Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to reexamine Einstein's philosophical development and to present the main ideas of Einstein's philosophy of science, using as far as possible his original expressions. Although the subject matter has been heavily studied by many scholars, only a few offered a systematic analysis of it. Thus the interesting problems related to Einstein's philosophical development and the intricate problem of Einstein's position on the issue of interaction between science and metaphysics require further studies. ;The dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part I attempt to clarify some basic problems related Einstein's rational realism, such as its foundation and new features, and the tortuous path which led Einstein to his mature philosophical position. Four basic requirements for constructing a satisfactory physical theory are discussed in detail. They were Einstein's metaphysical presuppositions for what the external world should be, or the possible ways of representing it. The curve in the path of founding his general theory of relativity is crucial for Einstein's philosophical development. I argue that the three aspects, complexity of reality , fictitious character of the fundamentals of scientific theory , and rationalism , ate the major epistemological lessons which Einstein learned from his work on the general theory of relativity. ;The second part discusses Einstein's epistemological credo which is the philosophical heritage that Einstein left for us. Special attention is paid to Einstein's solution to Hume's problem of induction. I try to show that, according to Einstein, there are two unavoidable jumps existing in the thought processes of both invention and justification. Einstein's schema for the process of principle theory construction may be expressed as $\rm \overline{E\sb1J\sb1ASJ\sb2E\sb2\ }.$ Hence considerations of theory choice are related to the whole process of scientific theory construction; they should not be limited to testability alone