Heisenberg in the Atomic Age

ISBN-13: 9780521821704 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 566 str.

Cathryn Carson

Opis

The end of the Second World War opened a new era for science in public life. Heisenberg in the Atomic Age explores the transformations of science s public presence in the postwar Federal Republic of Germany. It shows how Heisenberg s philosophical commentaries, circulating in the mass media, secured his role as science s public philosopher, and it reflects on his policy engagements and public political stands, which helped redefine the relationship between science and the state. With deep archival grounding, the book tracks Heisenberg s interactions with intellectuals from Heidegger to Habermas and political leaders from Adenauer to Brandt. It also traces his evolving statements about his wartime research on nuclear fission for the National Socialist regime. Working between the history of science and German history, the book s central theme is the place of scientific rationality in public life after the atomic bomb, in the wake of the Third Reich."

Recenzje

'Carson succeeds magnificently in interrelating the scientific persona of the most famous physicist in post-war Germany with his role in the process of reshaping German science and society for a democratic political order. Heisenberg is a landmark study in how scientists can and should participate in building the Habermasian public sphere of rational discussion and critical reflection.' Norton Wise, University of California, Los Angeles

Spis treści

Part I. Introduction: 1. Science and the public sphere; 2. Tracking Heisenberg; Part II. Culture: 3. The scientist as bildungsburger; 4. Physics as philosophy; 5. The culture of the vent; 6. Bildung als konsumgut: dilemmas of the literary public sphere; Part III. Politics: 7. Science, politics, and power: initial orientations; 8. A new research system; 9. Science policy in the atomic age; 10. Expansion and uncertainty; 11. Politics in the public sphere; 12. Speaking of the Third Reich: denazification; 13. Speaking of the Third Reich: war work; 14. Speaking of the Third Reich: into the public sphere; Part IV. Scientific Reason in the Public Sphere: 15. The public reach of reason after 1945; Epilogue.