Abstract
As late as in 1917 Reichenbach was still nearly an orthodox Kantian; 1 three years later in his book Relativitätstheorie und Erkenntnis Apriori he resolutely rejected, or at least profoundly modified Kantian apriorism. What happened in the interval between 1917 and 1920 is not difficult to guess: the spectacular confirmation of the general theory of relativity in May 1919, when Einstein’s prediction of the curvature of the light rays in the gravitational field of the sun was fully confirmed, attracted the attention not only of physicists and philosophers but of the general public as well. The theory of relativity was, using Gaston Bachelard’s expression, “born of an epistemological shock” 2 experienced when various experiments showed the impossibility of detecting any influence of the motion of the earth on the propagation of light. But “an epistemological shock” caused by experimental confirmations of the same theory was no less severe, especially among Kantian and neo-Kantian philosophers who were so profoundly imbued with the ideas of the Newtonian physics. It is then hardly surprising that Reichenbach’s philosophical orientation was radically changed by the impact of the relativity theory.
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References
In his doctoral thesis “Der Begriff der Wahrscheinlichkeit für die mathematische Darstellung der Wirklichkeit,” Zeitschrift far Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, Bd. 161, 162, 163 (1916–1917). Hereafter referred to as BW.
Gaston Bachelard, “The Philosophic Dialectic of the Concepts of Relativity,” in Albert Einstein:Philosopher and Scientist, ed. P. Schilpp, p. 566.
Ziele und Wege der heutigen Naturwissenschaft (1931), pp. 30–31. Hereafter referred to as ZW. Reichenbach expressed his first doubts about the universal validity of the principle of causality in REA, p. 77.
John Dewey, “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism,” Journal of Philosophy, II (1905), No. 15. This principle was upheld by Dewey throughout his life. It was reasserted in his Experience and Nature (1925) and defended against Reichenbach in 1939 (in The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. P. Schilpp), pp. 157–192; 534–543.
In the quoted article Dewey explicitly insists on the objectivity of the emotional qualities: “Empirically, that noise is fearsome; it really is, not merely phenomenally or subjectively so” (p. 393). To Reichenbach’s question whether a stick immersed in water really is broken, Dewey answered that at least the light rays are broken; but in saying this, he really departed from his postulate of immediate empiricism, according to which “things are what they are experienced as.” For in the perception of an immersed stick, the deflection of light rays is inferred, never immediately disclosed! What in the immediacy of perception is presented as broken is the stick and not the rays of light. (The Philosophy of John Dewey, p. 171, 574).
The Principles of Psychology,II, Ch. XIV, p. 195.
Ibid., II, pp. 428–430. Also First Principles, where the inconceivability of the opposite is regarded as a reliable criterion for the axiomatic character of the laws of conservation of matter and energy (Chapters IV to VI of Part II). See also H. Taine, De l’intelligence, II, p. 456; and H. Poincaré, Science et Méthode, p. 120.
W. James, “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, IX, pp. 1–18. Reprinted in Collected Essays and Reviews (1920).
ZW, p. 54. Mach used this term in his inaugural address in Prague, October 18, 1883: On Transformation and Adaptation in Scientific Thought. Reprinted in Popular Scientific Lectures, pp. 219 ff.
Philosophie der Raum-Zeit Lehre (Berlin, 1928), especially pp. 46–47. Hereafter referred to as PRZL.
PRZL, p. 23; RSP, pp. 179–180; also Experience and Prediction (1937), pp. 9–10.
Atom and Kosmos, Ch. 18, especially p. 274. PFQM, p. 17; RSP, pp. 162–165. As early as 1924 Reichenbach correctly observed that determinism in its rigorous form leaves the difference between the past and the future entirely unexplained. For this reason Reichenbach had already—prior to the discovery of the uncertainty principle—upheld the objective character of probability laws. “Die Kausalstruktur der Welt and der Unterschied von Vergangenheit and Zukunft,” Sitzungberichte der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Abteilung der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in München (1925), p. 133. On the other hand, Reichenbach remains thoroughly Kantian and conservative in his acceptance of the classical concept of spatio-temporal continuity in spite of very serious doubts which appeared in connection with the quantum theory. In his posthumous book he regards Bertrand Russell’s outdated book Our Knowledge of the External World (which appeared in 1914) as a modern and, apparently, final vindication of the classical concept of continuity. (The Direction of Time, p. 6.)
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© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Čapek, M. (1991). The Development of Reichenbach’s Epistemology. In: The New Aspects of Time. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 125. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2123-8_7
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