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[German Version] Natural philosophy is the philosophy of the one nature of things, in which all the many things of nature participate. Every philosophy began as natural philosophy in antiquity. The different philosophical disciplines have, however, separated from this beginning, so that now natural philosophy appears as one of many areas of philosophy.…

[German Version] Nuclear technology uses the energy from nuclear reactions for peaceful or military purposes. It is released when heavy nuclei (e.g. Uranium 235, Plutonium 239) are split (fission energy) or light atoms (Nuclear physics) are fused (e.g. production of helium from hydrogen: fusion energy). The potential for production of nuclear energy arises from the greater stability of moderately heavy atoms in comparison to atoms with higher or lower atomic weights. The possibility of splitting atomic nuclei was discovered in Berlin in 1938 by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Friedrich Wilhelm Straßmann. The employment of nuclear energy as a key technology in a dawning “atomic age” after World War II combined epochal hope and fears (cf. E. Bloch, Howe, v. Weizsäcker, K. Jaspers, Brockmöller). Initially these were due to the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, an event that brought upon mankind the greatest horror ever occasioned by scientific kn…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Naturalism is a polysemous concept; its meaning depends on whether it is used (1) affirmatively or (2) with critical intention, depending on the presupposed understanding of nature. ¶ …

[German Version] I. Terminology and Natural Science 1. Terminology. The term “nature” (Gk ϕύσις…