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 Acknowledgments Contents Contributors 1 (Mis-)Interpretations of the Theory of Relativity – Considerations on How They Arise and How to Analyze Them 1.1 Motivation for Studying Misinterpretations 1.2 Methodological Background 1.3 What Can We Learn from These Sources? 1.4 The Example of Phenomenalism (Mach School) 1.5 A Clash of Styles of Thought and Interpretational Frames in These Debates 1.6 Interpretational Frames and Perspectivism 1.7 Summary and Considerations About Where to Go from Here References 2 A Machian Interpretation of the Theory of Relativity? Joseph Petzoldt's Reading of Einstein 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Joseph Petzoldt's Relativistic Positivism 2.3 Before Einstein. The Debate with Mach About the Frames of Reference 2.4 After Einstein. Relativity and Eindeutigkeit 2.5 Conclusions References 3 The End of Matter? On the Early Reception of Relativity in neo-Kantian Philosophy 3.1 Introduction: Einstein's Relativity, Matter and Field 3.2 Cassirer on Relativity and “Field Physics” 3.3 Cassirer's Historical Epistemology and the Problem of Matter 3.4 Platonism in Marburg: “Dissolution of Matter” and Relativity as “The Victory of Idealism” 3.5 Cassirer, Platonism and Relativity 3.6 Conclusions References 4 Cassirer and Klein on the Geometrical Foundations of Relativistic Physics 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Felix Klein's Argument from Projective Geometry 4.3 Cassirer and the Change of Geometry in Relativistic Physics 4.4 Some Concluding Remarks on Cassirer and the Relativized A Priori References 5 Natorp, Cassirer and the Influence of Relativity Theory on Neo-Kantian Philosophy 5.1 Introduction: The Received View of the Neo-Kantian Interpretations of Relativity Theory 5.2 Natorp 5.2.1 Natorp's Early Interpretation of Relativity Theory 5.2.2 Natorp's Assessment of Meta-Geometry 5.3 Cassirer 5.3.1 Cassirer's Reaction to Natorp's Book 5.3.2 Schlick's and Einstein's Reactions to Natorp's Book 5.3.3 The Reason of “Logos Itself”: Cassirer's Correspondence 5.3.4 Cassirer's Interpretation of Relativity 5.3.5 In Search of Inconsistencies: A Final Assessment of Cassirer's Interpretation 5.4 Conclusions References 6 Coordination, Geometrization, Unification: An Overviewof the Reichenbach–Einstein Debate on the Unified FieldTheory Program 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Coordination: The Weyl-Reichenbach Correspondence (1920–1921) 6.2.1 Reichenbach's Habilitation and His Critique of Weyl Theory 6.2.2 The Reichenbach-Weyl Correspondence 6.2.3 The Weyl-Reichenbach Appeasement 6.3 Geometrization: The Reichenbach-Einstein Correspondence (1926–1927) 6.3.1 Reichenbach's Geometrization of the Electromagnetic Field 6.3.2 The Appendix to the Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre 6.4 Unification: Reichenbach-Einstein Correspondence (1929–1930) 6.4.1 Reichenbach's Articles on Fernparallelismus Field Theory 6.5 Conclusion Abbreviations References 7 Special Relativity from the Viewpoint of R. W. Sellars'The Philosophy of Physical Realism 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Sellars' Earliest Writings on Critical Realism and the Time Problem 7.3 Physical Realism as the Ontology of Critical Realism 7.4 Special Relativity as ars mensurandi 7.5 “Real” Time and “Absolute” Simultaneity 7.6 Sellars' Relation to Bergson's Point of View 7.7 Special Relativity in Later Sellars 7.8 Summary References