5 - Special Relativity and Conventionalism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on special relativity and conventionalism. There has been considerable debate concerning the status of the concept of simultaneity in the theory of special relativity. The three principal exponents of conventionalism are Henri Poincaré, Hans Reichenbach, and Adolf Grünbaum. Discussion of conventionalism as it pertains to special relativity has been focused on the status of the concept of simultaneity, which is central to special relativistic kinematics. Reichenbach argues that there are infinitely many alternative definitions that, from a strictly epistemic standpoint, are as legitimate as that of Einstein. On the Reichenbach–Grünbaum interpretation of special relativity, it is argued that the principle of constancy refers only to round-trip light velocities. Grünbaum has frequently warned against an excessive empiricism of the kind that has been dubbed experimenticism.