Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T12:24:03.243Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maxwell on the Logic of Dynamical Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Joseph Turner
Joseph Turner*
Affiliation:
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the course of his researches in electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases, James Clerk Maxwell gave some thought to the nature of science itself. His observations in this field are of interest today not only because they are his, but because they are still instructive. Maxwell's views are to be found in the many asides with which he enlivened his scientific papers and treatises and in the various articles and reviews which he prepared for more popular consumption. The topics discussed bear on his own contributions to physics; they include the logic of dynamical explanation, the method of physical analogy, and the perennial question of action at a distance versus contiguity. In the present essay, I wish to discuss Maxwell's views on dynamical explanation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 1956 , pp. 36 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 1956, The Williams & Wilkins Company

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Cohen, Morris R., Preface to Logic (New York: Henry Holt, 1945).Google Scholar
2. Devereux, George, ‘A Conceptual Scheme of Society’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XLV (1940).Google Scholar
3. Gauss, C. F., Werke (2nd ed.; Goettingen, 1877).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Gibbs, J. Willard, Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics (New York: C. Scribner's and Sons, 1902).Google Scholar
5. Larmor, Sir Joseph, Aether and Matter (Cambridge: The University Press, 1900).Google Scholar
6. Lindsay, Robert Bruce and Margenau, Henry, Foundations of Physics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1936).Google Scholar
7. Margenau, Henry, Nature of Physical Reality (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1950).Google Scholar
8. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘Address to the Mathematical and Physical Sections of the British Association’, British Association Report, 40; reprinted in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (London: Cambridge University Press, 1890), ed. W. D. Niven, 2, 215–229. The Papers were printed again recently by Dover Publications, Inc., New York.Google Scholar
9. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field’, Royal Society Transactions, Vol. CLV (1864); reprinted in Papers, 1, 526–597.Google Scholar
10. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘Molecules’, Nature, 8 (May, 1873-Oct. 1873); reprinted in Papers, 2, 361–378.Google Scholar
11. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘On Action at a Distance’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 7; reprinted in Papers, 2, 311–323.Google Scholar
12. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘On the Dynamical Evidence of the Molecular Constitution of Bodies’, Nature, 11 (Nov., 1874-April, 1875); reprinted in Papers, 2, 418–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘On Faraday's Lines of Force’, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 10, Part 1; reprinted in Papers, 1, 155–229.Google Scholar
14. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘On Physical Lines of Force’, Philosophical Magazine, 21 (1861) and 23 (1862); reprinted in Papers, 1, 451–513.Google Scholar
15. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘On the Proof of the Equations of Motion of a Connected System’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 2 (1876); reprinted in Papers, 2, 308–309.Google Scholar
16. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘Tait's “Thermodynamics'”, Nature, 17 (Nov. 1877-April 1878); reprinted in Papers, 2, 660–671.Google Scholar
17. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘Thomson and Tait's Natural Philosophy’, Nature, 20 (May, 1879-Oct., 1879); reprinted in Papers, 2, 776–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18. Maxwell, James Clerk, Matter and Motion (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19. Maxwell, James Clerk, Theory of Heat (8th ed.; London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1885).Google Scholar
20. Maxwell, James Clerk, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (3rd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892). Printed again recently by Dover Publications, Inc. New York.Google Scholar
21. Maxwell, James Clerk, ‘Does the progress of Physical Science tend to give any advantage to the opinion of Necessity (or Determinism) over that of the Contingency of Events and the Freedom of the Will?‘, printed in Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (London: Macmillan and Co., 1884), pp. 363–366.Google Scholar
22. Poincaré, Henri, Electricité et Optique (2nd ed.; Paris, 1901).Google Scholar
23. Poincaré, Henri, The Foundations of Science (New York: The Science Press, 1921), trans. G. B. Halsted.Google Scholar
24. Rosenblueth, Arturo and Wiener, Norbert, ‘The Role of Models in Science’, Philosophy of Science, 12 (1945).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25. Schlick, Moritz, Philosophy of Nature (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949).Google Scholar
26. Thomson, J. J., Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1893).Google Scholar
27. Turner, Joseph, ‘Maxwell on the Method of Physical Analogy’, to appear in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
28. Wiener, Philip P., ‘Cohen's Philosophical Interpretations of the History of Science’, Freedom and Reason (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1951), ed. Salo W. Baron, Ernest Nagel, and Koppel S. Pinson.Google Scholar