Weyl’s Philosophy of Physics: From Apriorism to Holism (1918-1927)

• Published in: Philosophia scientiae Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 163 - 184
• Main Author: Christophe Eckes
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Éditions Kimé 21-06-2018
• ISSN: 1281-2463; 1775-4283
• DOI: 10.4000/philosophiascientiae.1413

In this paper, I intend to describe the evolution of Weyl’s philosophy of physics during the period 1918-1927. In particular, I will recall that he developed different versions of “apriorism” between 1918 and 1923: first a so-called “speculative” apriorism associated with his unified field theory (1918-1921) and second a conception of a priori knowledge mainly inspired by Husserl’s Wesensanalyse with his work on the problem of space (1921-1923). I will also show that Weyl’s “holism”—i.e., the thesis according to which only a physical theory as a whole can be subject to empirical tests—came to the forefront in 1924-1925 in texts on the foundations of mathematics. This holism is closely related to his definition of a physical theory as a symbolic construction of reality. Finally, I will characterize Weyl’s holistic viewpoint by comparing it to the thoughts developed by Cassirer, Einstein and Hilbert around the same time.