Matters of principle for Jérôme Ferrari: Science and conscience,ethics and aesthetics in the life of Werner Heisenberg

Abstract

This article analyses Jérôme Ferrari’s novel Le Principe, reflecting on the life and research of Werner Heisenberg, whose famous uncertainty principle is thus explored as a paradigm of a whole series of epistemological, existential and ethical quandaries. Juxtaposing the author/narrator’s personal vicissitudes with the ambivalent trajectory of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who, without being a Nazi, carried out nuclear research under Hitler’s authority, Ferrari’s text proves to be emblematic not only of the tragic legacy of the twentieth century, but also of twenty-first-century narratives seeking existential significance, intellectual lucidity and aesthetic fulfilment in a world seemingly dominated by unprincipled finance and runaway technology.