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Ernst Mach

position by introducing theorics into both “bccoming” and “cnd-science” as if theorics could be indispcnsable cvcn in thc finał for-malistic stagcs of science. Quantum physicists also tcndcd to be skcpti-cal of Mach’s thcory of economy, cspccially in its biological form.

Mach was of thcTupinion that scnsations werc rcal cvcn whcn unpcr-ceivcd or unconscious and when not in the prescnce of obscrvational or measuring instrumcnts. Copcnhagen physicists, howcvcr, rcjcctcd this view as "mctaphysical.”^:ic

The Copcnhagen attcmpt to out-Mach Macli howcyer, ran afoul of two major objcctions: it ovcrly narrowcd thc mcthodological approach to bc used in c]uantum invcstigation, and lo numerom opponcnts holding a variety of differcnt cpistcmologics and ontologics particle-wave duality scemed neithcr fully rational nor a finał stagc of human understanding. Mach’s objection to thc mcthodological narrowncss would probably havc bcen that thc Copcnhagen group unwiscly trans-fcrrcd rcstrictions which lcgitimatcly applied to “cnd-scicncc" and imposed thcm instead on “bccoming-scicnce,” which in Mach’s opinion should bc lcft comparativcly frcc and unrcstrictcd.

The Copcnhagen instrument-oriented, pcrceptual act phcnonicnalism irritated contcnt phcnomenalists who bclievcd that unambiguous micro-scnsations cxistcd whcn unpcrccived and perhaps c.ven whcn unper-ceivablc, prcscntational realists who acccpted the rcality of microscnsory objeets, and representational realists who belicved that unobservable microphysical objeets werc just as rcal as unobscrvablc macrophysical objeets, and at least in principle could bc just as rcliably understood.

But if advocatcs of all major cpistcmological persuasions could bc found who opposed thc “Copcnhagen interpretation of quantum thcory,” then what philosophical position or positions did thc Copcn-hagen theorists thcmscKes acccpt?

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Nicls Bohr (1885-1962) cncountcrcd cpistcmological phenomenalism in thc writings of Sprcn Kicrkcgaard and a posilivistic approach to scicncc in thc books of Harold HpfTding, a family friend and noted historian of philosophy.³⁷ Mach’s influence was conjectural, but may havc cornc through Bohr’s collcaguc at thc Univcrsity of Copcnhagen, Anton Thomson, or morc likcly, through his long friendship with Georg von Hcvcsy, who bctwccn 1900 and 1910 had, likc Thomscn, corresponded with Mach.³* M.ix Jammcr has supposed that Bohr’s sympathy with causal indeterminism could bc traccd back to thc influence of Charles Rcnouvicr and William James.³⁹ In later years, Nicls Bohr becamc attractcd to a form of relational “holism” as if particlc-wavc duality might bc rcconcilcd by mcans of a Hegelian or tclcological “synthesis.”⁴⁰

Wolfgang Pauli, thc younger, (1900-1958), perhaps the most acute and skcptically minded of thc Copcnhagen theorists, was thc son of an activc supporter of Ernst Mach, and indced, Mach was his legał godfather.⁴¹ Young Pauli bccamc attractcd to Einsteins argument that thought could not bc dcduccd from scnsations but possessed a mcasurc of imaginativc freedom. This notion cncouraged him to rcject Machs mind-matter parallclism, and whilc hc continucd to use a positivistic approach in science, his philosophy as a wholc drifted away from Mach through thc years until in his old age Pauli bccamc actively interested in Keplcr’s "archtypes," Plato’s “forms,” and Jungs unconscious “world soul.”«

Erwin Schródinger (1887-1961), thc long-time opponent of thc Copcnhagen interpretation, who noncthclcss madc csscntial contribu-tions to it, like Pauli grew up in Vicnna and took Mach’s phcnomc-nalism and Boltzmanns mcthodology of science for granted.⁴³ Evcn in his later years (1959) Schródinger still wrotc in a purc Machian style: “It is the same elements that go to composc my mind and thc world. The subjcct and objcct 3rc only one." “

Werner Mciscnbcrg (1901-) was a positivist in his scicntific

work, but like Bohr and Pauli has increasingly becn unablc to resist the lush junglcs of traditional German naturę philosophy. In his latcst book, The Part and the Wholc (1969), hc is on thc lookout for .1 “world purposc.” In light of Heisenbcrg’s “unccrtainty principlc" one might have suspcctcd that hc sympathized with Mach’s philosophy, but hc has explicitly denied this (1962):

No. I must say that I ncvcr havc rcad Ernst Mach quite seriously. I havc later on studied it a littlc bit, but that was much later. And in somc way I was ncvcr much impressed by Mach. I was impressed by Einstein s wav of doing things, but not by Mach's. And why was that? I would say Mach was always a hit formal for mc. It was too—I would say not too ncgativc, but too modest in what hc wanted. U was perhaps I should say. too littlc poetical. 1 mcan, Plato is, of coursc, a poct; that‘s obvious. Kant is not a poct, but still hc has somc poetry evcn in thc way hc writes, but Mach, I would say is vcry littlc poetical. I mcan thc positivist is vcry frcqucnth not

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