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Einstein's theory of relativity provided a challenge to many physicists and philosophers. Some of the fathers of logical empiricism started their scientific careers with analyses of the revolutionary changes forced upon them by the theory of relativity in the concepts of space, time, mass, energy, and causality. Philipp Frank (1884–1966) published several articles on relativity before he acceded to Einstein's chair in Prague in 1912. Moritz Schlick (1882–1936) published a book on relativity (1917) and another one on general epistemological problems (1918) and discussed these subjects with Einstein who supported his move to Vienna in 1922. Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) was among the few students in Einstein's first seminar on general relativity in Berlin and developed his own method of logical analysis of scientific theories by analyzing the theory of relativity (1920; 1924; 1928). Later, he declared this method to be the only legitimate one in scientific philosophy. Einstein liked Reichenbach's ability to analyze contemporary physical theories and supported his efforts to receive an academic position. Last but not least, Rudolf Carnap (1981–1970) — whose knowledge in physics should not be compared with Frank's, Schlick's and Reichenbach's — wrote a dissertation on space (1922) in which he prepared his later logical reconstructions of scientific language. Whereas the theory of relativity existed before the new philosophy of science developed in Vienna, Prague, Berlin, the development of this philosophy was immediately challenged by another physical theory, quantum mechanics. But quantum theory confronted physicists and philosophers with a situation different from relativity theory.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2658-0_6

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