Philosophers and Einstein's Relativity: The Early Philosophical Reception of the Relativistic Revolution (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 342)

This book offers an up-to-date insight into the early philosophical debate on Einsteinian relativity. The essays explore the reception and interpretation of Einstein’s ideas by some of the most important philosophical schools of the time, such as logical positivism (Reichenbach), neo-Kantianism (Cassirer, Natorp), critical realism (Sellars), and radical empiricism (Mach). The book is aimed at physicists and historians of science researching the epistemological implications of the theory of relativity, as well as to scholars in philosophy interested in understanding how leading philosophical figures of the early twentieth century reacted to the relativistic revolution. Preface 6 Acknowledgments 9 Contents 10 Contributors 11 1 (Mis-)Interpretations of the Theory of Relativity – Considerations on How They Arise and How to Analyze Them 12 1.1 Motivation for Studying Misinterpretations 13 1.2 Methodological Background 14 1.3 What Can We Learn from These Sources? 14 1.4 The Example of Phenomenalism (Mach School) 19 1.5 A Clash of Styles of Thought and Interpretational Frames in These Debates 27 1.6 Interpretational Frames and Perspectivism 30 1.7 Summary and Considerations About Where to Go from Here 36 References 41 2 A Machian Interpretation of the Theory of Relativity? Joseph Petzoldt's Reading of Einstein 45 2.1 Introduction 45 2.2 Joseph Petzoldt's Relativistic Positivism 47 2.3 Before Einstein. The Debate with Mach About the Frames of Reference 53 2.4 After Einstein. Relativity and Eindeutigkeit 62 2.5 Conclusions 72 References 73 3 The End of Matter? On the Early Reception of Relativity in neo-Kantian Philosophy 76 3.1 Introduction: Einstein's Relativity, Matter and Field 76 3.2 Cassirer on Relativity and “Field Physics” 79 3.3 Cassirer's Historical Epistemology and the Problem of Matter 84 3.4 Platonism in Marburg: “Dissolution of Matter” and Relativity as “The Victory of Idealism” 87 3.5 Cassirer, Platonism and Relativity 90 3.6 Conclusions 93 References 94 4 Cassirer and Klein on the Geometrical Foundations of Relativistic Physics 97 4.1 Introduction 98 4.2 Felix Klein's Argument from Projective Geometry 100 4.3 Cassirer and the Change of Geometry in Relativistic Physics 105 4.4 Some Concluding Remarks on Cassirer and the Relativized A Priori 109 References 111 5 Natorp, Cassirer and the Influence of Relativity Theory on Neo-Kantian Philosophy 114 5.1 Introduction: The Received View of the Neo-Kantian Interpretations of Relativity Theory 115 5.2 Natorp 117 5.2.1 Natorp's Early Interpretation of Relativity Theory 117 5.2.2 Natorp's Assessment of Meta-Geometry 121 5.3 Cassirer 126 5.3.1 Cassirer's Reaction to Natorp's Book 126 5.3.2 Schlick's and Einstein's Reactions to Natorp's Book 128 5.3.3 The Reason of “Logos Itself”: Cassirer's Correspondence 129 5.3.4 Cassirer's Interpretation of Relativity 131 5.3.5 In Search of Inconsistencies: A Final Assessment of Cassirer's Interpretation 137 5.4 Conclusions 140 References 142 6 Coordination, Geometrization, Unification: An Overviewof the Reichenbach–Einstein Debate on the Unified FieldTheory Program 146 6.1 Introduction 147 6.2 Coordination: The Weyl-Reichenbach Correspondence (1920–1921) 149 6.2.1 Reichenbach's Habilitation and His Critique of Weyl Theory 153 6.2.2 The Reichenbach-Weyl Correspondence 156 6.2.3 The Weyl-Reichenbach Appeasement 159 6.3 Geometrization: The Reichenbach-Einstein Correspondence (1926–1927) 164 6.3.1 Reichenbach's Geometrization of the Electromagnetic Field 166 6.3.2 The Appendix to the Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre 170 6.4 Unification: Reichenbach-Einstein Correspondence (1929–1930) 173 6.4.1 Reichenbach's Articles on Fernparallelismus Field Theory 176 6.5 Conclusion 180 Abbreviations 183 References 183 7 Special Relativity from the Viewpoint of R. W. Sellars'The Philosophy of Physical Realism 190 7.1 Introduction 191 7.2 Sellars' Earliest Writings on Critical Realism and the Time Problem 191 7.3 Physical Realism as the Ontology of Critical Realism 193 7.4 Special Relativity as ars mensurandi 194 7.5 “Real” Time and “Absolute” Simultaneity 196 7.6 Sellars' Relation to Bergson's Point of View 199 7.7 Special Relativity in Later Sellars 202 7.8 Summary 205 References 206