围绕爱因斯坦给 Switzer 的回信的几点看法（3）
3.爱因斯坦有时也用discovery指方法的创立
有一个认为discoveries不能指前文的invention和discovery的理由是这个invention不同于discovery（见刘全慧的观点）。
但是我不觉得这是个问题。
我们可以问，爱氏有没有过在其他地方用discovery 指思想方法的创立？
答案是肯定的, 而且也可以用achievements（这也是刘反对的）！
1920年Moszkowski的Conversations with Einstein转述,爱因斯坦说“The word ‘discovery’ in itself is regrettable”。但是同篇文章中又转述，爱因斯坦说“Intuition is the necessary condition for the discovery of such axioms”。
事实上，在爱氏自己的行文中并不排斥使用discovery，下面列几个例子。
爱因斯坦与Infeld合著过著名的Evolution of Physics。Infeld说爱氏是“chief author”。其中写道:
The discovery and use of scientific reasoning by Galileo was one of the most important achievements in the history of human thought, and marks the real beginning of physics. This discovery taught us that intuitive conclusions based on immediateobservation are not always to be trusted, for they sometimes lead to the wrong clews.
另外，关于定律的发现和原理的创立，爱因斯坦在他的自传里写道：
I despaired of the possibility of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results. The example I saw before me was thermodynamics.
下面这段是关于规则，也来自自传：
Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling offacts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unifi cation of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes.
下面这段著名的话是关于概念，来自Ideas and Opinions:
I am convinced that we can discover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena.
最后但是最重要的是，给Switzer的信的第一段里的发现（discovery）就已经用在认识论上了，而不是用在具体的科学研究上，是指“可以通过系统的实验找出因果关系”这个认识论的发现（discovery）。
（谢力的观点和方法类似，他引用了爱因斯坦的其他文字。）
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