THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ: THE PHILOSOPHY AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE GERMAN SCIENTIST

261 Pages·012.718 MB·English

by  KAHL, HARRY RUSSELL

Copyright by
Harry Russell Kahl
1951
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORK OF HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ
The Philosophy and Epistemology
oi the German Scientist
by
H. Russell Kahl
Submitted in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Faculty of Philosophy
Columbia University
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i
PREFACE
■While Helmholtz's writings on philosophy have been the sub­
ject of a number of monographs in German, nothing in the way of
a systematic study of his work has appeared in English* The same,
almost, may be said of his achievements in the field of science*
Frequent reference may be found to his monumental works in phy­
siological optics and physiological acoustics* It is also pos­
sible to find occasional references to his historic papers on the
conservation of force, to his contributions to the early history
of non-Euclidean geometry, and to his influence on Hertz* Little,
however, has been done in English on his general position in the
history of nineteenth century science and philosophy, on the at­
titude which underlies his scientific work, on the interconnections
which he saw among the various fields in which he worked, and on
his general philosophical thought*
It is the purpose of the following essay to attempt to show
Helmholtz's interpretation of the function of philosophy and to
formulate his conclusions in epistemology and in the philosophies
of science and mathematics* This in turn will lead us to consider
a number of topics not usually understood to be part of philosophy,
and will necessitate frequent reference to Helmholtz’s scientific
work* This, as will be seen later, is due to the fact that Helm­
holtz's conclusions in the field of epistemology are inseparably
connected with his scientific studies, particularly with his epoch
making contributions to physiological optics*
In addition to the field of physiological optics, however,
Helmholtz's work covered many other fields, ranging from his early
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ii
experimental -work in physiology to the theoretical physics of his
later years, and he was recognized as a master in all of the
sciences to which he made contributions# And not only did he mix
epistemological considerations with each of his scientific studies
(as did a number of his contemporaries in German science), but his
fundamental philosophical and methodological position entered into
each science, and each in turn made its contributions to this posi­
tion and attitude* Thus, an investigation of Helmholtz’s epistem­
ology will lead us from the physiology of the senses, and in particu­
lar, the physiology of the sense of sight, to the philosophical re­
flections which stemmed from his work in theoretical physics# And
it will lead in addition to a consideration of his essays on the
axioms of geometry, essays which were one of the results of his
studies in physiological optics, and which led in turn to his work
on arithmetic, counting, and measurement, and to his discussions of
general problems in the philosophy of science#
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Table of Contents
Chapter I* Helmholtz’s Life, His Scientific Work, and
His Conception of Philosophy p» 1
Chapter II© Sensation 28
Chapter III© Perception 55
Chapter 17. Perception (cont.) 8o
Chapter 7. Perception (cont.) 90
Chapter 71. Geometry 113
Chapter 711. Counting and Measurement 158
Chapter Till. The Principles of Science 186
Chapter IX* Conclusion 2l2f
Bibliography 2$h
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CHAPTER I
Helmholtz’s Life, His Scientific Work,
And His Conception of Philosophy
Any discussion and evaluation of Helmholtz’s work in epistem-
ology and in the philosophies of science and mathematics will be
facilitated by some consideration of his life and of his scien­
tific achievements» This is true for several reasons* A short
mention of his life is important because, while his conclusions
concerning epistemological problems are closely and inseparably
connected with his later and more scientific studies, his in­
terest in some of the general problems of philosophy and particu­
larly his interest in and his inclination towards epistemology
antedates all of bis scientific worko This interest started be­
fore he began his student life in Berlin through the influence of
his father and a number of his father’s colleagues, all of whom
were followers of the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, or Hegel,^
and it continued after he had first begun his formal studies of
medicine* It was at this early age, too, that he began to arrive
at his conception of the function of philosophy, a conception
which he retained unaltered throughout his life* Thus it may be
said that, as far as epistemology is concerned, Helmholtz applied,
at a later time, scientific conclusions to problems and questions
1 Hermann von Helmholtz, "An Autobiographical Sketch," Popular
Lectures on Scientific Subjects, Volume II, p* 285* "The
interest ?or questions in the" ‘theory of cognition had been im­
planted in me in my youth, when I often heard my father, who
had retained a strong impression from Fichte’s idealism, dispute
with his colleagues who believed in Kant or Hegel*"
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•which had been with him from his earlier years*
In addition, a short introductory account of his life and
work will indicate more clearly the intellectual fields in which
Helmholtz's greatest interest lay and may, perhaps, give some in­
dication of the temperament and attitude which lies behind the
more philosophical considerations to be treated in later chapters*
There are still further reasons for considering both Helm­
holtz's scientific as well as his philosophical work* His fame
rests almost entirely upon his achievements in science* Helm­
holtz was an important investigator in almost all fields of nine­
teenth century science, his career starting in medicine and ending,
fifty years later, in theoretical physics, and his leadership, or
at least his tremendous influence, was felt in every science in
which he worked* It is justly that Maxwell called him a "uni­
versal genius♦" His interests were catholic and his contributions
equally so. At the age of 26 he wrote his famous paper on the
conservation of force, a key contribution in the history of this
principle which was to become so fundamental in the physics of the
latter half of the nineteenth century* Among other works he con­
tributed basic studies in physiological optics and physiological
acoustics* It was Helmholtz who led Hertz to the experimental -
verification of Maxwell's equations, and it was Helmholtz who
began scientific ophthalmology with the invention of the ophthal­
moscope* He was tremendously influential in uncovering the
scientific problems, in establishing the experimental procedures,
and in furthering the scientific attitude which was so important
in science during the last half of the nineteenth century*
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A much more important reason, however, for considering briefly
•in this essay Helmholtz’s scientific work is the fact that Helm­
holtz ’s conclusions in philosophy are almost always built upon the
foundation of his purely scientific work or were at least sug­
gested by it, and a knowledge of this is important in order to
understand his epistemology* His theory or sensation, his theory
of perception, h XS "*»0 rk on non-Euclidean geometry, his studies
of measurement and on the foundations of science in general and
of physics in particular, in short, almost all of his work in
epistemology and in the philosophies of mathematics and science,
is directly connected to and arises from some previous work in
experimental or mathematical science* Even his antagonism to­
wards metaphysics, or, more specifically, his reaction to the
idealism of Schelling and Hegel and to the materialism of Vogt
and Moleschott, is based in large part on his scientific work
and attitude»
Helmholtz rs long life spans much of the nineteenth century,
beginning at the time when the experimental sciences characteris­
tic of the period were just getting well started and ending just
before the turn of the century when the classical theoretical
physics which was his first love was about to be shocked by the
discovery of radioactivity and by the first of Planck’s papers on
quantum theory* The period of his life encompasses the begin­
nings of physiological psychology and of scientific medicine* He
saw the great generalization of the conservation of energy grad­
ually become a ruling law in physics and he witnessed the growth
of non-Euclidean geometry to importance and popularity* And, to
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his satisfaction, he witnessed the decline of Schelling and Hegel's
"Philosophy of Nature" in Germany, and the rise to respect of the
experimental and mathematical methods of procedure of which he was
such a confirmed advocate.
Hermann von Helmholtz was born in 1321, the son of an in­
structor in philology and philosophy in the Potsdam gymnasium.
He early showed an interest in mathematics and physics, teaching
himself geometry and optics while still a student in the gym­
nasium.- His earliest intellectual inclination seems to have been
towards physics but at the age of sixteen he was forced, due to
the limited financial resources of his family, to turn to medi­
cine. At the time the Prussian government was offering scholar­
ships at the Royal Frederick Wilhelm Institute of Medicine and
Surgery in Berlin to exceptional students who were willing to
serve for a period of four years as a surgeon in the Prussian Army
after the completion of their training. It was on such a scholar­
ship that Helmholtz went to Berlin. In 1842, at the age of
twenty-one, he completed his studies at the Institute with the
dissertation, "The Structure of the Nervous System in Inverte­
brates" (De Fabrica Systematis Nervosi Fvertebratorum), in which
he showed, basing his conclusions on microscopic studies, that
the nerve cells of ganglia, discovered by von Ehrenberg in 1833j
are individually connected with the separate nerve fibres which
O
lead from them.
VJhile at the Institute Helmholtz studied under Gustav Magnus,
2 See E. G. Boring, History of Experimental Psychology, p. 290.
Boring here cites this Investigation and discovery by Helm­
holtz as foreshadowing the neuron theory.
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the physicist whom he was later to succeed as professor of physics
at Berlin, and under Johannes Muller, the physiologist, whose law
of the specific energy of nerves was to become the central
scientific foundation of his later psychological and philosophi­
cal work on sensation and perception® It was at the Institute,
too, that he began his first serious reading of some of the
classics of philosophy and science® Ihile working part time as
librarian he read the works of Euler, Daniel Bernoulli, d'Alem­
bert, and Lagrange, in addition to undertaking the study of
Kant’s epistemology®
With the completion of his dissertation began a series of
contributions to many sciences, extending over the next fifty
years® In 181|? Helmholtz wrote his famous paper n0n the Con­
servation of Force,” which, along with the work of Joule, Meyer,
Colding, and others, helped to establish this principle as one of
the fundamental laws of physics, a law which was to become of
central importance in the subsequent development of nineteenth
century science®
During his career as a student the question as to the
existence of a vital force had been under discussion, opinion
ranging from complete acceptance to complete denial of such a
force. Even Johannes MBller, Helmholtz’s most influential
teacher, while making significant advances in physiology, still
struggled between the older view of acceptance (which Helmholtz
characteristically calls metaphysical) and the newer, more nat­
uralistic, one of denial* Most physiologists had at the time
adopted Stahl’s view that, while there are important physical and
chemical forces acting in the organs and substances of the living
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