Einstein's Kantian Background

• Thanks to my Eastern background, I had a feeling that my intellectual base is Kantianism, and that Einstein was also a Kantianist. I confirmed this with Eugene Wigner when I was working with him from 1984 to 1990. I published this point in 1995 in Symmetries in Science. Wigner told that I was the first person to ask this question, and asked me how I was able to formulate this question. My answer to his question is contained in my 1995 article mentioned above. A newer version can be found in in my Kant file.

• Wigner said also that he had no formal training in philosophy, but said that Kantianism was the prevailing ideology in Europe during Einstein's time as well as his time. Wigner said further that philosophers do not dictate others how to think. They simply document the way in which people think. I of course sensed Einstein's Kantian base while studying his physics. I am not aware of Einstein's papers on philosophy if he wrote them.

• In 1995, while I was reading a Sunday edition of the Washington Post, I spotted an article written by Marie Arana-Ward saying that Kant's philosophy is a product of the geography of the city called Koenigsberg, located in a Baltic wedge between Lithuania and Poland. In 1946, this place became a Russian city called Kaliningrad. In 1995, even though the Cold War was over, it was beyond my imagination to travel to this isolated place. When I was in Warsaw in 1996, I asked my Polish colleagues whether it is possible to Kaliningrad from Warsaw by train. They said No, and advised me not to go there for safety reasons.

• If Kant's philosophy is a product of the geography of Koenigsberg or Kaliningrad, the best way to study this aspect is to go there and look at the place. In June of 2005, I went there and spent three days and two nights. Indeed, I was able to confirm the geographic origin of Kantianism as reported in the above-mentioned Washington Post article, and I learned much more.

• In December of 2005, the Physics Today carried an article by Don Howard saying that Einstein studied systematically Kant's books in his early years. The article was well organized and informative, but I still do not know the exact definition of philosophy. However, I am quite proud to be able to find out Einstein's Kantian connection by studying his physics and the geography of the place where Kant spent his entire life, by using the method of physics. Here is an arxived article written in the language of physics.

• As for philosophers, Karl Marx said "Philosophers interpret this world in various ways. There comes the question of changing the world." If Marx was talking about himself as the philosopher and Vladimir Lenin as the person who would change the world, he was wrong. Marx was right, if he was talking about Kant and Einstein! Einstein was more than a philosopher. He changed the world!

  Y. S. Kim (2006.2.12)