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The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science

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Quotations from Reviews of: Nicholas Maxwell, THE COMPREHENSIBILITY OF THE UNIVERSE: A NEW CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE (Oxford University Press, 1998, paperback, Jan 2003)

"Nicholas Maxwell's ambitious aim is to reform not only our philosophical understanding of science but the methodology of scientists themselves ... Maxwell's aim oriented empiricism [is] intelligible and persuasive ... the main ideas are important and appealing ... an important contribution to the philosophy of physics" J. J. C. Smart, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 51, 2000, pp. 907-911.

"Maxwell has clearly spent a lifetime thinking about these matters and passionately seeks a philosophical conception of science that will aid in the development of an intelligible physical worldview. He has much of interest to say about the development of physical thought since Newton. His comprehensive coverage and sophisticated treatment of basic problems within the philosophy of science make the book well worth studying for philosophers of science as well as for scientists interested in philosophical and methodological matters pertaining to science." Professor Cory F. Juhl, International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XL, No. 4, December 2000, pp. 517-8.

"Maxwell performs a heroic feat in making the physics accessible to the non-physicist ... Philosophically, there is much here to stimulate and provoke . . . there are rewarding comparisons to be made between the functional roles assigned to Maxwell's metaphysical "blueprints" and Thomas Kuhn's paradigms, as well as between Maxwell's description of theoretical development and Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes." Dr.Anjan Chakravartty, Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 September 1999, p. 24.

"Maxwell ... has shown that it is absurd to believe that science can proceed without some basic assumptions about the comprehensibility of the universe . . . Throughout this book, Maxwell has meticulously argued for the superiority of his view by providing detailed examples from the history of physics and mathematics . . . The Comprehensibility of the Universe attempts to resurrect an ideal of modern philosophy: to make rational sense of science by offering a philosophical program for improving our knowledge and understanding of the universe. It is a consistent plea for articulating the metaphysical presuppositions of modern science and offers a cure for the theoretical schizophrenia resulting from acceptance of incoherent principles at the base of scientific theory." Professor Leemon McHenry, Mind, vol. 109, January 2000, pp. 162-166.

"This admirably ambitious book contains more thought-provoking material than can even be mentioned here. Maxwell's treatment of the descriptive problem of simplicity, and his novel proposals about quantum mechanics deserve special note . . . the much-discussed problem of measurement is for him a superficial consequence of the deeper problem that the ontology of the theory is not unified, in that no one understands how one entity could be both a wave and a particle. In response to this problem Maxwell finds between the metaphysical cracks a way to fuse micro-realism and probabilism, which leads him to a proposal to solve the measurement problem by supplementing quantum mechanics with a collapse theory distinct from the recent and popular one of Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber. Maxwell's highly informed discussions of the changing ontologies of various modern physical theories are enjoyable, and the physical and mathematical appendix of the book should be a great help to the beginner." Professor Sherrilyn Roush, The Philosophical Review, vol. 110, January 2001, pp. 85-7

"Nicholas Maxwell has struck an excellent balance between science and philosophy . . . The detailed discussions of theoretical unification in physics - from Newton, Maxwell and Einstein to Feynman, Weinberg and Salam - form some of the best material in the book. Maxwell is good at explaining physics . . . Through the interplay of metaphysical assumptions, at varying distances from the empirical evidence Maxwell shows, rather convincingly, that in the pursuit of rational science the inference from the evidence to a small number of acceptable theories, out of the pool of rival ones, is justifiable . . . Its greatest virtue is the detailed programme for a modern version of natural philosophy. Along the way, Maxwell homes in on the notion of comprehensibility by the exclusion of less attractive alternatives. In an age of excessive specialization the book offers a timely reminder of the close link between science and philosophy. There is a beautiful balance between concrete science and abstract philosophy . . . In the "excellently written Appendix some of the basic mathematical technicalities, including the principles of quantum mechanics, are very well explained . . . Einstein held that 'epistemology without science becomes an empty scheme' while 'science without epistemology is primitive and muddled'. Maxwell's new book is a long-running commentary on this aphorism." Dr. Friedel Weinert, Philosophy, vol. 75, April 2000, pp. 296-309.

"some of [Maxwell's] insights are of everlasting importance to the philosophy of science, the fact that he stands on the shoulders of giants (Hume, Popper) notwithstanding . . . My overall conclusion is that Universe is an ideal book for a reading group in philosophy of science or in philosophy of physics. Many of the pressing problems of the philosophy of science are discussed in a lively manner, controversial solutions are passionately defended and some new insights are provided; in particular the chapter on simplicity in physics deserves to be read by all philosophers of physics." Dr. F. A. Muller, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 35, 2004, pp. 109-110 & 117.