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Ernst Mach

thc auihor of this book, at that dmc an instructor in thcoretical physics in Vicnna.” ¹⁷

Hahn and Neurath bccamc major figurcs in thc “Vicnna Circlc” of thc 1920S and hclpcd to shapc thc form that “logical positivism” as-sumcd during thc 1930S. Rudolf Carnap clucidatcd on thc former as follows: "Hahn was strongly influcnccd by Ernst Maćh’s phcnomcnal-ism. and thcrcforc rccognized thc importancc of thc rcduction of sci-cntific conccpts to a phenomcnalistic basis." ^łS

Ludwig Wittgcnstcin (1889-1951) was the son of a wealthy Vicn-ncsc industrialist of Jcwish dcsccnt. Ile had four brothers and thrcc sisters. Two brothers wcrc skillcd musicians and one sister was a gifted painter. Ludwigs schooling was irregular, his bchavior erratic, his emotions unstablc, and his father indulged him with moncy. But if hc was spoiled, he tried to resist it by living humbly and giving money away. '1 hc suicidc of two brothers, the war dcath of a third, thc war crippling of a fourth, and thc carly death of his father com-plicatcd his alrcady ncurotic personality.¹⁰

On thc one hand, he was attractcd to cxtremcly abbreviated writing and mathcrnatical dcscription. On thc other, he enjoycd detective stor-ics and cmotional novclists such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. According to Rudolf Carnap Wittgenstcin’$ basie problem “was a strong inner conflict . . . bctwcen his cmotional life and his intcllcctual think-ing.”

Wittgcnstein originally intended to Siudy physics under Boltzmann, but befure that could take place Boltzmann died. Wittgenstcin then wandered first to Berlin and Inter to England wherc he impressed sonie rather important people with his understanding of modern logie. Hc failed, howcver, to receivc a degree.

Wittgcnstcin wrotc his notorious Tractatus at thc end of World War I. It was published in 1921 and appeared as a book in thc follow-ing ycar with a controvcrsial prcfacc by Bertrand Russell. The book attcmpied to set limits to “meaningfur discussion. Its cxtreme abbrevi-ation, howcvcr, tended to conceal as much as clarify his basie philos-ophy. The Tractatus had a powcrful influence in both Austria and England, and morc rcccntly, in America.

It would bc hard to dctcrminc how much reading Wittgcnstein did in thc history of philosophy. Hc was clcarly not impressed by its importancc, but hc may havc done morc scrious reading than he is nor-mally givcn ci cdii for. Wittgcnstcin was espccially contcmptuous of

World Influence: Philosophy

Mach: “Mach writes such a horrid style that it makes mc ncarly sick ro read him; howcvcr, I am glad you [Bertrand Russell] think so much of a countryman of minę." ²¹

F. A. von Hayek, thc rcspectcd cconomist-philosophcr, who is also a family relalion of Wittgcnstcin, has elaborated on thc conncction. "Others with whosc idcas hc [Wittgcnstcin] was vcry familiar though hc dislikcd their manner wcrc Ernst Mach and thc psychologist Otto Wciningcr.”²² In point of fact, Wittgcnstcin’s intcllcctual debt to Mach, whether acquircd dircctly or indircctly, was massivc and funda- l mcntal, as morc dian one wcll-known scholar has suspcctcd:

Mach and thc early logical positisists (Wittgcnstcin, Carnap) also postulatcd protocol and atomie propositions as absolutc beginnings.²³

The atomie vicwpoint was in a sense fundamcntal to his [Mach’s] system, as hc conccivcd of thc world of thc scicntist as a stream of unit ob-scrvcd facts, or atomie pcrccptions. One of his followers, Ludwig Wittgcnstcin, stated cxplicitiy, “thc totality of cxistcnt atomie facts is thc world." ²⁴

The scnsc-imprcssions spoken of by Pcarson and thc scnsaiions spoken of by Mach, Avenarius, and Pctzoldt as ncutral cicmcnts that constitutc all thc facts of thc world, both physical and psychical, corrcspond exactly to thc objects (Gegenstande) spoken of by Ludwig Wittgcnstcin in his Tractatus IMgico-Philosophicus as thc constitucnts of atomie facts and to thc clcmcntary c.xpcricnccs (Elcmcntarcrlcbnissc) spoken of by Rudolf Carnap in Der logische Aufbau der WeltP

Wittgcnstcin also hcld Mach’s distinction bctwcen becoming and cud science and in a way similar to that of Fritz Mauthner cven ; borrowed Mach*s analogy of a disposablc “laddcr": "My [Wittgen- | stcin’s] propositions are clucidatory in this way: he who understands mc fmally rccognizcs them as scnsclcss, when hc has climbcd out through them, on them, ovcr them. (Hc must so to speak throw away thc laddcr, after hc has climbcd upon it)." ^2,5

In addition, Wittgcnstein ndopted Mach's idea that nothing could be said about thc world as a wholc, a strange notion in common sense terms, but understandablc if one looks from thc pcrspective of cpistc-mological “relativism.”²⁷ Mach also had a significant indirect influence on Wittgcnstein’s idcas. Wittgcnstein read one or morę books by the speech philosópher, Fritz Mauthner, a former student of Mach. Wittgenstein referred to Mauthner in the Tractatus (p. 6;) and therc is also evidencc that some of his idcas on language had an effect on Wittgenstein's posthumous Philosophiotl Inuestigation; as wcll. "Witt

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