Customer Reviews

The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in Physics 1915-1925 (Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science)

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Ryckman's book is an excellent work full of novel insights. Ryckman single-handedly revives the non-positivist "transcendental philosophy" insights of early discussions of General Relativity Theory. Much of this suggestive insight and interpretation was lost with the triumph of the logical positivist (later logical empiricist) appropriation of Einstein's relativity theory as showing that Kant's a priori and transcendental philosophy was overthrown by Einstein. Schlick and later Hans Reichenbach became the "standard" interpreters of General Relativity Theory by the end of the 1930s. Later American philosophers of science, such as Adolph Gruenbaum and Wesley Salmon, even where not agreeing with all claims of Reichenbach, very much followed his lead and tended to dismiss the neo-Kantian and phenomenological interpretations that were developed by European thinkers concerning relativity theory.
Ryckman discusses the work on unified field theories of mathematician Herman Weyl and the physicist Arthur Eddington, as well as the philosophical interpretations of general relativity by Ernst Cassirer and Emile Meyerson among others. Ryckman's grasp of both Husserl's phenomenology and of the relevant differential geometry is superb.
His long sections on Herman Weyl are tremendously informative and illuminating. I think Ryckman's interpretations of Eddington as a "transcendental philosopher" in the traditional sense of Kant and Husserl are a bit of a stretch, however, as Eddington's philosophical excursions were very much seat of the pants. Nevertheless Ryckman persuasively discredits those, like Susan Stebbing, who ridiculed Eddington's philosophical interpretations without understanding the physics and mathematics that led him to them.
A minor but significant weakness is Ryckman's totally downplaying and dismissing the influence of the German romantic idealist Fichte on Weyl's interpretation of field theory and matter, claiming that Weyl was interested only in Fichte religious thought. In fact Erhard Scholz has made a well documented case in various articles that not only Husserl but Fichte was a very strong influence on Weyl's interpretations, and Weyl says so himself in his autobiographical reminiscences.
Overall Ryckman's work is an outstanding contribution and I hope it will revive interest in phenomenological philosophy of physics among physicists as well as Anglo-American philosophers.

Dear Prof. Ryckman:

I've read your relativity book, and I think you came quite close on p. 60 ff, to the geometrical anomaly. I think if you go back over what you said, you will conclude that you were suggesting one exists, and you are right.

As I point out in the paper linked below, it is Einstein's notion of a "natural" coincidence, which he sets out explicitly in RELATIVITY, and by implication in the 1905 paper.

However, I think your problem identifying it is that, when you wrote the book, you were not sufficiently aware of of the set theory controversy which gave rise to another expression of what appears to be the world's oldest view of mathematics: natural mathematics (for a more extended treatment of this point of view, see P. Maddy's NATURALISM IN MATHEMATICS). I don't see Garciadiego or Grattan-Guinness cited in your book, nor is Cantor mentioned. We are in the middle of a renaissance of the historiography of set theory, and I benefited from it greatly. You will too.

Until you grasp the geometrical anomaly at the heart of the relativity simultaneity, I don't think you can understand the history fully. For example, "pratical geometry"--Einstein's term for his formulation of natural mathematics--arose from the need to avoid supposed "paradoxes" (Garciadiego is particularly illuminating on the subject of the supposed logical content of the "paradoxes"), and from the general feeling--of long standing (and by the way, you seem to feel it yourself)--that the "difference" between representation and reality had somehow to be addressed. Whether that is necessary or not, it is not achieved by "natural" coincidence--that much is, finally, obvious.

By the way, your qualms about Einstein's artful phrasing are also expressed in the Stachel and Howard book, in Sarkar's discussion of Einstein's 1905 paper on Brownian motion.

"Practical geometry" plays to internally consistent role in special or general relativity. It is not a principle, hypothesis or deduction. It is nothing. Its expression in relativity is "natural" coincidence--and that is nothing.

It should not, however, be surprising that we have been able, finally, to locate a term in relativity which we can show plays no internally consistent role in the argument (which is what was required to disprove it). As an advocate of natural mathematics, Einstein did not believe arguments were, or could be, internally consistent.

However, no one previously was able to show directly an anomaly. All commentators were able to do--and you in your book are one of them--was to express qualms about Einstein's approach. I am sure Einstein himself never was aware of the anomalous position of "natural" coincidence in relativity.

And if you do believe in natural mathematics, it doesn't matter. However, I do think it is worth noting that we can finally demonstrate that relativity is internally inconsistent.

I think Prof. Friedman left out the crucial "coordination principle"--"natural" coincidence--first, because he didn't notice it, but second, because its role is not to "coordinate": "natural" coincidence has no role AT ALL.

Where this leads, logically, is to the Pythagorean theorem. If we cannot get to general relativity because of "natural" coincidence, then the question arises once again: is the Pythagorean theorem internally consistent. I think not. I think any proof contains an impermissible "natural" coincidence. But I cannot locate it yet.

Where is it?


Cordially yours,

John Ryskamp

Ryskamp, John Henry, "Paradox, Natural Mathematics, Relativity and Twentieth-Century Ideas" (May 19, 2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=897085