Ernst Mach — A Deeper Look: Documents and New Perspectives

471 Pages·1992·29.18 MB·English

by  P. Leo Fürst (auth.)

ERNSTMACH- ADEEPERLOOK
BOSTONSTUDIES INTHEPHILOSOPHYOFSCIENCE
Editor
ROBERTS.COHEN,BostonUniversity
EditorialAdvisoryBoard
ADOLFGRONBAUM, UniversityofPittsburgh
SYLVANS.SCHWEBER,BrandeisUniversity
JOHNJ.STACHEL,BostonUniversity
MARXW.WARTOFSKY,BaruchCollegeof
theCity University ofNewYork
VOLUME 143
ERNSTMACH
- A DEEPER LOOK
Documents and New Perspectives
Edited by
JOHN BLACKMORE
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ernst Mach-a deeper look : docu.ents and new perspect1ves I ed1ted by
John Blackmore.
p. CM. -- (Boston stud1es 1n the ph1losophy of sc1ence : v.
143)
Includes b1bl1ograph1cal references and 1ndex.
ISBN 978-94-010-5230-6 ISBN 978-94-011-2771-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-2771-4
1. Mach. Ernst, 1838-1916. 2. Phys1c1sts--Austr1an--B1ography.
3. Ph1 losophers--Austr1an--81ograhy. I. 8lackmore, John T.
II. Ser 1e s.
0174.867 vol. 143
[OCI6.M321
001' . O1 s--dc20
[530' .0921 92-20024
ISBN 978-94-010-5230-6
Printed an acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Origina11y published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1992
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
This book is dedicated to my kind and loving wife:
SETSUKO TANAKA
TABLEOFCONTENTS
SECTIONI: HISTORICALDOCUMENTS
CHAPTER1: SOMEBIOGRAPHICALDOCUMENTS
A. 'JohannMach1840-1862'byLeoFurst 1
B. 'EarlyMemories' byMarieMach 3
C. 'ErnstMach'byMarieMach 10
D. 'ErnstMach'byErnstMach 17
CHAPTER2: ERNSTMACHINPRAGUE 29
FirstStudy:ErnstMach& theConflictofNationsbyDieterHoffmann 29
SecondStudy:PragueDataonErnstMach(1867-1895)byDieterHoffman& IvoTretera 47
A. Mach'sLotusLectures 47
B. Mach'sAssistants 48
C. Mach'sDoctoralStudents 48
D. Mach'sHabilitanten 50
E. Correspondence& Notes 50
F. LecturesbyTopic 55
CHAPTER3: ERNSTMACHASAHISTORIANOFSCIENCE
ASSEENINBOOKREVIEWSANDNOTES(1896-1932) 57
A. OnMach'sPrinciplesoftheTheoryofHeat:
E.Mach(1896) 57
J.E.Trevor(1897) 57
B. OnMach'sScienceofMechanics:
E.Lampe(1901 & 1905) 59
W.Ostwald(1905) 61
C.D.Broad(1916) 62
W.V.Lenzen(1932) 63
C. OnMach'sThePrinciplesofPhysicalOptics:
M.vonLaue(1921) 65
E.Bloch(1922) 66
J.Stark(1922) 67
S.Brodetsky(1922) 68
L.c.Martin(1926) 69
CHAPTER4:MACHCORRESPONDENCE 71
A. ErnstMachandWilhelmOstwald(1889-1913) 71
B. ErnstMachandHugoDingler(1910-1915) 92
viii CONTENTS
SECTIONII: PHILOSOPHICALDOCUMENTS
CHAPTER5: SOMEPHILOSOPHICALDOCUMENTS III
A. 'LecturesonPsycho-Physics-Conclusion'(1963)byErnstMach III
B. A DraftForeword to the Russian Translation ofDieAnalyse der Empfindungen
(1906/1907)byErnstMach 115
C. 'SensoryElements& ScientificConcepts'(1910)byErnstMach 118
CHAPTER6: THEMACH-PLANCKPOLEMICS 127
A. 'TheUnityofthePhysicalWorldPicture-Section4'
(1908/1909)byMaxPlanck 127
B. 'The Leading Thoughts of My Scientific Epistemology and Its Acceptance by
Contemporaries'(1910)byErnstMach 133
C. 'OnMach'sTheoryofPhysicalKnowledge'(1910)byM.Planck 141
D. MachdepartsfromtheAustrianAcademyofSciences(1913) 147
CHAPTER7: MACHANDEINSTEIN 151
A. 'MachLooksThroughaSprinthariscope'byStefanMeyer 151
B. 'Einstein'sVisittoMach'byPhilippFrank 152
C. 'ErnstMach'byA.Einstein 154
D. 'F.Adler& L.MachonEinstein' 159
E. 'EinsteinandthePhilosophiesofKantandMach'inNature 162
F. 'Einstein'sKyotoTalk'byB.Brauner 163
G. 'Mach& Einstein'byB.Brauner 164
CHAPTER8: MACH'SRELATIVITYVS.EINSTEIN'SRELATIVITY 165
A. 'TheRelativityConceptinPhysics' byEmilWiechert 165
B. 'ErnstMachandRelativity'byHugoDingler 170
C. 'ObjectiveRelativism'byArthurO.Lovejoy 174
SECTIONIII:ANTHOLOGY
CHAPTER9:URSULABAATZ/TheScientistasaBuddhist 183
CHAPTER10:MIODRAGCEKIC/Mach'sPhenomenalismasaLinkBetweenPhysics
andPsychology 201
CHAPTER 11:RUDOLFHALLER/PoeticImaginationandEconomy:ErnstMachas
TheoristofScience 215
CHAPTER12:KEIICHINOE/Mach'sRelativismvs.ApriorismandtheMechanistic
WorldView 229
CHAPTER13:MARIOBUNGE/Mach'sCritiqueofNewtonianMechanics 243
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER14:GERALDHOLTON/MoreonMachandEinstein 163
CHAPTER15:RYOICHIITAGAKI/ThreeBatchesofReasonsforMach'sRejectionof
Einstein'sTheoryofRelativity 277
CHAPTER16:SETSUKOTANAKA/Mach,Einstein,andKuwaki 297
CHAPTER 17:.MICHAELA.SANTONE/ErnstMach'sInfluenceonFourJapanese
Thinkers 333
CHAPTER18:FRIEDRICHSTADLER/The'VereinErnstMach'-
WhatwasItReally? 363
CHAPTER19:MIODRAGCEKIC/TheInfluenceofMach'sPhilosophyinYugoslavia 379
CHAPTER20:HENKVISSER/Mach,Utrecht,andDutchPhilosophy 403
Bibliography 431
Index 453
ERNSTMACH
INTRODUCTION
1.
One purpose ofthis book is to present previously obscure biographical in
formation and make it readily available in English. A second purpose is to
make thecontributions ofrecentEuropeanandAsiatic scholarsabout Mach
more widely known. A third goal is to provide English-speaking readers
with ready access toenough basicdocumentsand sourcematerial to beable
to follow and contribute to current controversies over Ernst Mach, the
Austrian physicist, physiologist, psychologist, philosopher, and historian.
On the physical side, many scientists have been drawn to Mach's Sci
ence of Mechanics, which originally came out in 1883 and which by the
year 1901 was widely considered a classic (See Chapter Three). Mach's
book appealed to a number ofideological trends within physics which had
already begun to attack Newton's mechanics and theory of absolute space,
time, and motion. These trends were already using the distinction between
"classical" and "modem" physics even before the work of Planck and Ein
stein. Fourofthe best-known ideologies were Wilhelm Ostwald's "energe
tics" which he held from approximately 1892 to 1908, the "electro-mag
netic world picture" associated with Heinrich Hertz and some of the work
ofHendrik Antoon Lorentz, which still had defenders as late as 1910, "p0
sitivism" which is still prominent in philosophy of science in some of its
avatars, and Ernst Mach's closely related "physical phenomenology" and
theory of "Denkokonomie" which also retain a numberofsupporters. What
united these movements wasoppositiontoatomismand theepistemological
representism which they believed underlay Newtonian mechanics. During
the last decades of the 19th century they attempted to treat thermodyna
mics, electromagnetism, or phenomenalism as more basic than atomism,
discontinuity theory, andwhatwe nowcall statistical mechanics.
Inopposition, Ludwig Boltzmannpointedout that thermodynamics res
ted on assumptions from statistical mechanics and atomism rather than the
reverse, a fact which threatened Ostwald's "energeticism". After the tum
ofthe century, Einstein and Perrin helped prove the reality of atoms such
that discontinuity theory could not be abolished, and gradually, Einstein's
special theory ofrelativity was distinguished from the workofLorentzand
considered much more fundamental and reliable than the vain effort to
reduce everything to electromagnetism. The collapse of the anti-atomistic
and anti-representationalist ideologies within physics did not mean that
Mach's book on mechanics lost admirers. Both Planck and Einstein them
selves, regardlessofhow disenchanted they becamewithaspectsofMach's
xiii