Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge

Repeated motions, from a beating heart to the Earth's rotation, provide Alexander Philip with a starting point for examining how knowledge becomes possible. These four philosophical essays consider time and periodicity, the origin of physical concepts, two theories of knowledge, and the doctrine of energy. Philip argues that our understanding of time depends on measurement and that measurement depends on recurring natural movements.

His discussion brings philosophical questions into contact with physics, treating motion, light and heat as different forms of energy. References to thinkers including Plato, Berkeley and Aristotle place the argument within a wider debate about thought and experience. The preface also connects the search for sound principles with concern over science's destructive uses in wartime. Readers interested in the relation between scientific explanation and philosophy can follow Philip's effort to define both the reach and the limits of human understanding.