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Ernst Mach

ist by dcnying thc nccd for scicntists to study philosophy, but they did urgc dicm tu study thc historical dcvclopmcnt of scicncc and try t₀ follow a positivistic mcthodology of scicncc.

Ernst Mach dcfined “philosophy” in two differcnt ways. Whcn hc opposcd philosophy hc iclcntined it with “metaphysics.”¹ Whcn hc favored ir hc usiinlly mc.int cpistcmology or n “critical uniting of thc rcsults of thc spccial Sciences.” ²

Mach had many reasons for adopting Comtek approach to thc q_Ucs. tion of philosophy. Therc was Comtcs own argument, that a positiv-istic mcthodology represented an advancc beyond thc metaphysical or philosophical stagc and justificd thc rcjcction of all philosophy. Also many Sciences around thc turn of thc ccntury were attempting to provc how “scientific" they were by deliberatcly disowning cverything to do with philosophy. Furthcrmorc, Mach hoped to avoid damaging attacks from "profcssional philosophers” such as Brcntano and his numerom academic followcrs by making elear that hc had no intention of com-peting with them. And last, by dcnying that hc was a philosopher or had a philosophy, Mach hoped to make his books and opinions morę attractivc to thc vast number of scicntists, both thosc with a positivistic bent and not, who dislikcd philosophy and who would not rcad fur-ther if they realized that what they were rcading was philosophy. Herc is Machs yersion of his position:

1 am a scientist and not a philosopher.³

Abovc all therc is no Machian philosophy, hut nt most a scicntific mcthodology and psychology of knowlcdgc fF.r^cnntnispsychologie), and both arc, likc all scicntific theories provisional. incomplctc attempts.⁴

But:

I havc alrcady alludcd to points at which thc vicws herc advocatcd arc in touch with thosc of various philosophers and philosophically inclined scicntists. A fuli enumeration of these points of contact would requirc mc to begin with Spinoza. That my starting point is not esscntially differcnt from that of Humc is of coursc obvious. I difTer from Comtc in holding that thc psychological facts arc as sourccs of knowlcdge, at least as iin-portant as thc physical facts. My position, rnoreovcr, l)orders closely on that of thc rcprcsciitatives of thc philosophy of immancncc. This is espe-cially truć in thc casc of Schuppc. . . .^c

Madi’s cluim not to have a philosophy, a point of vicw lirst con-spicuously put forward in his introductory lecturc at thc Univcrsity of Vicnna in jB95, v/as a rnajor step toward accomplishing Augustę

Philosophy of Science

Comtes goal of persuading scicntists to acccpt a positivistic philosophy whilc at thc same timc honcstly bclicving that they hcld no philosophy at all, and that scicncc—in particular their own spccial field—had suc-ccssfully ‘‘advanccd” bcyond philosophy and thc need to consider philo-sophical qucstions.

Broad dcfinition positivism has normally appealed to religious op-j posites. Rclicvcrs havc supplcmcntcd positivism’s cpistcmological phe-| nornenalism with a nonphcnomcnalistic “transccndcnt" ontology which allowcd for thc cxistcncc of God. Thcsc pcople, such as Cardinal Bcllarminc long bcforc Comte and morc rcccntly Pierre Dulicm, saw that by rcstricting thc scopc of scicncc to thc study of thc “appear-ances,” thc world of “nonappearances," that is, thc religious world, was kept frcc from scicntific attack. Rroad dcfinińon_positivism was an ally of religion in this sensc.⁰

Nonbclicvcrs on thc other hand, who havc supplcmcntcd their cpis-1 temological phenomenalism with an ontological phenomenalism, havc defined God out of existcnce cxcept as a "sensation," “appearance,” or Spinozistic pantheistie totality. Many pcople who havc failed to grasp ' how cpistcmological phenomalism has prcvcntcd positivi$ts as po$itiv-ists from taking a position on religion have tendcd to regard all posi-tivists as “atheists,” which was not truć. Furthcrmorc, they have madc falsc accusations of “materialism,” a strange charge given the opposi-tion of most ninctecnth-ccntury positivists to hedonism, atoms and moleeules, and to representationalism, the only epistemology in which materialism madc sense.

Both narrow and broad definition positivists have long uscd thc ex-pression “mctaphysics" to refer to thc study of what lay outsidc the appcarances, but many pcople have been mislcd by thc term into re-jecting all ontology or theory of rcality, cvcn that which would appk to sensations or thc appearanccs. How therc could be a theors of knowlcdge without what is known being real apparently did not occur to a number of pcople.

Mach had both an ontology and a “world picturc," but somchow they bccamc lost in his campaTgń against “metaphysic^’’ at least for j most of his followcrs. Perhaps thc following siren cali was rcsponsiblc: [

I should likc thc scicntists to realize that my view eliminates dl tnru-physical questions indifferendy, whether they be only regarded as insolubk at thc present moment, or whether they be regarded as meaninglcss tor all limę. I should likc then, further, to rcflcct that cverything that we can

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