A “free play with concepts”: philosophy and epistemology in Albert Einstein’s scientific thought
Tóm tắt
Closely related to the development of his properly scientific activity, the philosophical and epistemological structure of Albert Einstein’s scientific work is also marked by a strong underlying unity, which appears in similar forms from the first papers at the turn of the twentieth century to the attempts to construct unified field theories, which unsuccessfully occupied him in the last part of his career. This paper presents some of the main traits that characterised Einstein’s philosophical and epistemological thought: Ernst Mach’s influence and Einstein’s ambivalence towards Mach’s theoretical legacy, the philosophical problem offered by the complex relationship between theory and experience, and the specific image of scientific rationality to which Einstein devoted some of his deepest explicitly philosophical essays.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Banks, E.C.: The philosophical roots of Ernst Mach’s economy of thought. Synthese. 139, 23–53 (2004)
Cohen, I.B.: An interview with Einstein. Sci. Am. 193, 68–73 (1955)
Duhem, P.: Physical Theory and Experiment. In: in: The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Philip P. Wiener, English trans. Princeton, Princeton University Press (1991)
Einstein A.: Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper. Annalen der Physik 17, pp. 891–921 (1905); also in: [13, vol. 2, pp. 275–310]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol2-doc/311
Einstein, A.: Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie. Annalen der Physik 354(7), 769–822 (1916); also in: [13, vol. 6, pp. 283–339]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol6-doc/311
Einstein, A.: Ernst Mach, Physikalische Zeitschrift 17, 101–104 (1916); also in: [13, vol. 6, pp. 277–282]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol6-doc/305
Einstein, A.: Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie (gemeinverständlich), Vieweg, Braunschweig (1917); Relativity: the special and general theory. Robert W. Lawson, English transl. Methuen & Co Ltd, London (1920); also in: [13, vol. 6, 420–539]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol6-trans/259.
Einstein, A.: Motive des Forschens. In: Zu Max Plancks sechzigstem Geburtstag. Ansprachen, gehalten am 26. April 1918 in der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft von E. Warburg, M. v. Laue, A. Sommerfeld und A. Einstein, pp. 29–32, C. F. Müllersche Hofbuchhandlung, Karlsruhe (1918); translation from Einstein, A.: Ideas and Opinions. Sonja Bargmann, English transl. Crown, New York (1982); also in: [13, vol. 7, 54–59]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol7-doc/102
Einstein, A.: Induktion und Deduktion in der Physik. Berliner Tageblatt, 25 December, 1 (1919); also in: [Ein9, vol. 7, 218–20]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol7-doc/266
Einstein, A.: Einstein and the Philosophies of Kant and Mach. Nature. 112, 253 (1923)
Einstein, A.: Autobiographical Notes. In: [24, pp. 1–94]
Einstein, A.: Remarks concerning the essays brought together in this co-operative volume. In: [24, pp. 665–688]
Einstein, A.: The collected papers of Albert Einstein. In: J. Stachel et al. (eds.) Princeton University Press, Princeton (1990)
Frank, P.: Einstein’s philosophy of science. Rev. Modern Phys. 21, 349–355 (1949)
Holten, G.: Mach, Einstein, and the search for reality. In: Galison, P., Gordin, M., Kaiser, D. (eds), Science and Society: Making Special Relativity, Oxon, Routledge (2001)
Howard, D.: Einstein and Duhem. Synthese. 83, 363–384 (1990)
Janssen, M.: Reconsidering a scientific revolution: the case of Einstein versus Lorentz. Phys. Perspect. 4, 421–446 (2002)
Kant, I.: Critique of pure reason. M. Weigelt, English transl. Penguin, London (2007)
Laudisa, F.: Albert Einstein e l’immagine scientifica del mondo. Carocci, Roma (2015)
Lorentz, H.A.: Electromagnetic phenomena in a system moving with any velocity less than that of light. Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam 6, 809–831 (1904) (reprinted in: Einstein, A., Lorentz, H.A., Weyl, H., Minkowski, H.: The principle of relativity. A collection of original papers on the special and general theory of relativity, 1st ed. Methuen & C., London, 1923; 2nd ed. Dover, New York 1952, pp. 11–34)
Mach, E.: Popular scientific lectures. Open Court, La Salle (1942)
Miller, A.I.: Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA (1981)
Quine, W.V.O: Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Philos Rev. 60, 20–43 (1951)
Schilpp, P.A. (ed.): Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Library of Living Philosophers, Evanston (1949)
Stachel, J.: Einstein and Ether drift experiments. Phys. Today 40, 45–47 (1987) (reprinted in [27, pp. 171–176])
Stachel, J.: Einstein on the theory of relativity. In: [13, vol. 2, pp. 253–274]. http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol2-doc/289) (reprinted in 27, pp. 191–214)
Stachel, J.: Einstein from ‘B’ to ‘Z’. Birkhäuser, Boston (2002)
Weinberg, S.: Against Philosophy. In: Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature, Chap. VII. New York, Pantheon Books (1992)
Wolters, G.: Mach and Einstein, or, clearing troubled waters in the history of science. In: Lehner, C., Renn, J., Schemmel, M.. (eds.) Einstein and the Changing Worldviews of Physics, pp. 39–57. Birkhäuser, Boston (2012)