Abstract
Ernst Mach was born in Chirlitz, Moravia, in 1838 into a cultured, freethinking family. Practically for all of the scientist’s long life, Austria-Hungary was ruled by Emperor Franz-Joseph, who reigned from 1848 to 1916. Mach’s father, Johann, was an eccentric who had studied science and philosophy in Prague and who was, for a time, a private tutor to the sons of the Baron Brethon in Vienna. He preferred farming and his own schemes, including the surprisingly half-successful idea to raise silkworms in Austria.1 Mach owed his first education in science to his father’s garden-physics demonstrations.
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Hans Henning. Ernst Mach als Philosoph, Physiker und Psycholog. Leipzig 1915, Chapter 1.
K.D. Heller. Ernst Mach: Wegbereiter der modernen Physik. Wien: Springer-Verlag, 1964, p. 6.
Erwin Hiebert “The Influence of Mach’s Thought on Science,” Philosophia Naturalis 21 (1984), p.598.
This unhappy episode is told in John Blackmore. Ernst Mach: His Work, Life and Influence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, and in Dieter Hoffmann’s “Ernst Mach in Prag” pp. 141–178 in Dieter Hoffmann and Hubert Laitko eds. Ernst Mach: Studien und Dokumente zu Leben und Werk. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1991, (DL) pp. 29–47.
William Johnston. The Austrian Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, p. 49.
For the influence of the Exner-Bonitz reform on Mach, see his autobiographical fragment “Ernst Mach” written in the third person (DL), p. 21, Henning. Ernst Mach als Philosoph. Chapter 1 and William Johnston. The Austrian Mind. Chapter 19.
Wolfram Swoboda “The Thought and Work of the Young Ernst Mach and the Antecedents of his Philosophy” doctoral dissertation. University of Pittsburgh, 1973, pp. 93–94.
Swoboda p. 90.
Hugo Dingler. Die Grundgedanken der Machschen Philosophie. Leipzig: J.A.Barth, 1921, pp. 19–20.
(V), p. 336.
Johnston. The Austrian Mind. p.230.
Die Innere Seite der Natur. Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1993, p. 214.
Dingier. Grundgedanken. pp. 28–29.
Über die Erhaltung der Kraft. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1889,(original. 1847 ).
Helmholtz’s ideas about the ultimacy of atoms may have changed over time. Heidelberger quotes Helmholtz as saying in 1871 that “the foundation of theoretical physics should not be derived from the hypothetical assumption of the atomic structure of natural bodies.” Die innere Seite der Natur. p. 213. Heidelberger claims Helmholtz’s change of heart encouraged Mach to publish his anti-atomist views in 1872.
the phenomena of living organisms are only complicated physical phenomena. The medicine of today is long used to considering physiology as applied physics. A great number of phenomena which would otherwise be attributed to vitalism are already traced back to physical laws and it becomes increasingly probable that this will succeed more and more for all processes in organisms. (C), pp. 1–2. Cf. “Über das Sehen von Lagen und Winkeln durch die Bewegung des Auges” (SW) 41(1861) 215–222, p. 224: “Sollten in Zukunft auch manche von den hier ausgesprochenen Ansichten modificiert, manche verworfen werden, so scheint mir Eins klar, dass gerade nur diese Art von Untersuchungen, jene Bausteine zu einer exacten Psychologie zu gewinnen sind, welche ganz ausserhalb der Seele, rein im körperlichen Organismus liegt.”
(v), p. 364.
(AS), p. 1. See also Erwin N. Hiebert. “The Influence of Mach’s Thought on Science,” p. 606.
K.D. Heller. Ernst Mach: Wegbereiter der modernen Physik, pp. 11–12.
Blaserna-Mach-Peterin. “Über elektrische Entladung und Induction” (SW) 37 (1859): 477–524; Mach “Über die Änderung des Tones und der Farbe durch Bewegung.” (SW) 41 (1860): 543–560; “Über das Sehen von Lagen und Winkeln durch die Bewegung des Auges.” (SW) 43 (1861): 215–224.
Swoboda pp. 20–74, Floyd Ratliff “On Mach’s Contributions to the Analysis of Sensations.” in Cohen and Seeger, eds. Ernst Mach Physicist and Philosopher. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970.
Über die Änderung des Tones und der Farbe durch Bewegung. (SW) 41 (1860): 543–560.
(SW) 43(1861): 215–224.
(AU), p. 1.
“Über das Sehen von Lagen und Winkeln.” p. 223.
John Blackmore, Ernst Mach: His Work, Life and Influence, p. 23.
K.D. Heller, p. 12.
See Frau Anna Karma Mach’s remarks in Frank Kerkhof, ed. Symposium aus Anlaß des 50. Todestages von Ernst Mach. Freiburg: Ernst Mach Institut, 1966, p. 10.
(AU), p. 114.
Zur Theorie der Pulswellenzeichner. (SW)46(1862): 157–174; Über eine neue Einrichtung des
Pulswellenzeichners. (SW) 47(1863), 53–56.
Zur Theorie des Gehörorgans. (SW) 48 (1863): 283–300.
John Blackmore, Ernst Mach: His Work, Life and Influence. p. 14.
(DL), p. 24.
Swoboda, p. 136.
(CE), p. 87.
(CE), pp. 75–80.
(CE), p.85
(AS), p. 352.
Draft Foreword to the Analysis of Sensations, Russian edition translated in (DL), p. 116.
(CE), pp.9–10.
(AS), p. 30 n.
Mach criticized Kant for thinking that mirror-image left and right hands were physically indistinguishable. “Symmetric geometrical figures are, owing to our symmetric physiological organization, very easily taken for the same, whereas metrically and physically they are completely different. A screw with its spiral winding to the right and one with its spiral winding to the left, two bodies rotating in contrary directions, appear very much alike to the eye. But we are for this reason not permitted to regard them as geometrically or physically equivalent. Attention to this fact would avert many paradoxical questions. Think only of the trouble such problems gave Kant!” (ICE) p. 288. Some five years later, however, Mach believed that differences in spatial properties often did point at underlying physical differences. For example the fact that the dependence of electrical currents and magnetic fields followed a right hand rule (when the fingers of the right hand curl in the direction of the field the thumb points in the direction of the current) impressed Mach greatly as a case in which physiological asymmetry could be used in a physical case. “Who knows,” he said, “whether the Kantian ”a priori“ cannot find new light along this indicated path?” “Eine Betrachtung über Raum und Zeit” (PWV), p. 508.
(DL), p. 115.
(CE), p. 16.
See my “Kant, Herbart and Riemann” Kant-Studien 2003.
Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. Cams and Ellington trans. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977, Part I, Remark III.
AS), p.6
For all the differences between Berekeley and Mach, this antimetaphysical critique is indeed by all rights attributable to Berkeley’s critique of Locke on substance. The idea of a ”support” for qualities behind sensation is said by Berkeley to be itself a notion derived from sense, as are all of the primary qualities of matter and figure said to explain the causes of sensation.
(DL), p. 116.
(AS), Preface to Fourth Edition 1902, xli
Die Leitgedanken meiner naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnislehre und ihre Aufnahme durch die Zeitgenossen Physikalische Zeitschrift 11 (1910), p. 604, partially translated in (DL).
(AS), pp. 361–362n.
See my “Mach, Hume and Functionalism” in John Blackmore and Setsuko Tanaka, eds. Ernst Mach’s Prague. Dordrecht: Kluwer, forthcoming.
(DL), p. 26.
(AS), p. 331.
(AS), p. 362.
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Banks, E.C. (2003). The Viennese Background. In: Ernst Mach’s World Elements. The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0175-4_2
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