Einstein, Idealism, and Nonsense: Dorothy Wrinch on the Elimination of Metaphysics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/jhap.v15i2.6091Abstract
I offer a contribution to studies into the role played by women in the history of analytic philosophy through an examination of the way in which Dorothy Wrinch rejected idealism in the early 1920s. I show that Wrinch viewed certain idealist interpretations of Einsteinian physics as literally not significant, through an application of Russell’s notion of ‘logical construction’ to scientific concepts. I show, though, that Wrinch’s view departed from Russell’s in certain crucial respects and constitutes an original and radical empiricism rooted in an understanding of scientific language. I briefly compare Wrinch’s empiricism with that of the Aufbau and show that her rejection of metaphysics pre-dates that of Carnap by several years.
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