Przekroczyć nieoznaczoność. Relacje nauka – religia w myśli Wernera Heisenberga

Abstract

Although the scientific milieu of the first part of the 20th century is marked by the strong influence of neopositivism, prominent physicists such as Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr stressed the necessity to transcend human sensorial cognition in quest for the ultimate sense of things and the source of the ethical values of human conduct. In particular, this comes to the fore in the context of the relations between science and religion. The stance of Werner Heisenberg in regards to this issue reveals his deep philosophical insight with emphasis on the role of the common sense language in the symbolic discourse of the traditional religions. The advent of the new scientific method in the 17th, that revolutionized the antique picture of the world, led to the final breakdown of the adequacy of the common sense language in the scientific description of the physical reality. According to Heisenberg, the relations between science and religion become most visible with the resulting loss of the symbolic religious discourse whereby access to the ethical values is hindered.