication details

Published in:

Babich Babette (2002) Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God: essays in Honor of Patrick A. Heelan, S.J.. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 53-65

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0_5

Full citation:

Fjelland Ragnar (2002) „The "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics and phenomenology“, In: B. Babich (ed.), Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God, Dordrecht, Springer, 53–65.