Mach’s Phenomenalism as a Link Between Physics and Psychology

Abstract

The essential aim of Mach’s scientific and philosophical endeavours was not to build a coherent theory of knowing, but to overcome the gap between the science of inorganic matter and the science of psychic activities, and to create a conceptual system which could equally well be applied to physics and psychology. The intermediary role between these two groups of sciences should be played by biology. With the help of this discipline, unique scientific knowledge could be achieved, i.e. unity in subject-matter and methodology in physics, biology, and psychology could be reached. Mach believed that biology could intertwine with physics and psychology in such a way that they could help each other in describing the corresponding phenomena of their separate fields. The unity of science in methodology and in subject-matter as well as the unity of philosophy with the sciences could thus be attained by means of biology, especially the physiology of the sense organs, that is to say through the analysis of sensations.1 Mach himself carried out a large amount of laboratory work on the physiology of the sense organs, psychophysics, and psychology of the sensations. He studied auditory and kinesthetic sensations as well as the perception of space, time, and movement. As a physicist, Mach successfully dealt with important aspects of mechanics, thermodynamics, optics, acoustics, and wave mechanics. Many of his discoveries were of special interest for ballistics and later hydrodynamics, and aerodynamics.

This paper is an extensively revised and augmented version of “Mach’s Phenomenalism and Its Consequences in Physics”, which appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly, 21 (1981), 249–259.