Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry

by Ernst Mach, B.F. McGuinness (Editor)

Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung. Von E. MACH Emer. Professor an der Unlversltlt Wlen. LEIPZIG Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth 1905. INTRODUCTION XIII On a number of occasions Mach expressed the sentiment, especially in his correspondence, that America was the land of intellectual freedom and opportunity, the coming frontier for a new radical empiricism that would help to wash metaphysics out of philosophy. In 1901 he sponsored the German edition of Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881) 2 by J. B. Stallo, Cincinnati lawyer and philosopher. Mach warmly endorsed Stallo's book because his scientific aims so closely approximated his own, and because Stallo rejected the latent metaphysical elements and concealed ontological assumptions of the mechanical-atomistic inter- pretation of the world. The second edition of Wiirmelehre was dedicated to Stallo in 1900. The fourth edition of Populiir-wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen (1910), containing seven new essays, was dedicated to Harvard Professor of physiology, philosophY, and psychology, William James. Mach had a strong intellectual affinity for James' pragmatism because, like himself, he recognized that James had come to radically empirical views from science. Both men took pure pre-conceptualized experience, from which the mental and physical predicates of experience are composed, to be neutral rather than real, unreal, objective or subjective.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Nonfiction, Empiricism

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1905

About the author

Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher and is the namesake for the "Mach number" (also known as Mach speed) and the optical illusion known as Mach bands.

Reviews

[Mapo]

"Mach dichiarava che fin da ragazzo due cose gli erano sembrate insopportabili e difficili da capire: la prima era che la gente si lasciasse governare da un re anche per un solo minuto; la seconda era l'iniqua distribuzione della ricchezza tra gli uomini.
Mach aveva formato il suo pensiero attraverso la pratica della ricerca fisica, e attraverso un'analisi storica della letteratura scientifica per un bisogno di chiarezza suscitato dalla sua insofferenza e dal suo rifiuto fin dall'infanzia nei confronti di ogni imposizione autoritaria di principi e di concetti.
Il suo rifiuto per l'autorità politica si traduceva, nella ricerca scientifica e fisica-matematica, nel rifiuto degli assiomi delle teorie scientifiche, cioè nel rifiuto dell'autorità di Euclide e dei grandi matematici, che comunque stimava."