Philosophical leanings

Einstein said he owed an intellectual debt to the philosopher David Hume in a letter which emerged as recently as 2019. Although Hume’s ethics have recently been called into question for writing ‘racist epithets’, Einstein avidly studied

A Treatise of Human Nature,

published in 1739, shortly before he discovered the theory of relativity. “It is very possible that without these philosophical studies, I can not say that the solution would have come,” he wrote.

Hume believed that time didn’t exist separately from the movement of objects, and he also believed scientific concepts should not only be based on reason, but evidence and experience. Einstein said philosophical thinking was the difference “between a mere artisan or specialist and real seeker after truth”. It’s understood that he was introduced to Hume’s work when he was in

Switzerland.