ABSTRACT
More than any other scientist, Einstein created the basis for the current understanding of nature and indeed the universe. It is a philosophy manifested over Einstein's entire career, consisting in the advance or critique of theory through the use, and presumed general validity, of certain principles; physical, formal, methodological, and metaphysical. Principle theories "employ the analytic not the synthetic method"; that is, from a postulational starting point, they license logical rather than causal-dynamical inferences. Constructive theories "attempt to build up a picture of the more complex phenomena out of the materials of a relatively simple formal scheme from which they start out". The advantages of the constructive theory are completeness, adaptability, and clearness, those of the principle theory are logical perfection and security of the foundations. Einstein affirmed that relativity theory is a two-story building, the theory of special relativity on the ground floor, supporting the general theory one flight up.
