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Ernst Mach

futurę ren li ty or happening. He preferred the pragmatic notion that an assertion was truć only to the cxtcnt that it satisfled human pur-poses,” “human biological nccds,” or contributcd to the “survival ot the human race or spccies.’’⁵

Mach was ncithcr a lovcr of knowledge in the sense of "knowlcdgc for knowlcdgcs sake” nor a lovcr of power in the Baconian “knowl-

edge is power" sense. Nor was he even a rigid “survival of the fittest” Darwinian. He rejcctcd the “immoral" features of natural sclcction in favor of Lamarckinn progress via the inheritance of ever morę ad-vanced acquircd morał and intcllcctua! charactcristics. He bclicvcd that the survival of human civilizatión could be accomplishcd only by ra-tional, educatcd individuals subordinating their particular purposes to aims bencfidal to the spccies as a whole and that the survival rcquirc-ments of the spccies on a civilized levcl determined moralny.⁰

Machs theory of “ccononiy” played a double role in his philosophy of science. He described the purposc of science as the simplcsi des-cription of the appearances, hut this was mcrely an internal purposc and an internal application of his theory of "cconomy.” That is. it providcd a goal and an orientation for himsclf and other scicn-tists, but it was mcrely half the story. He also described the purposc of science as ultimatcly to help satisfy “biological nccds." That is, Sciences cxtcrnal purposc, and ultimatc justification was its Darwin ian function of aiding the survival and wclfare of the spccies. And the internal purposc was only justified to the cxtcnt that it contributcd to the cxternal purposc. Furthermore, Mach’s theory of “econ-omy" tended to shift mcaning from the “internal” to the “cxternal" purposc. "The simplcst possible description of the appearances” tended to make logical simplicity a goal, though the saving of timc and effort was surcly a dcsirable means. But the “extcrnal” purposc of satisfying biological nccds in the simplest or most cconomica! way possible idcalized practical efliciency as a goal. In other words, while the influence of Darwins theory and of Machs own theory of “cconomy" permeated his whole philosophy, they were applied in difTerent ways at di/ferent points such that the complcxity of these two in-flucnces in his philosophy should not be underestimated.⁷

The sccond major 1860 cvent to influence Mach’s philosophy was the publication of Fechner’s revolutionary book. His Psychophysics secmed not only to put psychology on a scientific basis, bul also to climinatc

the unwelcome shifting in philosophical assumptions which Mach had fclt compcllcd to make when doing werk in physics and then in psy-chology. Fechncr attempted to put forward a scientific methodology which, by assuming only a single kind of rcality, might apply to both physics and psychology and to his crcated field “psychophysics," which had the task of relaling “niind” and “body.” Fechncr elaimed that this single typc of rcality had two “sides,” a physical “outside" and a psy-chological “lnside" which were related to each other not by mcans of intcraction but by mcans of a parallclism of behavior which could be reliably described and undersrood by mcans of mathematical cqua-tions and functions.⁸

Since the scventeenth-ccntury Cartesian controversy bctwccn inter-actionism and parallclism may eonie to the reader’s mind—and in this case eonfusc his understanding—somc clarification is in order. Des-cartes’s problem conccrncd the causal relationship bctwccn cxperience-able and noncxpcricnceablc types of reality, while Fechncr was inter-ested mercly in the relationship betwcen different kinds of conscious appearance, one called “physical” and the other “mcntal.” From Des-cartes’$ point of view both of Fcchnefs “sides” were mental and ncither had anything to do with physical rcality. Furthcrmore, Fcchner’s rc-liance on mathematical functions to link “montal" and “physical” bc-havior—preciscly becausc parallelistic—was not gcnuincly causal at all.

But rcgardlcss of what Descartcs and his followcrs might have diought about Fechncr and his philosophy, Mach did becomc en-thusiastic about it. Mach later elaimed it set him free from “dic great-est intellectual discomfort of my life.” Also, Fechncr’s point of view not only justified and encouragcd the use of mathematics and physics in solving psychological problcms, but it evcn set up a ncw field, “psychophysics,” which fit cxacily the kinds of interests and pioblcms Mach wanted to iiwcstigatc further. In addition, Fechner reinforced the influence of Herbart on Mach as to the wisdom of using “functional explanation” in place of traditional “forcc" cxplanation.

Mach, howevcr, was unablc to rcmain satisfied with Fcchncr’s ap proach. Not only did he soon question the yalidity ot Fcchncr’s “psy-chophysical laws,” but the momstic character of the Lcipzigcr‘s theory of reality also began to seern dubious. Was Fechner really a phenom-cnalist or not? Sonie of Fechner*s other books suggested much niorc the Naturphilosoph than the expcrimcntal physicist or psychologist.⁹

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