Interpretations and wrong interpretations of special and general relativity theory by contemporaries of Albert Einstein
This volume is concerned with philosophy of science and not with history of physics, as one might gather from its title. The presentation is based on the German, English and French speaking civilizations, the interpretation of relativity in the dialectical materialism is excluded. The author begins with a historical outline considering special and general relativity as well as relativistic cosmology and alternative theories to relativity. An important subject is the so-called vulgarization or popularization of relativity, which is illustrated by a statistical table on the foundation of Lecat's bibliography. The main part is dedicated to a ``Comparison of philosophical interpretations of relativity'' (p. 196-504). The author's former publications dealt mainly with Moritz Schlick and Ernst Mach. Here a much broader spectrum of aspects according to different philosophical is presented: 1. Neo-Kantianism (Natorp, Hönigswald, Cassierer, Reichenbach), 2. Critical realism (Külpe, Bavink, Wenzl), 3. Phenomenology (Husserl, Linke, Geiger), 4. Fictionalism (Vaihinger and his school), 5. Conventionalism (Poincaré, Dingler, Reichenbach, Schlick), 6. Science of axioms, i.e. different kinds of axiomatical systems of special relativity (Carmichael, Robb, Carathéodory, Reichenbach), 7. Logical empiricism (Schlick), 8. Neutral monism, phenomenalism and relativistic positivism (Mach, Petzoldt), 9. Operationalism (Bridgman), 10. Intuitionalism and philosophy of life (Bergson), 11. Rationalism (Meyerson, Metz), 12. Combination of several directions, splinter groups and idiosyncratic individual cases (Eddington, Whitehead, Russell, Piaget, Popper). Every chapter begins with a motto, i.e. a longer quotation. Every point is illustrated by a table or survey to show the different connections. It follows a presentation of ``Selected debates between philosophers'', mainly between Reichenbach, Schlick, Metz, Kraus, Frank, Urbach and their surroundings. The last chapter gives a ``Systematic evaluation'' according to several philosophical points of view as modesty, willingness to learn and to adapt, and so on. The bibliography comprises 3221 titles, it is restricted to English, French and German papers. For example Italian contributions are unfortunately not included. Besides, the author also used unpublished material, especially from Boston (Department of the Collected Papers of Einstein), the Hebrew University and from the Pittsburgh ``Archive for Scientific Philosophy in the 20th Century''.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 45186