TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN THE REVOLUTION IN PHYSICS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY.doc

TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN THE REVOLUTION IN PHYSICS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY The revolution in physics at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries was a significant event in both the history of science and the history of philosophy. Various schools of philosophy have interpreted this event differently. Naturally, this is of concern to Marxist philosophy. Based on relatively rich original sources, this article analyzes the historical role, philosophical origin, and end result of two schools in this revolution, the Mechanical School and Critical School. The author offers an interpretation which differs from the traditional one, especially with the respect to the Critical School. This paper is intended to promote academic discussion, to further explore the philosophic significance of this scientific revolution, and to enrich teaching and research in natural dialectics. From the beginning of the eighteenth century, physicists came to regard Newtonian mechanics as the research program for all fields of physics, to the extent that it became the supreme authority and ultimate standard of scientific interpretation. Until the end of the nineteenth century, physicists almost universally believed that all physical phenomena could be explained from the perspective of mechanics. However, the end of the nineteenth century witnessed a continuous stream of new experiments and discoveries which severely shook the foundations of physics, leading to a crisis. Under such circumstances, some physicists came to doubt the universal application and absolute reliability of the classical theory. One after another, they began to criticize the basic concepts and principles within classical mechanics and to challenge the dominant mechanistic viewpoint. Thus, diversity replaced unity, and physicists formed schools which differed from each other even in their basic guiding ideologies. Some scholars have divided them into the Energetic School, the Mechanica