| Region: | Western philosophy |
| Era: | 20th-century philosophy |
| Émile Meyerson | |
| Birth Date: | 12 February 1859 |
| Birth Place: | Lublin, Congress Poland |
| Death Place: | Paris, France |
| Alma Mater: | University of Heidelberg |
| School Tradition: | French historical epistemology[1] Epistemological realism Neo-Kantianism[2] |
| Main Interests: | History and philosophy of science, epistemology, general relativity |
| Notable Ideas: | Principle of lawfulness,[3] principle of causality |
Émile Meyerson (in French mɛjɛʁsɔn/; 12 February 1859 – 2 December 1933) was a Jewish Polish-born French epistemologist, chemist, philosopher of science and Zionist activist. Meyerson was born in Lublin, Poland. He died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of 74.
Meyerson was educated at the University of Heidelberg and studied chemistry under Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. In 1882 Meyerson settled in Paris. He served as foreign editor of the Havas news agency, and later as the director of the Jewish Colonization Association for Europe and Asia Minor. He became a naturalized French citizen after World War I.
Thomas Kuhn cites Meyerson's work as influential while developing the ideas for his main work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.[4]
In La Déduction relativiste, Meyerson expressed the view that Einstein's general theory of relativity was a new version of the identification of matter with space, which he considered "the postulate upon which the whole (Cartesian) system rests."[5]