Abstract
As we have seen, the conceptual psychology which is the underlying paradigm for the latter nineteenth century stems from a synthesis of Empiricism and Idealism. Another name playing a role in this synthesis is Ernst Mach, an Austrian physicist, who is remembered for his delineations of the concept of “frame of reference” and the Doppler effect — that is, his work in scientific epistemology.1 Mach’s reputation is that of the psychologist among physicists. His program ranges through the culture and history of the sciences as well, including: the history of science and its relativity,2 thought experiments (influencing ultimately even Einstein),3 Monism as a joint psychological and physical perspective on scientific investigation (especially in the circles around the journal The Monist),4 and the biological or economic adaptation of organisms — all topics at the core of Mach’s psychological approach to the methodologies of science.
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Notes
For overviews of the work of Mach, see: Erwin Hiebert, “An Appraisal of the Work of Ernst Mach: Scientist-Historian-Philosopher,” in Motion and Time, Space and Matter: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and Science, Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976): 360–89
John T. Blackmore, Ernst Mach: His Work, Life, and Influence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972)
Jürgen Blühdorn and Joachim Ritter, eds., Positivismus im 19. Jahrhundert: Beiträge zu seiner geschichtlichen und systematischen Bedeutung, Studien zur Philosophie und Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, Bd. 16 (Frankfurt/Main: V. Klostermann, 1971)
J. Hintikka, ed., “A Symposium on Ernst Mach,” Synthese, 18 (1968): 132–301. The basic bibliography, supplemented by Blackmore’s work, is that by Joachim Thiele, “Ernst-Mach-Bibliographie,” Centaurus, 8 (1963): 189–237.
For Mach’s use of history see: Erwin Hiebert, “Mach’s Philosophical Use of the History of Science,” In: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science, Roger H. Stuewer, ed., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, V (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970): 184–203.
For accounts of Mach’s position as a scientist see especially: Albert Einstein, “Zur Enthüllung von Ernst Mach’s Denkmal,” Neue Freie Presse (Wien), 12 June 1926, Morgenblatt, p. 11
J. Bradley, Mach’s Philosophy of Science, (London: Athlone Press of the University of London, 1971)
P.W. Bridgman, “Significance of the Mach Principle,” American Journal of Physics, 29, No. 1 (January 1961): 32–36
Erwin Hiebert, The Concept of Thermodynamics in the Scientific Thought of Mach and Planck, Wissenschaftlicher Bericht, 5/68 (Freiburg/Br.: Ernst-Mach-Institut, 1968)
Gerald Holton, “Mach, Einstein, and the Search for Reality,” Daedalus, 97, No. 2 (Spring 1968): 636–73
Richard von Mises, Ernst Mach und die empiristische Wissenschaftsauffassung: Zu E. Machs 100. Geburtstag am 18. Feb. 1938, Einheitswissenschaft, Heft 7 (s’Gravenhage: Verlag W.P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1938)
Laurens Lauden, “The Methodological Foundations of Mach’s Anti-Atomism and their Historical Roots,” in Motion and Time, Space and Matter, Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976)
and Floyd Ratliff, Mach Bands: Quantitative Studies on Neural Networks in the Retina (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1965), which also contains a useful biographical sketch.
From its inception, “The Monist” was a vehicle for Mach’s thought. Aside from publishing translations of parts of his works, “The Monist” printed a steady series of articles on Mach, some notable ones being: Paul Carus, “The Origin of Mind,” Monist, 1 No. 1 (Oct, 1890): 69–86; Hans Kleinpeter, “On the Monism of Professor Mach,” Monist, 16, No. 2 (Apr. 1906): 161–68
Philip E.B. Jourdain, “The Economy of Thought,” Monist, 24, No. 1 (Jan. 1914): 134–45
Bertrand Russell, “On the Nature of Acquaintance,” Monist, 24, No. 1 (Jan. 1914): 1–16, “On the Nature of Acquaintance, II: Neutral Monism,” Monist, 24, No. 2 (April 1914): 161–87, and “On the Nature of Acquaintance, III: Analysis of Experience,” Monist, 24, No. 3 (July 1914): 435–53.
For an idea of the influence Mach had on his contemporaries, see: Joachim Thiele, “Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Schriften Ernst Machs,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 20 (1966)
Joachim Thiele, Wissenschaftliche Kommunikation: Die Korrespondenz Ernst Machs (Kastellaum: A. Henn Verlag, 1978); and Katherine Arens, Fundamentalism and Fin de siècle: Fritz Mauthner’s Critique of Language, op. cit.
See particularly Mach’s late work, Kultur und Mechanik (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1915), for his concept of the interactions between technology and civilization.
See “Einige vergleichende tier- und menschenpsychologische Skizzen,” Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift (Jena), 31 (N.F. 15), No. 17 (23 April 1916): 241–47, for an example of his biological thought; also Populär-wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen, 4. Aufl. (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1910). The term “biologist of the mind” refers to the title of a book on Freud to be discussed in the next chapter.
The majority of Mach studies do treat him as an epistemologist, however, on different grounds than the present discussion uses; see, for example: Max Adler, “Mach and Marx: Ein Beitrag zur Kritik des modernen Positivismus,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 33 (1911): 348–400
Peter Alexander, “Ernst Mach,” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, V (New York: MacMillan, 1967): 115–19
Herbert Buzello, Kritische Untersuchung von Ernst Machs Erkenntnistheorie, Kantstudien, Ergänzungheft 23 (1911)
Robert S. Cohen and Raymond J. Seeger, eds., Ernst Mach, Physicist and Philosopher, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 6 (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1970)
Alfonsina D’Elia, Ernst Mach, Pubblicazioni della Facolta di lettere e filosofia dell’Universita di Milano, 59 (Firenza: La nuova Italia, 1971)
Karl Gerhards, Machs Erkenntnistheorie und der Realismus (Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1914)
Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, 1.Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, Husserliana, Bd. XVIII, ed. E. Holenstein (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975): esp. 196–213
Hermann Lübbe, “Positivismus und Phänomenologie (Mach und Husserl),” in Beiträge zur Philosophie und Wissenschaft: Wilhelm Szilasi zum 70. Geburtstag (München: n.p., 1960): 161–84.
See the biographical sketch in Floyd Ratliff, Mach Bands (op. cit.), and Friedrich Herneck, “Ernst Mach: Eine bisher unveröffentlichte Autobiographie,” Physikalische Blätter, 14, Heft 9 (1958): 385–90; the later editions of the Populärwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen contain papers on these topics.
See particularly the acoustical essays in the Populär-Wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen. For information on Helmholtz, see Erna Lesky, The Vienna Medical School of the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
It is instructive to note that Husserl felt he had to distance his own program from Mach’s; see Joachim Thiele, “Ein Brief Edmund Husserls an Ernst Mach,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 19 (1965): 134–39.
On this text, see particularly: Erwin Hiebert, trans., “Introduction,” Ernst Mach: Knowledge and Error — Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry (Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1976)
and W. Grosse, “Die psychologischen Grundlagen der Erkenntnis (Über Machs “Erkenntnis und Irrtum”),” Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 27, No. 47 (24 Nov. 1906): 2925–32, and 27, No. 48 (1 Dec. 1906): 2989–96. The title The Analysis of the Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychic refers to the original Die Analyse der Empfindungen, und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen; citations in the present chapter are from the “2., verm. Auflage” (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1900), and are my translations [=AS in text]. The original German title of Knowledge and Error is Erkenntnis und Irrtum: Skizzen zu einer Psychologie der Forschung (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1905); citations used in the present discussion are translated for this situation and are taken from the 1906 second edition of that work [= KE in text].
Mach discussed thought-experiments in a chapter of Erkenntnis und Irrtum, “Über Gedankenexperimente” (pp. 180–97).
See the entries in Thiele’s bibliography. Most notable thereafter are: “Ernst-Mach-Symposium” and Positivismus im 19. Jahrhundert, both cited above, and Manfred Diersch, Empiriokritizismus und Impressionismus (Berlin: Rütten und Loening, 1973).
See Hermann Bahr, “Das unrettbare Ich” and “Die Philosophie des Impressionismus,” in Dialog vom Tragischen (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1904): 79–101 and 102–114.
For a statement of the influence of Mach on Edmund Husserl, see: Logische Untersuchungen, Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, Husserliana, Bd. XVIII, ed. E. Holenstein (Den Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1975): 196–213; Joachim Thiele, “Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Schriften Ernst Machs,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung (Munich), 20 (1966): 118–130; and “Ein Brief Edmund Husserls an Ernst Mach,” ed. Joachim Thiele, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 19 (1965): 134–38.
Mach gave series of lectures in both cities, which were collected as an ever-expanding volume called Populärwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen, which ran into 5 editions (5th ed., Leipzig, J.A. Barth, 1923).
A selection of his textbooks are: Compendium der Physik für Mediciner (Wien: W. Braumüller, 1863); Leitfaden der Physik für Studierende, with Gustav Jaumann (Prague and Vienna: Tempsky, 1891); Grundriß der Naturlehre für die unteren Classen der Mittelschulen, with Joh. Odstrcil (Prague: Tempsky, 1887); Grundriß der Physik für die höheren Schulen des Deutschen Reiches (Leipzig: G. Freytag, 1893); and Lehrbuch der Physik für das Gymnasium (Leipzig: G. Freytag, 1894).
For a useful biographical sketch on Mach, see “Ernst Mach: Eine bisher unveröfentlichte Autobiographie,” ed. Fr. Herneck, Physikalische Blätter 14.9 (1958): 385–90; and a short sketch in Floyd Ratliff, Mach Bands: Quantitative Studies on Neural Networks in the Retina (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1965): 14 [for Prague era].
This discussion is in the initial chapters of Die Principien der Wärmelehre: Historisch-kritisch entwickelt (Leipzig: 1896).
These correspond to chapter titles in the history volumes. Cf. Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung historisch-kritisch dargestellt (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1896); Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit (Prag: Calve, 1872); Die Prinzipien der physikalischen Optik: Historisch und erkenntnispsychologisch entwickelt (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1921).
The first edition of the Analysis of the Sensations was published in 1886; the second, 1900; the third, 1902; the fourth, 1903; the fifth, 1906; the sixth, 1911; the seventh, 1918; the eighth, 1919. All editions through the sixth were designated “expanded.” This publishing history indicates an upswing in popularity for Mach’s work after the turn of the century.
See Bahr, “Das unrettbare Ich.” Bahr is chosen as a representative of a very popular cause at the turn of the cnetury. For other presentations about the relativity of the ego, see also Robert S. Cohen, and Erwin Hiebert, op. cit., and Erkenntnis oder Dogmatismus: Kritik des psychologischen “Dogmatismus”-Konzepts, eds. Peter Keiler and Michael Stadler (Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1978).
See Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol. 1 [no vol. 2 appeared] (Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1874).
For a concise exposition of the program of phenomenology in its classic formulation, see Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).
Jean Piaget, Genetic Epistemology (New York: Norton, 1971).
See Wilhelm Dilthey, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) for a definition of a human science as a systematic discipline of principles, with recreatability and verifiability.
For an overview of Dilthey’s program, especially with reference to poetics/aesthetics, see Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, Towards a Phenomenological Theory of Literature (The Hague: Mouton, 1963). Otto Neurath and the Vienna School attempt to enact Mach’s program to a limited degree
see Viktor Kraft, The Vienna Circle, trans. Arthur Pap (New York: n.p., 1953). For Mach’s influence in psychology, see also Kurt Danziger, “The Positivist Repudiation of Wundt,”op. cit.
From one perspective, his pervasive assumptions about the relation of physical data and the structure of the psyche resemble the tenets of psychophysics as described by Gustav Fechner (see first Max Dessoir, Outlines of the History of Psychology [New York: Macmillan, 1912]: 251, and the section on Fechner above), focusing on the study of nerve excitation as it relates to sensations and to physical stimuli. However, Fechner’s work was not concentrated on higher-order thought as it influenced individual mind, but only as products of mind.
Mach acknowledged that his thought was profoundly influenced by a reading of Kant’s Prolegomena; see “Ernst Mach: Eine bisher unveröffentlichte Autobiographie,” by Fr. Herneck, Physikalische Blätter, 14, No. 9 (1958): 387.
“Wahrscheinlichkeit” is normally translated as “probability” (see Hiebert’s translation of Knowledge and Error). Here, however, that translation is inadequate to Mach’s purpose of differentiating what might be ontologically real (and hence subject to probability of existence) from what is utilitarian in a particular frame (and hence what seems real in accounting for a determinate frame of reference). See also the essay by Lorraine Daston on “The Theory of Will versus the Science of Mind,” in Woodward and Ash, eds., The Problematic Science, for a description of associationism, which also uses this term.
This summary is drawn up with reference to J.B. Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1882), for which Mach wrote the foreword to the German edition in 1901.
This definition is provided in Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966): Part One, I.
On thought experiments, see Laurens Laudens, “The Methodological Foundations of Mach’s Anti-Atomism and Their Historical Roots,” in Motion and Time, Space and Matter: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and Science, Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976): 390–417.
These, then, correspond loosely to induction and deduction in general logic.
The Logics of Wundt (1880) and Lotze (1874) did this as well.
The term is used first in relation to the work of Wilhelm Dilthey and his followers; the more modern “science of culture” is represented in the work of the French, particularly Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), and Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Harper, 1972).
For a model of Darwinism appropriate to psychology, see Robert J. Richards, “Natural Selection and Other Models in the Historiography of Science,” in Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences, Marilynn B. Brewer and Barry E. Collins, eds. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981): 37–76, A Defense of Evolutionary Ethics," Biology and Philosophy, 1 (1986): 265–293.
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Arens, K. (1989). Mach’s Psychology of Investigation and the Limits of Science. In: Structures of Knowing. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 113. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2641-7_7
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