SCIENCE AND CULTURAL CRISIS: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY OF PERCY WILLIAMS BRIDGMAN (OPERATIONISM, SCIENTIFIC METHOD, BEHAVIORISM, RELATIVITY, SEMANTICS, NEW ENGLAND)

The intellectual life of the Nobel prize winning Harvard physicist Percy Williams Bridgman 1882-1961 is set in the framework of the metaphysical crisis in physics created by relativity theory and quantum mechanics and the ideological crisis in America caused by Depression and World War. The work is divided into four sections.;The first section introduces an individual and a setting. It presents a New England personality, describing his scientific expectations and style as they were shaped by the practice of physics at Harvard University, and how they fared under the impulse to modernization. Section two deals with the problem of meaning as it appeared within physics as a consequence of relativity theory. It describes how Bridgman devised a strategy, operational analysis, to cope with its revolutionary implications. Section three discusses the wider cultural perception of a crisis of meaning as a background to the popular and academic response to operational analysis. It also traces the evolution of Bridgman's thought toward subjectivity and existential loneliness. The fourth section considers the political and social ramifications of Bridgman's operational strategy, and how this strategy came to rest in his decision to commit suicide.