The Ontology of General Relativity

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General Relativity generated various early philosophical interpretations. His adherents have highlighted the „relativization of inertia” and the concept of simultaneity, Kantians and Neo-Kantians have underlined the approach of certain synthetic „intellectual forms” (especially the principle of general covariance, and logical empirics have emphasized the philosophical methodological significance of the theory.

Reichenbach approached the GR through the „relativity of geometry” thesis, trying to build a „constructive axiomatization” of relativity based on „elementary matters of fact” (Elementartatbestande) for the observable behavior of light rays, rods and clocks.

The mathematician Hermann Weyl attempted a reconstruction of Einstein’s theory based on the epistemology of a „pure infinitesimal geometry”, an extended geometry with additional terms that formally identified with the potential of the electromagnetic field.