By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY
Canales, Jimena. The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015. viii +
479 pp. Paper $24.95; cloth $35.00.
A so-called debate took place between Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein in 1922 at the Société française de philosophie. It was a relatively brief encounter. The subject was Einstein’s theory of relativity and its implications.
In a dramatic introduction to her topic, Jimena Canales exaggerates the professional standing of both men. Bergson is presented as an established philosopher, ranking with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, and as a public intellectual of consequence.
Einstein’s theory of relativity is presented as a break with classical physics, and as a revolutionary accomplishment on par with that of Copernicus and Newton. In Canales’ account, “[Einstein’s achievement] profoundly shocked scientists and general public alike.” That it rested on the experiments of Michelson, Morley, and the research and insight of FitzGerald, Lorentz, and at least a half-dozen others is not mentioned.
Given the book’s focus on Einstein, and by contrast its denigration of Bergson, the work falls within the literary genre known as hagiography. Within the first few pages of the book, Canales decides the winner of the “debate” without telling the reader what it was all about.
Einstein’s theory of relativity, we are told, 1) redefined the concepts of space and time, showing that accepted notions of space and time were no longer universal, 2) showed that space and time were completely related, and 3) and did away with the concept of ether. We know, of course, that it did not entirely get rid of the concept of ether. Although officially discarded by physics, ether was soon replaced with the fiction of magnetic and gravitational fields.
In the 1922 debate, Bergson began by congratulating Einstein for having discovered a stunning theory, but chastised him for having ignored aspects of time that prevail in daily life. In fact, the two were talking past each other. They were talking about two different things. Nevertheless, sides were formed, with some supporting the accomplishment of Einstein, and others defending the commonsense view of Bergson.
Einstein enjoyed the moral support of the German statesman Walther Rathenau and the financial support of Baron de Rothschild. In part due to their influence, Einstein, in Canales’ judgment, became the first scientist to obtain a worldwide reputation through mass media.
Jacques Maritain, a distinguished pupil of Bergson, was eventually drawn into the dialogue.
Called to comment, Maritain wrote, “Einstein showed himself to be a great virtuoso at the keyboard of signs but terrible as a contemplator of being.” Maritain did not question the value of Einstein’s scientific theories as mathematical. He found no contradiction in the theory’s internal logic. It possessed “complete indemnity from logical sin.”
He questioned only Einstein’s philosophy of nature and by implication his metaphysics. Maritain argued that Einstein had a restricted notion of reality, one confined to that which is open to measurement. Notions like equality and simultaneity presuppose commonsense notions of space and time.
Einstein’s theory of relativity may be useful in physics, Maritain said, but it should not lead us to devalue traditional concepts of space and time. As many have pointed out, we still sail by Euclidian geometry and continually use solar time in our daily activities.
Maritain’s real target was Kant’s critical philosophy, which found physics to be possible, but metaphysics not. Maritain commented that Kant’s philosophy was not only “the metaphysical larva” that relativists profess, but one that has led a great number of modern scientists to confuse time with measured time. Einstein’s time is “fictional and imaginary,” Maritain insisted. In this context, perhaps it is not irrelevant to note that Einstein was awarded a Nobel Prize, not for his theory of relativity, but for his discovery of the law of photoelectric effect.
As he presented his theory in 1905, Einstein speculated, if two clocks were set at the same time with respect to each other, and if one of them separated from the other traveling at a constant speed, they would mark different times depending on their respective velocities. Although observers traveling with the clocks would be unable to notice any changes in their respective systems, one of them would slow in comparison to the other.
Researchers could calculate a striking difference between time, as measured by a stationary clock, compared with time as measured by a clock in motion.
Einstein’s hypothesis, as first developed in 1905, was widely criticized for lack of empirical evidence. Heidegger said Einstein was dealing not with time but with the measurement of time.
Husserl implied that Einstein’s revolutionary concept of time came at a high price insofar as science distanced itself from those aspects of time that have meaning for us. Although Einstein’s theory did not at first deal with acceleration or with change of direction, he continued to develop or perfect it between 1905 and 1915.
Readers may appreciate an added dimension to the book. Canales’ narrative not only speaks of the science of the period, but reveals much about the personalities of her protagonists as well as their social and cultural traditions — the difference, one may say, between France and Germany in the early years of the 20th century.
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