Blas Cabrera, the so-called father of Spanish physics, devoted many of his efforts during the 1920s to popularizing and defending Einstein's general theory of relativity. In this paper, I make the argument that Cabrera's activities as an introductor of relativity included a philosophical defense of Einstein's theory, which was based on a form of empiricism inspired by Pierre Duhem's holistic conventionalism. I look at Cabrera's 1923 book "Principio de Relatividad" as well as at two conferences given by him in 1921 to conclude that his defense of relativity was conventionalist in the sense that it allowed that different theories may account for empirical data and that choice between them is a matter of convention, but contended that considerations such as simplicity and unity still favor Einstein's theory over those of his critics.
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