Abstract

The present note is intended to draw the reader's attention to the analysis of the relation between Newtonian Mechanics and Special Relativity Mechanics (henceforth to be referred to as NM and SRM), given by Philipp Frank, one of the classics of Logical Empiricism (in Frank [1938]). Frank's analysis of the relation between NM and SRM is interesting in many ways. Firstly, it shows clearly that problems of disruptive changes and of conceptual disparity were known to and discussed by Logical Empiricists and that, therefore, some of them at least were not at all blinded to 'dynamic' problems of changes in actual science by their view of physical theories as interpreted axiomatic systems and did not deal with those theories as 'static, frozen in logical mold'. Secondly, it reveals some of the reasons for the Logical Empiricist rejection of what came to be known later as the incommensurability claim.