Gerald Holton has famously described Einstein’s career as a philosophical “pilgrimage”. Starting on “the historic ground” of Machian positivism and phenomenalism, following the completion of general relativity in late 1915, Einstein’s philosophy endured (a) a speculative turn: physical theorizing appears as ultimately a “pure mathematical construction” guided by faith in the simplicity of nature and (b) a realistic turn: science is “nothing more than a refinement ”of the everyday belief in the existence of mind-independent physical reality. Nevertheless, Einstein’s mathematical constructivism (...) that supports his unified field theory program appears to be, at first sight, hardly compatible with the common sense realism with which he countered quantum theory. Thus, literature on Einstein’s philosophy of science has often struggled in finding the thread between ostensibly conflicting philosophical pronouncements. This paper supports the claim that Einstein’s dialog with Émile Meyerson from the mid 1920s till the early 1930s might be a neglected source to solve this riddle. According to Einstein, Meyerson shared (a) his belief in the independent existence of an external world and (b) his conviction that the latter can be grasped only by speculative means. Einstein could present his search for a unified field theory as a metaphysical-realistic program opposed to the positivistic-operationalist spirit of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The article discusses the concept of “holistic” causality which has superseded that of “mechanistic causality”, “mechanism”.In a sequence of events a causal nexus is mentally established, attention being directed either to the initiation, the starting, the incitation of the process or to the conservation of matter and energy in the initiated transformation: initiation causality and conservation causality .As a rule, the two kinds of causality are intimately interlinked, though they often are easily to be distinguished; for instance, catalytic causation and (...) stimulus influences are clearly forms of A.K.If a “totality” , i.e., a more or les closed and stable uniformity of coexistences, is “pushed” or incited , it actively responds from its content of free energy by an event combining within itself A.K., E.K., and reciprocity . This complex causality is holistic causality . Holistic causality, already to be found in the inorganic, appears to perfection in the stimulus causality of organism with its development of form and conservation of form; likewise in the entire psycho-physical phenomenation: psychic A.K., motive causality.Thus, in the constant “Ocean of matter and energy” there is a “demon of unrest” in the guise of A.K., setting up a distinct hierarchy ranging from atomistic causality to mechanic, chemical, and catalytic causality, and beyond to physiobiological “incitation” and to psychic, or even “supra-psychic”, direction and evolution causality.Dans ce traité il s'agit d'une discussion de la conception de causalité „holistique” qui a remplacé l'autocratie de la „causalité mécanique”, du „mécanisme”.Dans des séquences d'événements, l'intellect reconnaît des causalnexus, en observant ou l'impulsion, le motif, le stimulus de l'action — ou, dans la transformation initiée, la conservation de la matière et de l'énergie: causalité impulsatrice et causalité conservatrice .A l'ordinaire ces deux causalités sont étroitement liées; mais souvent elles se laissent distinguer sans difficulté. Par exemple, les effets catalytiques et les influences stimulantes sont expressément des formes de l'A.K.Si une „totalité” , c.-à-d. un système, un ordre en coïncidences, plus ou moins clos et stable, est „poussé” ou stimulé , il répond, du fonds de son énergie libre, par une action qui unit en soi l'A.K., l'E.K. et la réciprocité . Cette causalité complexe est la causalité holistique , déjà existante dans l'inorganique. Elle apparaît parfaite dans la causalité stimulus de l'organisme à tendances formatives et conservatives, ainsi que dans tous les rapports psychophysiques: A.K. psychique, causalité motive.Ainsi, il y a dans la „Mer constante de la matière et de l'énergie” un „courant d'inquiétude” qui se présente comme l'A.K. Cet „esprit” laisse reconnaître une distincte hiérarchie , s'étendant de la causalité dans la physique atomaire et la causalité mécanique, chimique et catalytique, jusqu'à l'„excitation” physio-biologique et jusqu'à la causalité directrice et évolutionnaire, psychique ou même „superpsychique”. (shrink)