Abstract
In what precise ways is philosophy instrumental in illuminating the genesis of the conceptual innovations wrought by a particular physical theory? In the first edition (1963) of this book and in some still earlier papers, I have used the unraveling of the history of the special theory of relativity to argue concretely that philosophy does have far-reaching relevance to the attainment of the following cardinal objectives of the historian of science: (i) the very posing of well-conceived, searching historical questions and (ii) the avoidance of serious historical blunders of certain kinds, and their discernment as such when they have been committed by those lacking the requisite philosophical mastery ([1], chap. 12; [2]). Specifically, I maintained in the context of the special theory of relativity that there is a symbiosis of the philosophy and the history of science as follows: no historically correct, let alone illuminating account of the development of that theory can be furnished without a prior rigorous comprehension of the philosophical conceptions underlying it and distinguishing it from its ancestors. At the same time, I recognized that the history of the theory, in its turn, may indeed contribute to the philosophical analysis of the theory by disclosing the vicissitudes in Einstein’s own philosophical outlook.
This chapter is the revised text of the author’s vice-presidential address to the History and Philosophy of Science Section (L) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, delivered 29 December 1963 during its Cleveland meeting.
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Bibliography and Notes
A. Grünbaum, Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, Knopf, New York, 1963.
A. Grunbaum, ‘The Relevance of Philosophy to the History of the Special Theory of Relativity’, J. Phil 59, 561 (1962); ‘The Special Theory of Relativity as a Case Study of the Importance of the Philosophy of Science for the History of Science’, Ann. Mat. 57, 257 (1962) [reprinted in Philosophy of Science (ed. by B. Baumrin), Wiley, New York, 1963, vol. 2]; ‘The Genesis of the Special Theory of Relativity’, in: Current Issues in the Philosophy of Science (ed. by H. Feigl and G. Maxwell ), Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1961, pp. 43–53.
R. S. Shankland, Am. J. Phys. 31, 47 (1963). The important second installment of this paper, published a decade later when this volume was in press, is discussed in the Appendix under ‘Chapter 12’.
This report constitutes chapter 10 of Max Wertheimer’s Productive Thinking [5].
M. Wertheimer, Productive Thinking, Harper, New York, 1959.
R. S. Shankland, ‘Albert A. Michelson at Case’, Am. J. Phys. 17, 487 (1949).
R. S. Shankland, ‘Conversations with Einstein’, Am. J. Phys. 31 (1963), p. 55 and p. 49, note 9.
H. E. Ives, ‘Revisions of the Lorentz Transformations’, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc . 95, 125 (1951).
F. K. Richtmeyer, E. H. Kennard, and T. Lauritsen, Introduction to Modern Physics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955, pp. 56–57.
For a specific refutation of this error, see my pp. 692–693 of Chapter 20, which amend pp. 342–370 of Chapter 12, as explained in the Appendix under ‘Chapter 12’.
As shown by the putative ‘quasi-Newtonian’ universe of pp. 689–693 (Chapter 20), the relativity of simultaneity is not entailed by the latter’s convention-ladenness.
A. Einstein and L. Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1942, p. 186.
See A. Einstein, ‘Autobiographical Notes’, in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, (ed. by P. A. Schilpp), Library of Living Philosophers, Evanston, 111., 1949, pp. 52–53.
For a proof that this belief is indeed erroneous, see Chapter 12, pp. 375–376.
For examples of the commission of this fallacy, see E. T. Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, Nelson, London, 1953, p. 38; and R. C. Tolman, Relativity, Thermodynamics and Cosmology, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1934, p. 26.
I thank Professor Hempel for his kind permission to cite this private correspondence and also for helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
A slight inequality of the horizontal and vertical arms of the interferometer is required for the production of neat interference fringes. But I ignore this slight length discrepancy in my generally oversimplified presentation by using the same length I in the expressions for T v and T h: A rigorous detailed justification of this use of the same length I as part of my simplification is given in L. Silberstein, The Theory of Relativity, Macmillan, London, 1914, p. 76. On pp. 72–79, Silberstein gives an especially valuable account of the Michelson-Morley experiment and of the aether-theoretic contraction hypothesis. See also J. Aharoni, The Special Theory of Relativity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1959, pp. 270–273.
See Section 7 of Einstein’s fundamental paper of 1905 on the special theory of relativity, and M. von Laue, Die Relativitätstheorie, Vieweg, Braunschweig, 1952, vol. 1, p. 20.
This account of the sense in which the two combined auxiliary hypotheses can be said to be ad hoc supersedes the treatment in Chapter 12, p. 392.
It is an open question whether this new sense of ‘ad hoc’ can be explicitly defined quite generally by reference to any two rival theories of an appropriate kind, and to what extent that putative new general sense would have relevance to diverse episodes in the history of science.
P. A. M. Dirac, ‘Is There an Aether?’, Nature 168, 906 (1951).
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© 1973 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Grünbaum, A. (1973). The Bearing of Philosophy on the History of the Special Theory of Relativity. In: Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2622-2_21
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