Abstract
In order to make reality rational, the relativistic conception — like all modern theoretical physics — makes use of mathematical deduction. Now, mathematics does not stand still. It progresses, sometimes with astonishing rapidity — as during the relatively short period of time that saw the discoveries of Descartes, Fermat, Newton, and Leibniz — sometimes more slowly, but it goes without saying that it is constantly progressing and changing. It is therefore legitimate to ask what influence this progress has on the problem of explanation, which is the fundamental problem of all physical science.
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Notes
Galileo, ’Letter to Licati’ (1641), OEuvres, ed. Alberti (Florence, 1842), 7:355.
Cf. ES 2:378. Weyl (STM 77 ff.) provides an excellent historical account of non- Euclidean geometrical theories, pointing out that as far back as antiquity Proclus already had doubts about the theorem [sic] of parallels. Eddington, in his turn, stressed the importance of the mathematical theory of tensors for the emergence of the concept of relativity, although Riemann, Christoffel, Ricci and Levi-Civita had never thought of applying their calculus to gravitation at the time when they developed it (STG 2–3; cf. p. 212 and Eddington, Espace, temps et gravitation, trans. J. Rossignol, Paris, 1921, Pt. 2, pp. 40, 53). [Eddington provided a second, mathematical part for the French edition, not included in the English edition. For very similar material, see Eddington, The Mathematical Theory of Relativity (Cambridge, 1923), pp. 58–59 (§27) and pp. 69–70 (of §33).]
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© 1985 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Meyerson, É. (1985). Rational Explanation and the Progress of Mathematics. In: The Relativistic Deduction. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 83. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5211-9_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5211-9_21
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