Concept Formation in Physics from a Linguist’s Perspective

Abstract

: This chapter explores concept formation in physics from a linguist ’ s point of view. After some preliminary reflections on conceptual structures, the chapter attempts to demonstrate that the key concept of modern physics is the body concept as introduced by Galileo. In stark contrast to the concepts we usu-ally possess, the body concept is an operational concept, i.e. a concept the purpose of which is the levelling of ontological differences. Employing operational concepts in the natural sciences shifts the line of inquiry from how natural things are to how we can manipulate them. The answers we get to such questions are – even though they involve nature – not about nature, but about our interaction with nature. If we continue forgetting about the role of human agents in scientific inquiry, physics may, however, prevail at the very bottom of the epistemological well at which Eugene Wigner marvelled at the “ the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics ” .