'Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism' (Canto Classics)

Written at the popular level, these two essays are essential reading for all those who think there is no radical dichotomy between physics and philosophy. Nature and the Greeks traces the origins of scientific thinking back to the Ionian philosophers who posited the intelligibility of the world, the belief that the world is made up of similar matter and atomism. Interestingly, Schrodinger refutes the idea that the atomism of Democritus and Leucippus was merely a lucky guess. Instead, he sees atomism as naturally arising from Anaximenes’ idea of air condensing and rarefactting along with the impossibility of a material continuum. Somehow, this insight has not made it into textbook accounts of the Presocratics. Science and Humanism, while not as original, does provide a good summary of the philosophic issues raised by quantum mechanics along with Schrodinger’s opinions on these matters. A precursor to modern authors such as Hawking and Krauss both philosophically and scientifically, all those who like to engage such authors should find this slender volume a worthwhile read.

An excellent piece to read to get a notion of where the core of our understanding of our universe was first put into writing (as far as records show) and that is the ancient Greek culture. The second part of this book deals with "scientism", the notion that reductive science is omnipotent and can answer ALL questions of the human condition -and Shroedinger effectively puts this notion to rest as absurd. This can be read by anyone but having a background in the "hard" sciences is of advantage. Highly recommended.

This small volume contains the text of two lectures by Erwin Schrodinger. In the first, "Nature and the Greeks", the author tries to update the earliest history of science in light of quantum mechanics. He surveys the pre-Socratics to try to re-evaluate where our interpretative problems with quantum mechanics--the lack of intuition about wave-particle duality and the collapse of the wave function--went wrong. I do not think the essay succeeds in this goal, but it is still an excellent survey of the pre-Socratics from a philosophy of science point of view. The second essay "Science and Humanism" is less interesting, and seems to me to have little to do with it's title. It does make a strong argument that the wave function collapse is not an adequate philosophical explanation for free will: randomness is no more "freedom" than is absolute determinism. But the bulk of the essay is about difficulties with continuity and the impossibility of continuous observation in quantum physics. I didn't find that problem compelling. Schrodinger is an excellent writer and his arguments are always thought provoking, but I think his major points are either now considered obvious or not very interesting, even though they may have been novel at the time. I still find the first essay a great overview of the pre-Socratics though.

Would have loved to hear Mr. Schrodinger in person he obviously was a brilliant person. I've read several of his books and have always been completely impressed beyond belief.

Review of ancient science and evaluation of modern thinking on the impact of science on humanism and philosophy.

Schrodinger, a nobel laureate in physics, has a written a masterpiece

Very interesting book on physics and nature.

Lucid, informed, and stimulating