Engaging Philosophy: Einstein on the Method of Science

Dr. Stathis Psillos (University of Western Ontario)

Albert Einstein said that scientists are poor philosophers. Yet, he added that especially in periods of scientific revolutions, scientists should engage in philosophy and should not “surrender to philosophers the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations” of science. In this talk I will aim to critically examine Einstein’s views on the method of science by placing them within the context of his own historical narrative concerning the crisis of science in the beginning of the twentieth century and the emergence of his theories of relativity. I will stress that his key philosophical endeavour was to clarify the relation between theory and experience.