142
DOC.
29
ERNST MACH
[2]
fields.
I
even
believe that those who consider themselves
to
be
opponents
of Mach
barely
know how
many
of his views
they
absorbed,
in
a
manner
of
speaking,
with
their mother's milk.
Science
is, according
to
Mach,
nothing
but the
comparison
and
orderly
arrangement
of
factually given
contents of
our consciousness,
in accord with certain
gradually
acquired points
of
view and methods.
Therefore, physics
and
psychology
differ from each other
not
so
much in the
subject matter,
but rather
only
in the
points
of view
of
the
arrangement
and connection of
the
various
topics.
It
appears
that Mach
sought
as
his
most
important
task
to
demonstrate how this
order
evolved in the
particular
sciences he knew. As
a
result of this
activity
of
orderly
arrangement, one
obtains the
abstract
concepts
and the laws
(rules)
of their connection. Both
are
chosen
such that
together
they
form
a
scheme of order into which the facts
can
be
ranged
securely
and
comprehensively.
From what has been
said,
concepts
make
sense
only
insofar
as
they can
be
pointed
out
in
things;
also the
points
of view
according
to
which
concepts
are
associated with
things
(analysis
of
concepts).
The
significance
of
personalities
like Mach lies
by no
means
only
in the fact that
they satisfy
the
philosophical
needs of their
times,
an
endeavor which the hard-nosed
specialist may
dismiss
as a
luxury. Concepts
that have
proven
useful in
ordering
things can easily
attain
an authority over us
such that
we
forget
their
wordly origin
and take them
as
immutably given. They are
then rather
rubber-stamped
as a
"sine-
qua-non
of
thinking"
and
an
"a
priori given,"
etc.
Such
errors
make the road
of
scientific
progress
often
impassable
for
long
times.
Therefore,
it is
not
at
all idle
play
when
we
are
trained to
analyze
the entrenched
concepts,
and
point
out
the
circumstances that
promoted
their
justification
and
usefulness
and how
they
evolved
from the
experience
at
hand. This breaks their all
too
powerful authority. They
are
removed when
they
cannot
properly legitimize
themselves;
they are
corrected
when
their association with
given things
was
too
sloppy; they
are
replaced by
others when
a new
system
can
be established
that,
for various
reasons,
we
prefer.
The
specialized
scientist who
concentrates
more
on
details
views
such
analysis
often
as
superfluous,
as
far-out, and,
occasionally,
as
out-right
ridiculous. But the
situation
changes
when
one
of the
traditionally
used
concepts
is to
be
replaced by a
more precise
one,
because the
development
of
the
science
in
question
demands it.
Then those who did not
cleanly use
their
own concepts
raise
vigorous protest
and
complain
of
a
revolutionary endangerment
of their
most
sacred treasures. Mixed into
this
outcry
are
the voices
of
those
philosophers
who
believe
they
cannot
dispense
with the
disputed concepts
because
they
have
incorporated
them into their treasure
chest
of
"absolutes" and "a
prioris,"
or,
in
short,
because
they
have
already
proclaimed
their fundamental
immutability.
The reader
can
already guess
that
I
am touching on
certain
concepts
of the
philosophy
of
space
and
time,
and also
mechanics,
which have
undergone
a
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