Philipp Frank on relativity in science and morality

Anne Siegetsleitner

pp. 215-225

in: The Life and Work of Philipp Frank, Studies in East European Thought 69 (3), 2017.

Abstract

As Einstein's successor in Prague and the author of a biography on Einstein, the physicist and philosopher Philipp Frank made relativity a central aspect of his thoughts on morality. He published his views on this topic mainly in the year 1950 in a small book entitled Relativity—A Richer Truth. As far as morality as a part of social and political life is concerned, Frank's primary interest is to show that as in science, relativity in morality does not preclude objectivity. The paper deals with the question of which conceptions of relativity and relativism Frank refers to in the context of modern science and examines the implications for objectivity and absolute values in morality.

Cited authors

Einstein Albert

Frank Philipp