Abstract
In this paper, I will survey the “received view” of the interpretation of relativity theory in Natorp and Cassirer. Neo-Kantian and non-neo-Kantian scholars (such as Hentschel or Ferrari) usually distinguish Natorp’s reading from Cassirer’s by virtue of “immunising” and “revising” strategies. “Immunisation” consists of a strict defence of Kantian philosophy, while “revision” pertains to the modification of Kantianism depending on relativity theory. In this respect, I will suggest some arguments that will put things in perspective. In particular, I will show that Natorp’s interpretation is justified considering the state of physical research in 1910. By the same token, I will highlight where Cassirer leverages immunising strategies. However, I will demonstrate that, in contrast to Natorp, the influence of general relativity (GR) is pivotal to Cassirer and it does have an impact on his whole epistemology (and philosophy), implying a highly radical reform of pure intuition in light of general covariance. I will also add that Cassirer may have a bearing on Einstein as to the possibility of reconsidering his former censure of Kantian philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
Truth be told, Hentschel distinguished three paths concerning “immunising strategies” and four “revising” paths––Hentschel (1990: 199–239); see also Ferrari (1996: 111–146). For the purpose of this paper, we can simply assume that to immunise Kant means to defend the existence of transcendental space and time at all costs, while to revise him implies the proclivity to accept significant revisions to balance the transcendental and the empirical part of knowledge.
- 2.
Krois has already highlighted, with regard to relativity, Cassirer’s tendency to favour the spontaneous reaction of different research fields (2009: XXIX).
- 3.
In Natorp, the “Existenzurteil” has the following sense. In the first place, it leaves nothing undetermined (Natorp 1900: 370, 1910: 274–276). In the second place, it does not coincide with the single object since all one knows about existence is that it is asserted (loc. cit.: 301). It follows that one must not conflate the “univocality” (Einzigkeit) of the object into its “singularity” (Einzelheit). Existence is then defined this way: “Existence is but the expression whereupon all thought strives for. Indeed, thinking means to determine, and existence means the last determination within which nothing remains undetermined” (Natorp 1910: 305).
- 4.
In Natorp’s words: “The velocity of light appears throughout as an ultimate factor that similarly enters as a condition all of our time- and space-measurements. There is no possibility that it will show not to be constant, as long as it is not given to us a superluminal measure of time- and space-determination” (1910: 395).
- 5.
Natorp asserts that it is variation in magnitudes that creates time and not the opposite (Natorp 1910: 200–208; 331); this also makes time appear in the equations of mechanics only as numerical series (loc. cit.: 282).
- 6.
The demand of “univocal determination” has been already introduced in Natorp (1900: 389).
- 7.
Gödel (1949: 557–558, foot. n. 3) already drew attention to the fact that this was but Kant’s standpoint (see KrV, B54).
- 8.
The constitutive power of the a priori is a key of Reichenbach’s early neo-Kantianism. See: Reichenbach (1920: 74).
- 9.
Interestingly, Natorp once spelled out (1900: 379) that in Kant there was a “remainder of empiricism”.
- 10.
Natorp wrote back to Cassirer on 4 November 1909, but unfortunately I have not been able to decipher Natorp’s handwriting in this case.
- 11.
Truth be told, nowadays we know that all we can state of Einstein as an epistemologist is that he had always been a holist. Indeed, Howard and Giovanelli (2019) showed that Einstein’s preference for holism dated back to 1910 or 1911, and was prevalent since the turn of the 1920s. An explicit statement is given by Einstein in The World as I See It (1935: 172).
- 12.
Among other topics, Cassirer refers to the fact that from the empirical standpoint the “thing” can be conceived of as a “category” (1920: 226).
- 13.
However, it is worthwhile mentioning that Ryckman has already elucidated the momentous import of relativity for the elaboration of the philosophy of symbolic forms in one of his seminal papers (Ryckman 1999: 614).
- 14.
In a private note, Cassirer upheld that he stands “closer to no other philosophical ‘school’ than to the thinkers of the Vienna Circle” (Ibongu 2011: 57).
- 15.
- 16.
In The World As I See It, Einstein notices, however, that space and time are “divested not of their reality but of their causal absoluteness” (1935: 155).
- 17.
- 18.
It is also striking that Kant himself referred to the propagation of light as the condition of possibility of action-at-a distance––or of infinite velocity for gravity (KrV, A213/B260, Engl. Tr. 318).
- 19.
Significantly, Ryckman (2017: 239–240) has drawn attention to Einstein’s recovery of the concept of ether, although he conceived of it in a more dynamical fashion.
- 20.
This will be done later as regards the interpretation of quantum mechanics. See in particular the description of field as “omnipresence”, which is not by chance presented as overcoming both Natorp’s spatiotemporal judgement of existence and Schlick’s temporal determination of physical reality (Cassirer 1937: 235 and ff.).
- 21.
I will level in the following the difference between Einstein’s general covariance and Weyl’s gauge invariance to simply highlight that Cassirer was aware that it is impossible to utterly reject any ontological claim about the existence of fields. Regarding the comparison between Einstein and Weyl, see: Ryckman 2005, chap. 4.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
See also the review of Siegfrid Weinberg’s Erkenntnistheorie (Ferrari 1996: 146).
- 25.
But interestingly, Ryckman (2017: 253 and ff.) has shown that Einstein’s empiricism was a “pro tem strategy” that concealed his discussion with Weyl.
- 26.
Hentschel (1990: 239) also provided a wide diagram with all neo-Kantian theses. It is recommendable to also read table 4 in comparison to Hentschel’s original map.
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Laino, L. (2023). Natorp, Cassirer and the Influence of Relativity Theory on Neo-Kantian Philosophy. In: Russo Krauss, C., Laino, L. (eds) Philosophers and Einstein's Relativity. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 342. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36498-3_5
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