SOURCE: "Einstein's Image of Himself as a Philosopher of Science," in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I Bernard Cohen, edited by Everett Mendelsohn, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 175-90.

In the following essay, Hiebert explores Einstein's position as a philosopher of science—as opposed to merely being a scientist—and his own views of himself as such.

Since antiquity, natural philosophers and scientists have expressed the conviction that the observational and experimental study of nature brings with it a good measure of intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction. Indeed, scientists on the whole claim to derive considerable personal pleasure from their work. I believe these claims are true. Now it seems plausible to assert that the machinery of human perception and cognition is both biologically structured and socially motivated to accentuate certain characteristic benchmarks of excellence in human performance. These distinctive characteristics are by no means...