Einstein’s Objections to the Philosophy of Experience

Abstract

To be sure, the conclusion that scientism is false can easily prod those scientists who reach it into leaning towards a positivist viewpoint or, in other words, towards “the philosophy of experience.” They would then give up the idea of describing reality as it is; they would even have reservations with regard to the possibility of giving a meaning to such a concept and would lower their ambitions to the description of appearances. They would henceforth be content with finding general rules that make it possible to predict observations under given circumstances. If they feel that such a purpose is somewhat too unimpressive they can—in a very standard way!—find comfort in modifying the usual meaning of the words. They would call “reality” the set of all appearances and give the name “thing-in-itself” to the independent reality, that is, to the kind of reality that they gave up all hope of describing. They may then lift their heads and again claim that the subject matter of their investigation is indeed—as the man-in-the-street believes it to be!—objective reality.