Względność i przygodność

Abstract

The paper briefly presents empirical and rationalistic tendencies in the history of human thought. Relativistic style of contemporary physics appears to be a special kind of the old rationalistic tendency: according to the so-called Mach’s Principle (in its most exaggerated from) all physical features of the Universe may be deducted form the theory without any reference to the empirical data. E.L. Mascall in his book “Christian Theology and Natural Science“ considers the empirical character of sciences as a consequence of contingency of the material world and strongly argues against any aprioristic (Machian) lines of thought. The present author tries to prove an inefficiency of Mascall’s arguments and demonstrates that the contingency of the material world implies the necessity of experiments, yet the reverse is not true: experiemental methods cannot be regarded as an argument for the contingency of the material Universe.