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MPIWG_PROJECTS:
Historical Theories of Knowledge
Abstract:
The logical empiricists played key roles in the battle over the philosophical interpretation of the relativity theory. This chapter looks not only at Schlick’s defense of Einstein, but also at an input of Schlick’s that shaped Einstein’s view, namely his “point-coincidence argument.” Initially, the “hole argument” prevented a persuasive interpretation of general relativity, but it was soon replaced by the “point-coincidence argument,” which Einstein is likely to have adopted from Schlick at the end of 1915. Schlick had arrived at a uniform method of measurement based on spatiotemporal coincidences. The coincidence method made it possible to unambiguously assign a spatiotemporal schematized system of concepts, as represented by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, to physical events. A historical account of this episode is given here.
