The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time
488
The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time
488eBookCourse Book (Course Book)
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
The explosive debate that transformed our views about time and scientific truth
On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson's theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein's theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today.
Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped to shape people’s conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival’s legacy—Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion.
The Physicist and the Philosopher is a magisterial and revealing account that shows how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781400865772 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 06/09/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 488 |
| Sales rank: | 1,012,414 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Physicist & The Philosopher
Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed our Understanding of Time
By Jimena Canales
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4008-6577-2
CHAPTER 1
Untimely
On April 6, 1922, Einstein met a man he would never forget. He was one of the most celebrated philosophers of the century, widely known for espousing a theory of time that explained what clocks did not: memories, premonitions, expectations and anticipations. Thanks to him, we now know that to act on the future one needs to start by changing the past.
Why does one thing did not always lead to the next? The meeting had been planned as a cordial and scholarly event. It was anything but that. The physicist and the philosopher clashed, each defending opposing, even irreconcilable, ways of understanding time. At the Société française de philosophie—one of the most venerable institutions in France—they confronted each other under the eyes of a select group of intellectuals. The "dialogue between the greatest philosopher and the greatest physicist of the 20th century" was dutifully written down. It was a script fit for the theater. The meeting, and the words they uttered, would be discussed for the rest of the century.
The philosopher's name was Henri Bergson. In the early decades of the century, his fame, prestige, and influence surpassed that of the physicist—who, in contrast, is so well known today. Bergson's reputation was at risk after he confronted the younger man. But so was Einstein's. The criticisms leveled against the physicist were immediately damaging. When the Nobel Prize was awarded to Einstein a few months later, it was not given for the theory that had made the physicist famous: relativity. Instead, it was given "for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"—an area of science that hardly jolted the public's imagination to the degree that relativity did. The reasons behind the decision to focus on work other than relativity were directly traced to what Bergson said that day in Paris.
The president of the Nobel Committee explained that although "most discussion centers on his theory of relativity," it did not merit the prize. Why not? The reasons were surely varied and complex, but the culprit mentioned that evening was clear: "It will be no secret that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged this theory." Bergson had shown that relativity "pertains to epistemology" rather than to physics—and so it "has therefore been the subject of lively debate in philosophical circles."
The explanation that day surely reminded Einstein of the previous spring's events in Paris. Clearly, he had provoked a controversy. These were the consequences. He had been unable to convince many thinkers of the value of his definition of time, especially when his theory was compared against that of the eminent philosopher. In his acceptance speech, Einstein remained stubborn. He delivered a lecture that was not about the photoelectric effect, for which he had been officially granted the prize, but about relativity—the work that had made him a star worldwide but which was now in question.
The invocation of Bergson's name by the presenter of the Nobel Prize was a spectacular triumph for the philosopher who had lived his life and made an illustrious career by showing how time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science. It had to be understood, he persistently and consistently insisted, philosophically. But what exactly did he mean by that? As it turns out, Bergson's philosophy was as controversial as Einstein's physics.
What led these two brilliant individuals to adopt opposite positions on nearly all the pertinent issues of their era? What caused a century to end as divided as the twentieth did? Why did two of the greatest minds of modern times disagree so starkly, dividing intellectual communities for years to come?
THAT EVENING
On that "truly historic" day when the two met, Bergson was unwillingly dragged into a discussion he had explicitly intended to avoid. The philosopher was by then much more senior than Einstein. He spoke for about half an hour. He had been prodded by an impertinent colleague, who had been in turn pressured to speak by the event organizer. "We are more Einsteinian than you, Monsieur Einstein," he said. His objections would be heard far and wide. "Bergson was supposed by all of us to be dead," explained the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis, "but Relativity, oddly enough at first sight, has resuscitated him."
The physicist responded in less than a minute—including in his answer one damning and frequently cited sentence: "Il n'y a done pas un temps des philosophes." Einstein's reply—stating that the time of the philosophers did not exist—was incendiary.
Einstein had traveled to the City of Lights from Berlin. When his train arrived at the Gare du Nord, "photographers, reporters, filmmakers, officials and diplomats awaited him in imposing numbers." The scientific celebrity decided to descend by the other side of the tracks, escaping surreptitiously, like a robber. He made his way through dangerous cables and warning signs before arriving at a tiny door that led to the boulevard de la Chapelle, which, in the afternoon, was as empty as the Sahara Desert. Safe from the cameras and the crowds, Einstein laughed like a child.
The physicist's visit was "a sensation that the intellectual snobbery of the capital could not pass up." Intellectuals were not the only ones excited by his presence. It literally set off "crowds in a craze," quickly enthralling unsuspecting Parisians. An observer described an "unfettered frenzy by the public at large around certain of Einstein's commentators." Einstein's trip "reanimated and brought to the stage of a paroxysm the curiosity of the public for the scientist and his work."
What Einstein said next that evening was even more controversial: "There remains only a psychological time that differs from the physicist's." At that very moment, Einstein laid down the gauntlet by considering as valid only two ways of understanding time: physical and psychological. These two ways of examining time, although scandalous in the particular context that Einstein uttered them, had a long history. With Einstein, they would have an even longer one—becoming two dominant prisms inflecting most investigations into the nature of time during the twentieth century.
The simple, dualistic perspective on time advocated by Einstein appalled Bergson. The philosopher responded by writing a whole book dedicated to confronting Einstein. His theory is "a metaphysics grafted upon science, it is not science," he wrote.
Einstein fought back with all his energy, strength, and resources. In the years that followed, Bergson was largely perceived to have lost the debate against the younger physicist. The scientist's views on time came to dominate most learned discussions on the topic, keeping in abeyance not only Bergson's but many other artistic and literary approaches, by relegating them to a position of secondary, auxiliary importance. For many, Bergson's defeat represented a victory of "rationality" against "intuition." It marked a moment when intellectuals were no longer able to keep up with revolutions in science due to its increasing complexity. For that reason, they should stay out of it. Science and its consequences should be left to those who arguably knew something about it—the scientists themselves. Thus began "the story of the setback, after a period of unprecedented success, of Bergson's philosophy of absolute time—unquestionably under the impact of relativity." Most important, then began the period when the relevance of philosophy declined in the face of the rising influence of science.
Biographers who write about Einstein's life and work rarely mention Bergson. One exception, a book written by a colleague, paints a picture of eventual rapprochement between the two men. But other evidence shows just how divisive their encounter was. A few years before their deaths, Bergson wrote about Einstein (1937), and Einstein mentioned Bergson (1953) one last time. They underlined—once again—just how wrong the perspective of the other remained. While the debate was for the most part removed from Einstein's legacy, it was periodically brought up by many of Bergson's followers.17 The simple act of reviving the discussion that took place that day in April 1922 was not a matter that could be taken lightly. Not only is the incident itself divisive—its relevance for history is still contested.
The two men dominated most discussions about time during the first half of the twentieth century. Thanks to Einstein, time had been finally "deposed from its high seat," brought down from the lofty peak of philosophy to the practical down-to-earth territory of physics. He had shown that "our belief in the objective meaning of simultaneity" as well as that of absolute time had to be forever "discarded" after he had successfully "banished this dogma from our minds." The physicist had shown that "space by itself, and time by itself" were two concepts "doomed to fade away into mere shadows."
Bergson, in contrast, claimed that there was more to Time than scientists had ever wagered—and he meant scientists of all stripes, ranging from Darwinian evolutionists to astronomers and physicists. To explain those aspects of Time that were most important and that scientists constantly disregarded, Bergson would frequently capitalize the term. He associated it with élan vital, a concept translated worldwide as "vital impulse." This impulse, he argued, was interwoven throughout the universe giving life an unstoppable impulse and surge, ever productive of new unexpected creations, and imperfectly grasped by science. Although science could only deal with it imperfectly, it was the backbone of artistic and creative work. Bergson's influence on literature was seen as spreading to Gertrude Stein, T. S. Elliot, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and numerous others who introduced breaks, twists, and turns in narratives where the future appeared before the past and the past after the future.
Einstein's and Bergson's contributions appeared to their contemporaries forcefully at odds, representing two competing strands of modern times. Vitalism was contrasted against mechanization, creation against ratiocination, and personality against uniformity. During these years, Bergson's philosophy was often placed next to the first in these pairs of terms; Einstein's work frequently appeared alongside the second.21 Bergson was associated with metaphysics, antirationalism, and vitalism, the idea that life permeates everything. Einstein with their opposites: with physics, rationality, and the idea that the universe (and our knowledge of it) could stand just as well without us. Each man represented one side of salient, irreconcilable dichotomies that characterized modernity.
This period consolidated a world largely split into science and the rest. What is unique about the appearance of these divisions and subsequent incarnations is that after the Einstein and Bergson encounter, science frequently appeared firmly on one side of the dichotomy. Other areas of culture appeared on the other side—including philosophy, politics, and art.
The stature of both men was envied by many of their contemporaries. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, once described himself as having "little claim to be named beside Bergson and Einstein as one of the intellectual sovereigns" of his era. The confrontation between them was "a controversy that presently separates the two most renowned men of our times." Although Einstein's brain was paraded in formaldehyde as the perfect embodiment of the organ of genius, the locks of Bergson's hair kept at his barbershop were "treated as holy relics."
"Early in this century, two very prominent, and originally independent, lines of thought collided," explained a physicist and historian who put his career on the line by siding with Bergson. "On the one hand ... was the system of Bergson.... On the other hand, the physical theory of relativity, which ... dominated scientific thought," he continued. "It was inevitable that one or the other of these views should give way," he concluded. More recently, the debate between them continues to be widely perceived as inevitable. "Bergson's confrontation with Einstein was inevitable," wrote the famous philosopher Gilles Deleuze, more than half a century after their meeting. And thus we find these two men playing key roles in the salient divisions of modern times. Can we move beyond them?
Bergson's defeat was a decisive turning point for him personally, when the fame, wisdom, and caution of the elder was tested by the impetuous braggadocio of the younger, but it was also a key moment marking the rise of the authority of science vis-à-vis other forms of knowledge. In the years that followed their meeting, the philosopher and physicist became engaged in numerous other disputes that would touch on just about everything. Some of their differences were highly abstract—about the nature of time, the role of philosophy, and the reach and power of science. Others were more concrete, such as the role of the government, the place of religion in modern societies, and the fate of the League of Nations. But almost anywhere that we look—from vegetarianism to war, from race to faith—we find that the two men took pretty much opposite stands on almost all pertinent issues of their time.
There are many reasons why we know much about Einstein and little about Bergson. Most of them have to do with how the debate intensified after their first meeting; the debate took off like wild fire. The tension between the two men escalated after Bergson published a no-holds-barred book devoted to relativity theory. The controversial tome, designed to be carefully followed with pencil or pen in hand, appeared later that year. Duration and Simultaneity inspired hundreds of responses by prominent thinkers centrally engaged with the disagreement between the physicist and the philosopher. The book was as contentious as it was successful. Nearly a decade after its publication, a writer and eager reader of the work of both men still asked: "Would the book by the most brilliant of the contemporary philosophers clarify the ideas of the most brilliant of the scientists?" In 1936, less than a decade and a half after it first appeared, a successful biologist warned prospective buyers that they "might have difficulty in finding" a copy of Duration and Simultaneity "as the last edition is exhausted."
Einstein is well known and respected today; Bergson is much less. Yet at the time of their meeting the situation was quite the opposite. Bergson was an established figure as a public intellectual and philosopher, hobnobbing in the mornings with heads of state, filling lecture rooms in the afternoon, and providing bedtime reading for many at night; Einstein had only recently become a rising star in the eyes of the public and was still finding his voice outside of scientific spheres.
Bergson and Einstein met a few more times and exchanged a couple of letters. Einstein sent a friendly postcard from Rio de Janeiro to Bergson after their problematic encounter in Paris. They never debated publically again. Instead, they propagated their respective positions in publications and letters to others. Some of these letters eventually reached the public; others remained in private hands until they found their way to archives. Through them, we can trace clear instances of highly effective backbiting. A number of prominent disciples took it upon themselves to end the debate in favor of the man they supported. The debate grew to engulf the public at large. Few remained neutral.
After their first encounter, Einstein insisted that the philosopher simply did not understand the physics of relativity—an accusation with which most of Einstein's defenders agreed and which Bergson forcefully resisted. In light of these accusations, Bergson revised his argument in three separate appendices to Duration and Simultaneity that he included in a second edition and in a separate paper published in a specialized journal. Bergson's response has frequently been ignored. By taking it in consideration, we can see that their dispute hinged on a lot more than mere technical disagreements pertaining to factual details of relativity theory. Bergson never acknowledged defeat. According to him, it was Einstein and his interlocutors who did not understand him.
In one sense this book is about one day, but in another it is much broader. Before the two men actually met, it seemed nearly impossible to foresee such a strong potential for conflict between them, their science, and their philosophies. We find some evidence of animosity on Einstein's part in 1914, when in a letter to a friend he described Bergson's philosophy as "flaccid" and not even worth reading for the purpose of improving his command of the French language. For Bergson, evidence reveals the contrary: an initial fascination with Einstein and his theory. A friend of his recalled how, upon hearing about it, the philosopher plunged himself into a careful study of its mathematics. At that time, Bergson thought he would publish only a "note" on it, with an overall positive assessment. It would "show the agreement between relativity and my views on space and spatial time," he confided to a friend. But these conciliatory intentions soon waned. It became clear that Bergson's concept of duration—a label used by the philosopher to describe aspects of time that could never be grasped quantitatively—had to be "set apart."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Physicist & The Philosopher by Jimena Canales. Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface viiPART 1. THE DEBATE
CHAPTER 1 Untimely 3
CHAPTER 2 "More Einsteinian than Einstein" 16
CHAPTER 3 Science or Philosophy? 38
PART 2. THE MEN
CHAPTER 4 The Twin Paradox 53
CHAPTER 5 Bergson's Achilles' Heel 62
CHAPTER 6 Worth Mentioning? 73
CHAPTER 7 Bergson Writes to Lorentz 87
CHAPTER 8 Bergson Meets Michelson 98
CHAPTER 9 The Debate Spreads 114
CHAPTER 10 Back from Paris 131
CHAPTER 11 Two Months Later 139
CHAPTER 12 Logical Positivism 153
CHAPTER 13 The Immediate Aftermath 162
CHAPTER 14 An Imaginary Dialogue 172
CHAPTER 15 "Full-Blooded" Time 179
CHAPTER 16 The Previous Spring 195
CHAPTER 17 The Church 203
CHAPTER 18 The End of Universal Time 218
CHAPTER 19 Quantum Mechanics 230
PART 3. THE THINGS
CHAPTER 20 Things 241
CHAPTER 21 Clocks and Wristwatches 252
CHAPTER 22 Telegraph, Telephone, and Radio 265
CHAPTER 23 Atoms and Molecules 274
CHAPTER 24 Einstein's Films: Reversible 283
CHAPTER 25 Bergson's Movies: Out of Control 292
CHAPTER 26 Microbes and Ghosts 303
CHAPTER 27 One New Point: Recording Devices 315
PART 4. THE WORDS
CHAPTER 28 Bergson's Last Comments 327
CHAPTER 29 Einstein's Last Thoughts 337
Postface 349
Acknowledgments 359
Notes 363
Bibliography 423
Index 451
What People are Saying About This
"The Physicist and the Philosopher explores the nature of time, the meaning of relativity, and the place of philosophical thought in a scientific age. Canales aims to reposition Einstein's work in a field of disputation and give Bergson back the significance he had in his contemporaries' minds."—Cathryn Carson, University of California, Berkeley"Like a stone cast on still waters, the Einstein-Bergson debate on the nature of time set off ever-widening ripples in physics and philosophy, but also in art, politics, and religion. In this fascinating book, Canales has written a kind of alternative intellectual history of the interwar decades of the twentieth century, one full of color and improbable conjunctions of people and ideas."—Lorraine Daston, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin"Is time too important to be left to the physicists and their measuring devices? That was the issue at stake in a 1922 debate between Albert Einstein and philosopher Henri Bergson, celebrated at the time and wonderfully recovered in Jimena Canales's new book. A fascinating look at a pivotal moment in how we think about one of the most fundamental features of the universe."—Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time"Sometimes past battles have repercussions that resonate long after memories have faded. In dramatic fashion, Jimena Canales demonstrates how a seemingly forgotten debate between Einstein and Bergson about the enigma of time changed the course of intellectual history."—Palle Yourgrau, Brandeis University"Whether readers side with Einstein's physics or Bergson's philosophy isn't the most important thing: this book opens up new ways of thinking about the relationship between science and the humanities that unsettle both."—Gerald Holton, Harvard University"This exciting, hugely interesting book opens out from a short but critical encounter between the philosopher Henri Bergson and the physicist Albert Einstein to consider their philosophies and the effects of their argument on the modern idea of time. Canales turns what is at first sight a limited debate into a major transatlantic encounter of profound implications. Well-researched, well-argued, and elegant, The Physicist and the Philosopher is a first-rate work of scholarship."—Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University"The Physicist and the Philosopher is a lively and engaging account of the meaning of time in the twentieth century. Canales uses the 1922 debate between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson as a starting point from which to discuss an astonishing array of thinkers, technologies, and cultural developments. The book is an innovative, rich, and almost encyclopedic exploration of a crucially important question."—Edward Baring, author of The Young Derrida and French Philosophy, 1945–1968