IMG64

Frntt Mach

him "the nutcrackcr.” Mach’s followcrs in tura callcd Boltzmann “ last pillar.”¹⁸ But thc pillar had not yct evcn crackcd, let alonc f_aj| The climax was still to comc.    ‘ ^cn*

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In spite of Mach’s efforts to criticizc thc most fundamcntal aspeets ₀f thc Galilco-Newton tradition in physics primarily on physical grounds, there canbc little doubtthat his primary objeetions werc philosophical or had philosophical roots. Given Mach’s epistcmological and ontol_0K. ical phenomcnalism and thc “common sense” philosophy of Galileo and Newton, that is, their causal, rcprcsentational realism and mind-matter dualism, Mach could not have other than strongly opposed their most basie assumptions in machanics.

Mnch’s Scicnccoj Mcchanics was primarily an attempt to show how \ thc historical dcvclopmcnt of mcchnnics neccssitatcd thc correction of major aspeets of thc so-called Newtonian Synthesis in terms of New. tons own idcals and philosophy of science. Mach chose Newton’* famous scholia to difTerent parts of his Principia Mathematica as best indicating thc Englishman’s point of view, and then interpreted these scholia in terms of Mach’s own phenomcnalism. An cxamination of thc rest of this book and of Newton s Optics. howcvcr, has suggested to E. A. Burtt and thosc scholars capablc of distinguishing bctwccn prcscntational and rcprcsentational philosophy that Newton held ar. cpistcmology and ontology vcry different from that of Mach and very different from what Mach imagincd Newton to hołd. In short, Newton was not a phenomenalist, cven in the scholia to his Principia Mathematica.^,9 In passing, I should also mention that Newton was not a Platonist either. Unlikc Plato. Newton held that represented physical objeets could move and changc, that physical causc.s werc efhcient causes, and that qualitics such as vis tnsita or inertial mass, while indirectly mcasurable by means of mathematies, were not math-cmatical or gcomctrical thcmselvcs.

Newton s work on optics, which firmly established thc representa-tivc theory of pcrception, amply demonstrated that hc idcntificd physical objeets with represented external causes of pcrception and not with the presented sensations or sensory impressions thcmselvcs.²⁰ Mach, on rhc other hand, denied thc rcprcscntative theory of pcrception and in-sisted on identifying physical objeets with sensations, that is, with

referenta that common scnsc considcrcd mental. This    a *

,^Wl.^{Kn N}Y^V'⁰ⁿ    PlaskiI^Hty hc mean. whtfl"

cntircly bcyond cx_rcncncc (,.e., consciously^otlceablc r™, • r whcn Mach talkcd about physical realny he cne.,,,, wLt lay cnUrcll' within cxperiencc (consciously noticcablc experience). I_{n olhcr} worrf whcn .hcy werc consistcnt wirh their philosophical assumpriom _ndUZ man was talking about thc same thing whcn referrintr u ,

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dealing with Mach s criticisms of Ncwton’s idcas.

Newton wrote: "In philosophical disquisitions we ought to abstract from our senses and cons.dcr things thcmsclvcs, distinct from what w, only scnsihle measures of them." ²¹ Mach wrotc: “The assertion, then, is correct that the world consists only of our sensations." ²"

Hopefully, but not probably, these quotations should settle the mat ter once and for all. Newtons philosophy was substantially and noi mercly “linguist.cally," difTerent from Mach’s philosophy, as wcU as from thc contcmporary presentationalist thought of our own day For Newton, to be “empirical" mcant, first, to be interested in study-ing sensory impressions; sccond, to believe that sensory impressions could givc a rcliable indication of many aspeets of physical objeets-third, to usc sensory data as csidence to help dctcrminc the probable truth or falsity of statements about physical objeets; and fourth, not to framc hypothcses that could not be supported by relcsant sensory

data.

In other words, unlike Mach’s understanding of “empirical/’ Newton held that thc empirical world was not thc extcrnal World/that in-fcrcnce bcyond empirical data could be legitimatc if supported by that d.ita. and that the physical world could be rcliably understood by- man but only through mathematics and analogy with expcriencc, and never with absolutc ccrtainty.

Mach thought that Newton uscd the word “empirical" in the same way that hc himself did. He compouncłed this error by fading to dis-tinguisK between an empirical methodology in science and a phenom-enalistic epistemology and ontology. This confusion was at thc roet not only of his failurc to properly understand Newtons philosophical assumptions, but al-o, (or his difHcultics in later life in understanding the idcas ol his critics and opponents. All experimental scientists are cmpirically mindcd and follow an empirical methodology, but what

9¹