Hans Reichenbach Quotes
Hans Reichenbach was a German-American philosopher of science and the founder of the Berlin Circle of logical empiricists. Trained in physics and mathematics, he produced foundational work on probability, induction, and the philosophy of space and time, including The Philosophy of Space and Time and The Theory of Probability. The quotes below are attributed to Hans Reichenbach, organized by topic.
Browse Hans Reichenbach by topic
Hans Reichenbach on Justice
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“...the relation of betweenness on the torus is undetermined for curves that cannot be contracted to a point [e.g., circles around a doughnut hole], i.e., for three of such curves it is not uniquely determined which of them lies between the other two. ..This indeterminateness... has the consequence that such a curve [alone] does not divide the surface of the torus into two separate domains ; between points to the "right" and to the "left" of the line.”
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Hans Reichenbach on Knowledge
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Attributed to Hans Reichenbach:
“Probability is the language of induction.”
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Attributed to Hans Reichenbach:
“We must distinguish the context of discovery from the context of justification.”
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Attributed to Hans Reichenbach:
“The aim of philosophy is to clarify the language of science.”
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“Although it is admitted that certain differences cannot be verified by experiment, we should not infer from this fact that they do not exist. ...we are accused of having confused subjective inability with objective indeterminacy .”
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“...the order of betweenness does not depend on mutual distances... betweenness is purely a relational order.”
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“...the differential element of non-Euclidean spaces is Euclidean. This fact, however, is analogous to the relations between a straight line and a curve, and cannot lead to an epistemological priority of Euclidean geometry, in contrast to the views of certain authors.”
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“Visual forms are not perceived differently from colors or brightness. They are sense qualities, and the visual character of geometry consists in these sense qualities.”
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“...the mathematician uses an indirect definition of congruence, making use of the fact that the axiom of parallels together with an additional condition can replace the definition of congruence.”
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“We must... maintain that mathematical geometry is not a science of space insofar as we understand by space a visual structure that can be filled with objects - it is a pure theory of manifolds.”
The Philosophy of Space and Time(1928, tr. 1957)
Hans Reichenbach on Mind
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“We are frequently faced with the necessity of looking for the picture required for the visualization of an object, not in the perception of this particular object, but in a different perceptual image. ...we can assert the discrepancy between the perceived picture and the objective state. This discrepancy... proves absolutely nothing against the fact that all visualizations are merely sense qualities of the perceptual space. ...If the parallelism is ...to be visualized, we must supplement our assertion by the description of certain qualities with which we are familiar from perceptual space.”
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“Perceptual space is not a special space in addition to physical space, but physical space which we endow with a special subjective metric. ...apart from the definition of congruence in physics and that based on perception, there is no third one derived from pure visualization . Any such third definition is nothing but the definition of physical congruence to which our normative function has adjusted the subjective experience of congruence.”
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Hans Reichenbach on Nature
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Attributed to Hans Reichenbach:
“Causality is a regularity of succession refined by laws.”
Hans Reichenbach on Politics
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“Common to the two geometries is only the general property of one-to-one correspondence , and the rule that this correspondence determines straight lines as shortest lines as well as their relations of intersection.”
The Philosophy of Space and Time(1928, tr. 1957)
Hans Reichenbach on Time
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Attributed to Hans Reichenbach:
“There is no absolute time; time is relative to the frame of reference.”
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“This fact... proves that space measurements are reducible to time measurements. Time is therefore logically prior to space .”
The Philosophy of Space and Time(1928, tr. 1957) -
“Light signals alone provide the metrical structure of the four-dimensional space-time continuum. The construction may be called light axioms .”
The Philosophy of Space and Time(1928, tr. 1957)
Hans Reichenbach on Truth
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“If along the path of truth, success (which was often near-failure unnoticed) is subjected to the same scrutiny and desire for improvement as failure, we may find ourselves in closer proximity to trees.”
Hans Reichenbach (1951). The rise of scientific philosophy . University of California Press. p. 326. ISBN 0520010558 . -
“We can... treat only the geometrical aspects of mathematics and shall be satisfied in having shown that there is no problem of the truth of geometrical axioms and that no special geometrical visualization exists in mathematics.”
The Philosophy of Space and Time(1928, tr. 1957)