IMG47

Ernst A lach

Mach also was intrigued by Miillers book The Phantasms of Sight (1826), which further stimulatcd Machs alrcady avid imagination and intcrcst in hallucinations. Most phcnomcnalists presumably distinguish bctwcen pcrccptions and “phnntasms” just as ordinary pcoplc do, nonc-thclcss, one gathers from their writings that they tend to consider dis-tinguishing betwcen the iwo morc a problem than most pcoplc would probably admit. Apparently, Mach and many other phcnomenalists cannot distinguish bctwccn the iwo in many cascs cxccpt by mcans o£ noticing ditfcrcnt relationships. Qualitativcly sensations and hallucinations niust £requently seem the same to thcm.~'^ł But while Mach retained a lifclong admiration for Miillcr s work, and acccptcd much of it longer than scientific advancc warranted, this cannot be said with respcct to the contributions of Helmholtz. Herc thcrc was a comparatively rapid shift in Maclfs overall opinion. Within a dccade, from the carly i86os to the early 1870S, Mach had changed from being an active supporter, who even wrotc a book sympathetically e.\plicating Helmholtz^ idcas on musie, into a determined philosophi-cal opponent who also increasingly rcjccted morc and morę of Hclm-holczs individual scientific theories and idcas."^J

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was so outstanding a scien-tist and one who madę so many important contributions to so many fields that it would tako pages merely to list them all. But for practical rcasons I confine myself merely to those which interested Mach and which he later came to opposc in part or akogether.

Helmholtz was born in Potsdam outside Berlin, in the heart of Brandenburg-Prussia. He was traincd as a medical doctor, loved musie, became associated with Miillers group of students, bccamc a professor at Heidelberg and eventually Berlin, and quite carly began to apply mathematical and physical methods to problems of psychology and physiology. Helmholtzs approach seemed so successful by the early i86os that Mach simply gravitated into admiration for him and into trying to follow in his footsteps.

Helmholtz attempted to unitę Miillers physiological tradition with the kind of atomism that Justus Liebig had so successfully introduced into organie chemistry during the 183OS and 1840S. His 1845 agreement with Briicke and Emil du Bois Rcymond that “No other forces than common physico-chemical ones are activc within the organism” and his 1847 paper on the convcrsation of cnergy were landmarks in mid-ccntury science. Helmholtz was a leader in the fight against German

philosophical idcalism, vitalism, and thosc trac« nf M .    , ,

still Jingcring in science. He also opposcd the crudc mn "f^htlosoP^ ism that Ludwig Buchner, Karl Vogt, and Jakoh Mnl k " ^matCr,a1’ during the i8₅os. I Iclmholtz attemptęd to stccr a niiddl^r" h' ph.lo^al^aii^an^ma^rialism by

pressions ncithcr copy nor arc pKySićal rolity l,_Ut 1    ^y,‘^m'

indicate in a rcliahlc fashion what the rcal physical world* appcarances is actually likc. This modest symboJie r_yJlsm, Zu_sh Id mittcdly a kind of comprom.se, sui.cd the generally aclmowfeZd leader of German scence, and as long as Mach still flirted with the atomie theory he d.d not openly oppose this aspeet of Helmholtf, philosophy.

Maeh’s .863 rejeetion of the atomie theory and his disbelief in ,h, reality of atoms eoineided closciy with the high point of Helmholtz', philosophical influence on other scentists. Most physieist, seemed ,o be follpwing Helmholtz toward representatise realism and the atomie theory while Mach was going in the opposite direetion. That Mach should begm to take a morc critieal look at sonie of HelmhoItz's sci entific contributions at this timc should not unduly surprise us After initial enthusiasm Mach gradually deseloped a vcry mixed attitude toward Helmholtz’* Theory of Tonę Percepńon, (,863) He admitted that it seemed very important when it appearedlńd that it undoubtedly encouraged further rescarch and discovery; nonetheless it simply included too many mistakes. Mach split his criticism as follows-He acccplcd from Helmholtz; that noises and composite sounds could dc rcsolvcd into musical tones; that for cvery distinguishablc ratę of yibratiun there corrcspondcd a particular nervous end-organ- and Hclmholtzs theory of audition.²⁹ He rejccted Hclmholtz’s notions- that the labyrinth was an acoustical organ; that the car consisted of a scrics of resonators that singled out numbers in a Fourier series, correspond-mg to dic form of yibrauon presented and heard them as partial tones; his theory of harmony; and his two definitions of consonance.”

Maeh also camc to oppose some of the best known of Helmholtz's theorics in psychology, in particular, his theory of “unconscious infer-enec" and his familiar three-color theory. According to Profesor Bor-ing, Helmholtz adopted this theory [unconscious infcrencc] while he was at Konigsberg, for it is an esscntial phase of his empiricism. He cxpoundcd its essentials in a lecture that was published in 1855. He uscd it in the second volume of the Optics in 1860. In the third volume

57