Émile Meyerson

{{Short description|Polish-French epistemologist, chemist, and philosopher}}

{{Infobox philosopher

| region = Western philosophy

| era = 20th-century philosophy

| image = Émile Meyerson.jpg

| name = Émile Meyerson

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1859|2|12|df=y}}

| birth_place = Lublin, Congress Poland

| death_date = {{death date and age|1933|12|2|1859|2|12|df=y}}

| death_place = Paris, France

| alma_mater = University of Heidelberg

| school_tradition = French historical epistemologyDonald Broady, [https://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/p-broady-960923-epist.pdf "The epistemological tradition in French sociology"], 1996.
Epistemological realism
Neo-KantianismM. Anthony Mills, "Identity versus determinism: Émile Meyerson׳s neo-Kantian interpretation of the quantum theory", Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 47:33–49 (2014).

| main_interests = History and philosophy of science, epistemology, general relativity

| notable_ideas = Principle of lawfulness,[http://www.iep.utm.edu/m/meyerson.htm Émile Meyerson – The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] principle of causality

}}

Émile Meyerson ({{IPA|fr|mɛjɛʁsɔn|lang}}; 12 February 1859 – 2 December 1933) was a Polish-born French epistemologist, chemist, philosopher of science and Zionist activist. Meyerson was born in Lublin, Poland. He died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of 74.

Biography

Meyerson was born Ezryel-Szoel-Froim MeyersonBernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Eva Telkes-Klein, [https://philosophie.ens.fr/IMG/pdf/BBV-ETK1-Les-Identitees-multiples-Emile-Meyerson.pdf Les identités multiples d’Émile Meyerson], Honoré Champion, 2016, p. 17.{{efn|{{IPA|pol|ˈmɛjɛrsɔn|lang}}}} to a Jewish family. He was educated at the University of Heidelberg and studied chemistry under Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. In 1882 Meyerson settled in Paris. He served as foreign editor of the Havas news agency, and later as the director of the Jewish Colonization Association for Europe and Asia Minor. He became a naturalized French citizen after World War I.

Thomas Kuhn cites Meyerson's work as influential while developing the ideas for his main work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2012, p. xl.

In La Déduction relativiste, Meyerson expressed the view that Einstein's general theory of relativity was a new version of the identification of matter with space, which he considered "the postulate upon which the whole (Cartesian) system rests."Quoted in Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Revolt against Dualism: An Inquiry Concerning the Existence of Ideas (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996), p. 5; Lovejoy's translation [orig. publ. 1930].