Albert Einstein | Autograph letter signed, to Moritz Schlick, on Einstein's philosophy of science, 28 November 1930

Albert Einstein

Autograph draft letter signed (“A.E.”), to the philosopher Moritz Schlick,

OUTLINING HIS THOUGHTS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL NATURE OF PHYSICS ("…Physics does indeed provide relations between sensory experiences, but only indirectly. Her nature is by no means exhaustively marked in this statement..."[trans.]) in a critique of Schlick’s positivism ("..You will be surprised about the ‘metaphysical’ Einstein. But every 4- and 2-legged animal is de facto a metaphysician in this sense…" [trans.]), in German, dark blue ink, with revisions and corrections, 2 pages, on a single leaf of lined paper, folio (283 x 219mm), [Berlin, 28 November 1930], some toning, splitting at fold

…I'll tell you straight out: Physics is a (metaphysical) attempt to conceptualize a model of the real world and its lawful structure. However, it must accurately represent the empirical relations between the sensory experiences available to us; but only then is she chained to the latter. I, too, admire the achievements of quantum theory in Schrödinger-Heisenberg-Dirac's style, but I firmly believe that this way of looking at things will not and cannot be done for the long term. This theory does not provide any model of the real world at all...[trans.]

A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT LETTTER TO THE FATHER OF LOGICAL POSITIVISM. Einstein and Schlick had been corresponding since 1915, when Schlick wrote a paper on the Special Theory of Relativity, and remained in regular contact until Schlick’s untimely death in 1936. By the time this letter was written, Schlick was a key member of the Vienna Circle and, drawing on Wittgenstein’s early work, had posited a theory of knowledge based on the claim that only verifiable statements are capable of conveying truth. Einstein considered this model too restrictive; he considered himself an "epistemological opportunist". In this letter, after discussing in detail three matters in which he is in disagreement with Schlick, Einstein also expresses his scepticism about the new field of Quantum Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle. Schlick attempted to reframe the notion of causality in the light of Quantum Physics in a 1931 article, 'Causality in Contemporary Physics', and it may be that Einstein is here responding to a pre-publication text of that article. The care with which Einstein prepared his response to Schlick is evident in the extensive revisions present on the current draft, from which the letter was typed up and sent to Schlick. 

LITERATURE:

Albert Einstein Archives, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, no. 21-603 (https://ein-web.adlibhosting.com/aea/Details/archive/110023914)