"The first part of the present book, Substanzbegriff und funktionsbegriff, was published in 1910, while the second part, which we have called the supplement, Zur Einstein'schen relativit©Þtstheorie, appeared in 1921." Bibliography: p. 457-460.

Excerpt from Substance and Function, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity The investigations contained in this volume were first prompted by studies in the philosophy oi_ mathematics. In the course of an attempt to comprehend the fundamental conceptions of mathematics from the point of view of logic, it became necessary to analyse more closely the function of the concept itself and to trace it back to its presuppositions. Here, however, a peculiar difficulty arose: the traditional logic of the concept, in its well-known features, proved inadequate even to characterize the problems to which the theory of the principles of mathematics led. It became increasingly evident that exact science had here reached questions for which there existed no precise correlate in the traditional language of formal logic. The content of mathematical knowledge pointed back to a fundamental form of the concept not clearly defined and recognized within logic itself. In particular, investigations concerning the concepts of the series and of the limit, the special results of which, however, could not be included in the general exposition of this book, con firmed this view and led to a renewed analysis of the principles of the construction of concepts in general. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Semi-technical account includes a review of classical physics (origin of space and time measurements, Ptolemaic and Copernican astronomy, laws of motion, inertia, more) and of Einstein's theories of relativity.

Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a better basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead's theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as W. V. Quine. In this way, McHenry defends the naturalised and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.