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> Robert Thornton, a young African-American philosopher of science How is his ethnic background possibly relevant?
by jimhefferon 9y ago
> Robert Thornton, a young African-American philosopher of science
How is his ethnic background possibly relevant?
- boomboomsubban 9y agoThe entire bit about Robert Thornton seems unnecessary, they can't even keep his name consistent. Though a German citizen writing a letter to an African-American in 1944 probably does say a fair amount about his philosophy of science, if you include the letter at all it seems worth mentioning.
- gpawl 9y agoIt's strange to call Albert Einstein a "German citizen" in _1944_, since by 1943 all German Jews had been murdered or exiled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein > In 1901, after being stateless for more than five years, Einstein acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest of his life. > He settled in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1940
- boomboomsubban 9y agoYes, that was the point. And being an American citizen tells you more about his philosophy, as most American physicists would not have been allowed to write such a letter in 1944.
- bbctol 9y agoI thought they might want to avoid confusion with Robert Thornton, the nuclear physicist of the same era, but for some reason didn't want to include a parenthetical "not the famous one" and so provided some extra detail. Even if it's that it's extremely clumsy, though.