Elements of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetics in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Abstract

Einstein was familiar with The Critique of Pure Reason from an early age and would return to Kant’s texts later in his life. Based upon research on Einstein’s and Kant’s approach to cognition and their argumentation on space and time, the authors claim that both represent a certain form of synthesis between rationalism and empiricism; therefore, the authors’ research agrees with what has previously been published. However, Einstein interprets the a priori differently, though he does not reject it. In Einstein’s treatment of space and time as space–time, one can see that it coincides with Kant’s philosophy: namely, it is comprised of elements of spontaneity and syntheticity of cognition and of the separation of space and time from other categories but also their association in the act of sensory perception.