IMG84

Er rut Mach

uinc mind-mattcr dualist vcrging on a monistic materialista or was hc merely a Machian phcnomcnalist hiding bchind a “physical objcct” languagc in thc fashion of Rudolph Carnap a gcneration latcr? I_n spite of thc involvcd ant! in some respeets leading naturo of thc qucs-tion, thc answer is still very much in doubt. A monograph on this qucstion is vcry dcfinitcly ncedcd.

W. J. V. Ostcrhout has elaimed that Locb “sccms to havc conccivcd a distastc for metaphysics (ca. 1880 under Paulsen at Berlin) and in his subscqucnt carccr thc only philosopher who influcnccd him appears to havc bccn Mach.’’⁴⁸ Locb wrote to Mach from thc physiological institutc in Wiirzburg in 1887 “Your Analysis of Sensattons and Mc-chanics arc thc sourccs from which I draw inspiration and energy to work. . . . Your idcas arc scicndfically and cthically thc basis upon which I stand and upon which 1 think thc natural scicntist has to stand.”⁴⁰

“About 12 years ago [1888] whilc Alcxandcr von Koranyi, currcntly professor in Budapest, and I worked in the physiological institutc in Strassburg we discussed your Analysis of Sensations. We hnally came to thc conclusion that we would havc to make a pilgrimagc to you^co

We do not know if they cvcr physically went, or if so, how they wcrc reccived at thc shrinc, but with rcspect to Mach s influence on Locb’s subscqucnt thinking there were at least a fcw elear indications. First, Locb adopted a theory of cconomy, presumably from Mach, and second, hc dedicatcd much of thc rest of his lifc to rcalizing Mach’s notion of reducing psychology to physiology. The suspicion is, howcvcr, that he may have misunderstood what Mach mcant by “physiology”; for what a phcnomcnalist mcans by it bcars almost no rcsemblancc to what a materialist means. And furthcrmorc, not all phenomcnalists would be likcly to mcan what Mach mcant by it, sińce his understand-ing of it tended to be uniquc by any standards.

Jacqucs Locb was cjuitc succcssful in his scientific work in explain-ing animal bchavior by mcans of “physicochcmical” factors, indeed so succcssful that hc wrote a number of books urging a “pliysicochcmical" approach as the only truły scientific method possible in biology and physiology. He accepted thc atomie theory, violently opposcd “vital-ism,” and cvcn doubted Darwin's theory, preferring thc idcas of Mendel, Dc Vries, and PavIov, sińce hc belicved that they could be conclusivcly tested and provcd. Rcaders of Loeb’s physiology books, unaware of his corrcspondcncc and carly philosophical contacts, would

probably supposc that_his cpistcmology and ontology wcrc doscr tn tWcofj)u Bois-Rcymond and cven Yogt, Buchner, and~NTdcxbott than Mach. To hc surę, wccarTinicrpret a^phyTicochćnucaT^T^^ fn phcńomcnalistic tcrms, but Locb’s stress on this mcthod was so ₀verwhelming and unqucstioned. It sccms diflicult to bclicvc that hc could havc madc such a point of it, cvcn attcmpting to cxplain all “psychic” happcnings by it, had hc not litcrally bclicvcd not only in thc uscfulncss of thc atomie theory but in thc rcal existcncc of atoms and moleeules as entities outsidc thc “appcaranccs.”

The casicst way to distinguish among mind-mattcr dualism, monis-tic materialism, and ontological phenomenalism is normaUy to look for thc kind of cąusal explanation uscd or assumed. If thc appcal is to physical agents or forccs as causcs, then dualism or materialism is thc logical choicc, and if thc appcal is mcrcly to rclational constancics or regularities, then phenomenalism is thc logical ontology to hołd. Jacques Loeb, howcvcr, was inconsistcnt cven on this issue.

Both Locb and his biographer, Osterhout, bclieved that hc acccptcd Mach’s Identification of causes with “functional relntions." According to Locb: “All ‘cyplanation’ consists soldy in thc presentation of a phenomenon as an uncquivocal function of thc variables by which it is determined." ⁵¹ And Osterhout: "[Locb’s] notion of biological rc-scarcli was simple: all thc obscrvcd phenomena should be cxprcsscd in the form of equations containing no arbitrary constants." ⁵² But how well can the following ouotations be rcconcilcd with a phenomenalistie point of vicw?

Nobody doubts that thc durablc chcmical elements are only thc product of blind forccs.⁶³

We cat, drink, and rcproduce not bccausc mankind has rcachcd an agreement that this is dcsirahlc, but bccausc, machinc-likc, we arc com-ncllcd to do so.⁶⁴

... for thc mctaphysical term “will” we may in thcsc instanccs safcly substitutc thc chcmical term “photochemical action of light."⁶⁶

Let us bcar in mind that “idcas" also can act, much as acids do for thc hcliotropism of certain animals.⁶⁰

An image consists of a number of points of different intcnsitv of light.^6T

The possibility that vision is based on thc formation of an image in thc brain is supported by a group of facts which to my knowledge havc ncvcr rcceivcd nny eonsideration in this conncction.⁶⁸

All lifc phenomena arc determined by chcmical proccsscs.⁶⁰

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