In the eighth episode of Legends of the Philosophy of Science, Professor Arup K. Chatterjee hosted Professor Sudip Patra for an extended conversation on Kieran Fox’s ‘pathbreaking’ new book, I Am Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein (2025).
Fox, a neuroscientist and cognitive scientist, argues that Einstein’s life cannot be reduced to the caricature of a strict rationalist. While Einstein rejected theological dogma and resisted organized religion, he was deeply shaped by Spinoza’s pantheism and by intellectual traditions reaching back to Pythagoras. Patra emphasized that through such lineages, Einstein’s worldview resonates with aspects of Indian and Chinese philosophy, both of which he treated with quiet respect.
The discussion revisited the celebrated Tagore–Einstein dialogues, where two world figures contested the very meaning of truth: Tagore defending truth as humanly constituted, Einstein insisting on truth as independent of human perception. These exchanges, the speakers suggested, remain relevant today in debates about the boundaries between science, spirituality, and the sacred.
Modernist literature also entered the frame. Chatterjee highlighted how poets such as T. S. Eliot drew on Eastern sources, from the Upanishads to haiku, embedding Indic and Chinese thought in the foundations of modernism. This, they proposed, invites reflection on Einstein’s own relationship to sacred geographies and philosophies of the East.
Patra turned the conversation toward the philosophy of silence, recalling Wittgenstein’s dictum that what cannot be spoken must be passed over in silence. He suggested that silence may not oppose knowledge but represent its deepest form, echoing Indic concepts such as sat-chit-ananda and the ineffable anirvachaniya. In contrast, modern education systems, preoccupied with noise and identity politics, leave little space for cultivating silence.
The dialogue then shifted to the origins of quantum mechanics—from Bose’s statistical insights to Heisenberg’s Heligoland breakthrough and Schrödinger’s discomfort with entanglement—before turning to Wolfgang Pauli, Einstein’s acknowledged intellectual successor. Despite his scientific brilliance, Pauli struggled personally and sought out Carl Jung. Their meeting produced not only therapy but collaboration, with Pauli using dreams and archetypes as lenses for exploring physics.
The episode concluded by situating Einstein, Pauli, Jung, and India within a shared conversation, suggesting that science, psyche, and spirituality belong on the same table. Their legacies remind us that knowledge extends beyond empiricism, and that spirituality is not confined to religion.
The series will continue these threads in upcoming episodes, returning to questions of knowledge, silence, and infinity.
Arup K. Chatterjee 