Prof. Robert DiSalle
Talbot College 408, x85763
(rdisalle@uwo.ca)
Great Philosophers: Albert Einstein
This course treats the major works of some philosopher or philosophical school announced annually. The development of the philosophers' ideas is studied against the background of their lives and cultural milieux.
Our subject this year is Albert Einstein. Einstein was not only a scientist whose ideas had profound philosophical implications concerning the nature of space, time, and matter; he was also a philosopher in his own right, and he insisted on the intimate connection between his philosophical and his scientific thinking. On the one hand, his study of philosophy had a direct and decisive influence on his development of the theory of relativity, which in turn had an enormous influence on 20th-century philosophy. On the other hand, he connected his philosophical approach to physics with more general philosophical problems concerning metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and theology. We approach these ideas, their interconnections, and their impact on philosophy largely through Einstein's own writings.
Notes, Part I: The Newtonian background
Notes, Part II: The origins of special relativity
Notes, Part III: From special relativity to general relativity
Notes, Part IV: Einstein and the quantum theory