Ernst Mach
Science describes how our sensations hang together as simply as possible, and concepts that no experience can touch, like absolute space, should go.
Placement
Physicist in Prague and Vienna: science should describe the connections of sensations as economically as possible; Newton’s absolute space is a metaphysical idle wheel. The Vienna Circle named its association after him.
Key ideas
- Economy of thought
- Elements (sensations) instead of things in themselves
- Critique of absolute space
Influence
Influenced 6
Christian von Ehrenfels
influenced
Ehrenfels started ‘Über Gestaltqualitäten’ (1890) from Mach’s observation in the Analysis of Sensations (1886) that a melody stays the same when transposed although every tone changes. C. von Ehrenfels, “Über Gestaltqualitäten” (1890); E. Mach, Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen (1886); SEP “Christian von Ehrenfels”; SEP “Ernst Mach”
Evidence: AI draft
Christian von Ehrenfels › 1859–1932
Albert Einstein
influenced ✓
Einstein took from Mach’s critique of absolute space the idea that inertia depends on distant masses, which he named ‘Mach’s principle’ (‘Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie’, 1918). A. Einstein, “Ernst Mach”, Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916); “Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie”, Annalen der Physik 55 (1918); E. Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung (1883); SEP “Ernst Mach”
Albert Einstein › 1879–1955
Otto Neurath
influenced ✓
Neurath co-founded the Verein Ernst Mach (1928) and, in the manifesto he co-wrote, named Mach among the forerunners of an anti-metaphysical, unified science (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung, 1929). H. Hahn, O. Neurath and R. Carnap, Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (1929); SEP “Otto Neurath”; SEP “Vienna Circle”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Otto Neurath › 1882–1945
Moritz Schlick
influenced
Schlick took Mach’s former Vienna chair (1922) and chaired the Verein Ernst Mach (1928), though his early critical realism had rejected Mach’s positivism (Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, 1918). M. Schlick, Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918); SEP “Moritz Schlick”; SEP “Vienna Circle”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Moritz Schlick › 1882–1936
Bronisław Malinowski
influenced
Malinowski’s dissertation On the Principle of the Economy of Thought (Kraków, 1906) critically examined Mach’s empiriocriticism, which scholars such as Gellner link to his later functionalism. B. Malinowski, “O zasadzie ekonomii myślenia” (diss., Kraków, 1906), in R. J. Thornton and P. Skalník (eds.), The Early Writings of Bronisław Malinowski (1993); E. Gellner, “Zeno of Cracow” (1987); SEP “Ernst Mach”
Evidence: AI draft
Bronisław Malinowski › 1884–1942
Rudolf Carnap
influenced ✓
Carnap built the Aufbau (1928) on an autopsychological basis of experiences, in the line of Mach’s analysis of sensations, but took elementary experiences, not sensation elements, as basic. R. Carnap, Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928); E. Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886); SEP “Ernst Mach”; SEP “Rudolf Carnap”
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Isaac Newton
criticised
Mach rejected Newton’s absolute space and time as metaphysical, reinterpreting the rotating bucket through motion relative to the distant masses of the universe (Die Mechanik, 1883). E. Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung (1883), ch. II.6; SEP “Ernst Mach”
Evidence: AI draft
Isaac Newton › 1643–1727
Immanuel Kant influenced by
influenced by
Mach recalled that Kant’s Prolegomena, read at fifteen, made a ‘powerful, indelible impression’ and turned him to the critique of knowledge (Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen, 1886). E. Mach, Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen (1886); SEP “Ernst Mach”
Evidence: AI draft
criticised
Mach, who read Kant’s Prolegomena at fifteen, came to see the thing in itself as playing an ‘idle role’: the world consists of elements such as sensations (1886). E. Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886), ch. I, note; SEP “Ernst Mach”
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Works
A historical-critical account of mechanics: absolute space and time are metaphysical; inertia must be understood relative to the masses of the universe.
Bodies and the ego are relatively stable complexes of elements – colours, sounds, pressures; “the ego cannot be saved”.
Position
Mach wanted to free science from metaphysics, including the metaphysics hidden in physics. The Science of Mechanics (1883) traced the concepts of mechanics back to their origins and found Newton’s absolute space and absolute time to be “idle” ideas that no experience could check; the inertia of a body should be understood relative to the other masses of the universe. Einstein later called him a forerunner of general relativity and named this idea “Mach’s principle”. The Analysis of Sensations (1886) went further: the world consists of “elements” – colours, sounds, pressures, spaces, times – and what we call bodies and egos are only relatively stable complexes of them. “The ego cannot be saved.” He recalled that reading Kant’s Prolegomena at fifteen impressed him deeply, and that soon after the thing in itself struck him as superfluous. Science aims at an “economy of thought”: laws summarise experience as briefly as possible and remain provisional. His doubts about atoms led to a long dispute with Boltzmann. The Vienna Circle founded the Verein Ernst Mach in 1928, while Lenin attacked “Machism” as idealism in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1909).
Life & context
Ernst Mach was born in 1838 in Chirlitz near Brünn in Moravia (today part of Brno) and was largely taught at home by his father. He took his doctorate in physics in Vienna in 1860, became professor in Graz in 1864 and from 1867 held the chair of experimental physics in Prague for 28 years. There he worked on acoustics, optics and the physiology of the senses, and in 1887, with Peter Salcher, published the first photographs of the shock waves around supersonic projectiles; the Mach number is named after him. In 1895 Vienna created for him a chair in the history and theory of the inductive sciences. A stroke in 1898 left him partly paralysed, and he retired in 1901, the year he was appointed to the upper house of the Austrian parliament. He died near Munich in 1916.
Further main works
- Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (1886)
- Popular Scientific Lectures (1896)
- Principles of the Theory of Heat (1896)
- Knowledge and Error (1905)
Appears in
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