"The only justification for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that the philosophers have had a harmful effect upon the progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of the a priori. For even if it should appear that the universe of ideas cannot be deduced from experience by logical means, but is, in a sense, a creation of the human mind, without which no science is possible, nevertheless this universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form of the human body. This is particularly true of our concepts of time and space, which physicists have been obliged by the facts to bring down from the Olympus of the a priori in order to adjust them and put them in a servicable condition."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity (1921) Lecture I, Space and Time in Pre-Relativity Physics
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philosophy
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Philosophy
195 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Philosophy →
Related Quotes
"Philosophy that satisfies its own intention, and does not childishly skip behind its own history and the real one, ha…"
"If philosophy is still necessary, it is so only in the way it has been from time immemorial: as critique, as resistan…"
"As solid citizens, philosophers ally themselves in practice with the powers they condemn in theory."
"Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois …"
"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural …"
"(Philosophy is)"
"An art, which has an aim to achieve the beauty, is called a philosophy or in the absolute sense it is named wisdom."
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."
"You cannot be a philosopher. You cannot be one because you are a believer. A Catholic cannot be a philosopher'. So sa…"
"Philosophy … consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems."