D O C U M E N T S 5 7 , 5 8 J U N E 1 9 2 0 1 9 5
57. From Hans Reichenbach
Stuttgart, 13 Wiederhold St., 15 June 1920
Dear Mr. Einstein,
I must approach you with a big request. In the near future my work on Relativi-
tätstheorie und Erkenntnis a priori [Relativity Theory and a priori Knowledge] will
be appearing as a booklet (similar to Freundlich’s in breadth) with
Springer.[1]
I
would now like to ask for your permission to dedicate the work to you. You know
that with this work my intention was to frame the philosophical consequences of
your theory and to expose what great discoveries your physical theory have brought
to epistemology. By placing your name at the head of the text, I would like to ex-
press how greatly philosophy in particular is indebted to you. I know very well that
very few among tenured philosophers have the faintest idea that your theory is a
philosophical feat and that your physical conceptions contain more philosophy
than all the multi-volume works by the epigones of the great Kant. Do, therefore,
please allow me to express these thanks to you with this attempt to free the pro-
found insights of Kantian philosophy from its contemporary trappings and to com-
bine it with your discoveries within a single system.
With this dedication, however, I also want to extend to you my very personal
thanks as well, which I owe you. For I was permitted to hear out of your mouth the
deepest truths I ever encountered in physics; I shall never forget the great inspira-
tion you gave my intellectual efforts and this text in
particular.[2]
I am, in cordial devotion, yours,
Hans Reichenbach
58. From Ernst Cassirer
Hamburg, 26 Blumen St., 16 June 1920
Highly esteemed Colleague,
Accept my cordial thanks for your letter and for the great effort you expended
on a thorough study of my
manuscript.[1]
It was of prime value to me to know from
you personally that my understanding and rendition of at least the mathematical
and physical content of your theory of relativity is essentially correct. As regards
your critique of individual epistemological consequences that I had drawn, I do not
need to say that it likewise was exceptionally helpful to me and caused me to look
over my whole exposition again thoroughly and to revise many points.