Philosophers and Einstein's Relativity

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.

1. (Mis-)Interpretations of the Theory of Relativity Considerations on how they Arise and how to Analyze Them (Klaus Hentschel). - 2. A Machian Interpretation of the Theory of Relativity? Joseph Petzoldt s Reading of Einstein (Chiara Russo Krauss). - 3. The End of Matter? On the Early Reception of Relativity in neo-Kantian Philosophy (Paolo Pecere). - 4. Cassirer and Klein on the Geometrical Foundations of Relativistic Physics (Francesca Biagioli). - 5. Natorp, Cassirer and the Influence of Relativity Theory on Neo-Kantian Philosophy (Luigi Laino). - 6. Coordination, Geometrization, Unification. An Overview of the Reichenbach Einstein Debate on the Unified Field Theory Program (Marco Giovanelli). - 7. Special Relativity from the Viewpoint of R. W. Sellars The Philosophy of Physical Realism (Matthias Neuber).