---
title: "Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein"
chunk: 10/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:33:53.313065+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Teleology ===
In a conversation with Ugo Onufri in 1955, with regards to nature's purpose he said, "I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic." In a 1947 letter he stated, "I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere."

=== Epistemology ===

==== Naïve realism ====
Einstein believed naïve realism was "relatively simple" to disprove. He agreed with Bertrand Russell that humans observe the qualities objects have on them (greenness, coldness, hardness, etc.) and not the actual objects themselves.

==== Positivism ====
Einstein declared that he was no positivist, a philosophical system that declares that only those statements that are verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are useful in determining truth. Einstein maintained that people validly use certain ideas and values, such as intuition or religious faith, which cannot be proven with direct observation or logic.
Einstein acknowledged however that positivist thinkers, such as Ernst Mach, had a deep influence on him in his early years. Regarding relativity theory, he writes: "the whole direction of thought of this theory conforms with Mach's..." Though Einstein maintained that Mach's positivism is unfruitful in theory development, he considered that positivism was still useful, commenting that: "It [positivistic philosophy] cannot give birth to anything living, it can only exterminate harmful vermin."

===== Transcendental Idealism =====

Einstein considered that Kant’s "denial of the objectivity of space can (...) hardly be taken seriously". He also believed that "if Kant had known what is known to us today of the natural order, I am certain that he would have fundamentally revised his philosophical conclusions. Kant built his structure upon the foundations of the world outlook of Kepler and Newton. Now that the foundation has been undermined, the structure no longer stands."

=== Opinions on philosophers ===

==== David Hume ====
Einstein was an admirer of the philosophy of David Hume; in 1944 he said "If one reads Hume’s books, one is amazed that many and sometimes even highly esteemed philosophers after him have been able to write so much obscure stuff and even find grateful readers for it. Hume has permanently influenced the development of the best philosophers who came after him." In a letter to Moritz Schlick Einstein remarked that he had read Hume's book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding "with eagerness and admiration shortly before finding relativity theory" and that "very possibly, I wouldn't have come to the solution without those philosophical studies".

==== Immanuel Kant ====
Some sources maintain that Einstein read the three Critiques at the age of 16 and studied Kant as a teenager. However Philip Stamp states that this is contradicted by some of his own claims. In 1949, Einstein said that he "did not grow up in the Kantian tradition, but came to understand the truly valuable which is to be found in his doctrine, alongside of errors which today are quite obvious, only quite late."
In one of Einstein's letters in 1918 to Max Born, Einstein said that he was starting to discover this "truly valuable" in Kant: "I am reading Kant's Prolegomena here, among other things, and I am beginning to comprehend the enormous suggestive power that emanated from the fellow, and still does. Once you concede to him merely the existence of synthetic a priori judgements, you are trapped. Anyway it is nice to read him, even if it is not as good as his predecessor Hume's work. Hume also had a far sounder instinct."
Einstein explained the significance of Kant's philosophy as follows:

Hume saw that concepts which we must regard as essential, such as, for example, causal connection, cannot be gained from material given to us by the senses. This insight led him to a sceptical attitude as concerns knowledge of any kind. Man has an intense desire for assured knowledge. That is why Hume's clear message seems crushing: the sensory raw material, the only source of our knowledge, through habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge and still less to the understanding of lawful relations. Then Kant took the stage with an idea which, though certainly untenable in the form in which he put it, signified a step towards the solution of Hume's dilemma: if we have definitely assured knowledge, it must be grounded in reason itself.

==== Arthur Schopenhauer ====
Schopenhauer's views on the independence of spatially separated systems influenced Einstein, who called him a genius. In their view it was a necessary assumption that the mere difference in location suffices to make two systems different, with each having its own real physical state, independent of the state of the other.
In Einstein's Berlin study three figures hung on the wall: Faraday, Maxwell and Schopenhauer. Einstein described, concerning the personal importance of Schopenhauer for him, Schopenhauer's words as "a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance." Although Schopenhauer's works are known for their pessimism, Konrad Wachsmann remembered, "He often sat with one of the well-worn Schopenhauer volumes, and as he sat there, he seemed so pleased, as if he were engaged with a serene and cheerful work."

==== Ernst Mach ====
Einstein liked Ernst Mach's scientific work, though not his philosophical work. He said "Mach was as good a scholar of mechanics as he was a deplorable philosopher". However, Einstein's early epistemological views were deeply influenced by Mach. In his "Autobiographical Notes," he writes: "I see Mach's greatness in his incorruptible skepticism and independence; in my younger years, however, Mach's epistemological position also influenced me very greatly, a position which today appears to me to be essentially untenable."