The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

by Michael N Forster

  17.12 CRITIQUES OF CLASSICAL PHYSICS AND SCIENTIFIC REALISM

  Later in the century, as monism became more popular, others joined its cause. The physical chemist and eventual Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) became convinced that the fundamental substrate of monism could be identified with energy and that the first law of thermodynamics, according to which forms of energy can be transformed into each other but the total amount of energy remains constant, ensured the quantitative equality between cause and effect. As the century came to an end he began to take up the monist cause under the guise of “energeticism” and founded the Monist League in 1906 to bring together those sympathetic to the monist cause.

  Like Ostwald the philosopher and physicist Ernst Mach (1838–1916), a frequent contributor to a new journal called The Monist,39 felt that physics could not rely on the classical foundation of mechanics. In his youth Mach had had an epiphany while reading Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Kant’s notion of the thing-in-itself, an eminently metaphysical category, suddenly appeared to Mach as superfluous. The reality that did impress Mach was the coherent mass of sensations. As he worked out what he saw as the implications of this insight, Mach rejected scientific realism and concluded that the task of the scientist in creating physical theories was simply to give an account of sensations in an economical manner, without suggesting that the result pretended to represent nature as it really was. “With the valuable parts of physical theories,” he wrote later in his 1886 Analysis of Sensations, “we necessarily absorb a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to sift out from what deserves to be preserved, especially when those theories have become very familiar to us.”40

  As the second half of the century had worn on, the mechanical models physicists had come to rely on were beginning to produce enigmatic results. Mach was among those who felt that reliance on atoms, for example, was a mistake. His debate with the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) on the status of atoms in physics sharpened the issue of the status of models in science, especially after the turn of the century when atoms continued to prove extremely useful.

  Boltzmann’s defense of atoms has made him appear to be a defender of scientific realism to many. As a founder of statistical mechanics, by which he provided a theoretical description of the behavior of the molecules of a gas, Boltzmann refused to acknowledge that molecules did not exist, that they merely provided an economical means of accounting for empirical data. Boltzmann was, as a biographer has put it, “a realist, but not a naïve one.”41 He believed that something unobservable existed, but he acknowledged that the best we can do is to use hypothetical entities like atoms to deal with them. Such entities produce no certainty and may be replaced in the future by others, but they represent attempts to explain phenomena whose source lies in nature, not in ourselves.

  As the century came to an end the world of natural science was pregnant with issues that would only come to term after 1900. Most scientists assumed that they were engaged in the pursuit of nature’s truth; in fact, to many it appeared that such a goal was close to being realized. As we have seen, a few philosophers did raise questions about the capacity of science to deliver on such a lofty goal, but the fundamental reorientation of the philosophical options would only emerge into greater clarity after the turn of the new century with the advent of quantum theory, relativity, and new approaches to heredity and evolution.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Amrine, F., F. Zucker, and H. Wheeler, eds., 1987. Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co.

  Apelt, E. F., 1854. Die Theorie der Induction. Leipzig: Engelmann.

  Cahan, D., ed., 1995. Science and Culture. Popular and Philosophical Essays: Hermann von Helmholtz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Caneva, K., 1993. Robert Mayer and the Conservation of Energy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  Cercignani, C., 1998. Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man who Trusted Atoms. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Friedmann, M. and A. Nordmann, eds., 2006. The Kantian Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Science. Cambridge: MIT Press.

  Fries, J., 1803. Reinhold, Fichte und Schelling, in Gert König and Lutz Geldsetzer eds., 1981. Sämtliche Schriften, Vol XXIV. Aalen: Scientia Verlag.

  Fries, J., 1808. Neue Kritik der Vernunft, in Gert König and Lutz Geldsetzer eds., 1967. Sämtliche Schriften, Vol IV. Aalen: Scientia Verlag.

  Gregory, F., 1977. Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co.

  Gregory, F., 1983. “Die Kritik von J. F. Fries an Schellings Naturphilosophie,” Sudhoffs Archiv, 67, Heft 2, pp. 145–57.

  Gregory, F., 1984. “Romantic Kantianism and the End of the Newtonian Dream in Chemistry,” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences, 34, pp. 108–23.

  Gregory, F., 1992. Nature Lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  Gregory, F., 2006. “Extending Kant: The Origins and Nature of Jakob Friedrich Fries’s Philosophy of Sscience,” in M. Friedmann and A. Nordmann eds., 2006, pp. 81–100.

  Gregory, F., 2012. “Proto-monism in German Philosophy, Theology, and Science, 1800–1845,” in T. Weir ed., 2012, pp. 45–69.

  Helmholtz, H., 1862. “On the Relation of Natural Science to Science in General,” in D. Cahan ed., 1995, pp. 76–95.

  Herrmann, W., 1879. Die Religion im Verhältnis zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit. Halle: Niemeyer.

  Hess, M., 1873. In E. Silberner ed., 1959. Briefwechsel, 1825-1881. s-Gravenhage: Mouton.

  Kant, I., 1781. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften ed., 1903. Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 4. Berlin: Georg Reimer.

  Kant, I., 1786. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, in E. Cassirer ed., 1922. Immanuel Kant’s Werke. Vol. 4. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer.

  Kant, I., 1790. Kritik der Urteilskraft, in Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften ed., 1908. Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 5. Berlin: Georg Reimer.

  Leplin, J., ed., 1984. Scientific Realism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  Link, H. F., 1806. Über Naturphilosophie. Leipzig and Rostock: Stiller.

  Löw, R., 1980. Philosophie des Lebendigen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

  Mach, E., 1886. The Analysis of Sensations, 5th ed. 1959. New York: Dover Publications.

  Müller, J., 1840. Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, Vol. II. Coblenz: Verlag von J. Hölscher.

  Natorp, P., 1881. “Über das Verhältnis des theoretischen und praktischen Erkennens zur Begründung einer nichtempirischen Realität,” Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 79, pp. 242–59.

  Otis, L., 2007. Müller’s Lab. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Putnam, H., 1984. “What is Realism?” in Scientific Realism, J. Leplin ed., 1984, pp. 140–53.

  Richards, R., 2008. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggles Over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Richardson, A., 2006. “‘The Fact of Science’ and Critique of Knowledge: Exact Science as Problem and Resource in Marburg Neo-Kantianism,” in M. Friedmann and A. Nordmann eds., 2006, pp. 211–26.

  Schelling, F., 1799. Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie. In: 1858. Sämtliche Werke, Vol. II. Stuttgart: Cotta’scher Verlag.

  Schrimpf, H., 1963. “nmerkungen der Herausgeber,” in Schrimpf ed., 1963. Goethes Werke, 5th ed. Vol. 12. Hamburg: Christian Wegner Verlag.

  Sepper, D., 1988. Goethe contra Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Szaz, T., 1959. “Introduction to the Dover Edition,” in E. Mach. 1886, pp. v–xxxi.

  Weir, T., ed., 2012. Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  Zajonc, A., 1987. “Fact as Theory: Aspects of Goethe’s Philosophy of Science,” in F. Am
rine, F. Zucker, and H. Wheeler eds., 1987, pp. 219–45.

  Ziche, P., 2012. “Monist Philosophy of Science: Between Worldview and Scientific Meta-reflection,” in T. Weir ed., 2012, pp. 159–77.

  * * *

  1 Paul Ziche, “Monist Philosophy of Science: Between Worldview and Scientific Meta-reflection,” in Todd Weir ed., Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), pp. 161–2.

  2 Thomas S. Szasz, Introduction to Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations, 5th ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), p. ix.

  3 Immanuel Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, in Ernst Cassirer ed., Immanuel Kant’s Werke (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922), IV, p. 372.

  4 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, in Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften ed., Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1908), V, p. 373.

  5 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften ed., Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1903), IV, p. 93.

  6 Some have argued that in notes and drafts written late in his life but never published while he was alive Kant changed his earlier position to one closer to that given here by Schelling. Cf. Reinhard Löw, Philosophie des Lebendigen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980).

  7 Friedrich W. J. Schelling, Einleitung zu seinem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie, in F. W. J. Schelling, Sämtliche Werke (Stuttgart: Cotta’scher Verlag, 1858), II, p. 278.

  8 Cf. Frederick Gregory, “Romantic Kantianism and the End of the Newtonian Dream in Chemistry,” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences, 34 (June, 1984), pp. 108–23.

  9 According to Kenneth Caneva, Fries’s conception of organism influenced some of the creators of the conservation of energy in the 1840s. Cf. K. Caneva, Robert Mayer and the Conservation of Energy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 169ff.

  10 Jakob Fries, Neue Kritik der Vernunft, in Gert König and Lutz Geldsetzer eds., Sämtliche Schriften (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1967), IV, pp. 452–3.

  11 Jakob Fries, Reinhold, Fichte und Schelling, in Sämtliche Schriften, XXIV, p. 220. For a more thorough treatment of induction in Fries, see F. Gregory, “Die Kritik von J. F. Fries an Schellings Naturphilosophie,” Sudhoffs Archiv, 67, Heft 2 (1983), pp. 145–57.

  12 Heinrich Friedrich Link, Über Naturphilosophie (Leipzig and Rostock: Stiller, 1806), pp. 106, 197.

  13 Arthur G. Zajonc, “Fact as Theory: Aspects of Goethe’s Philosophy of Science,” in Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker, and Harvey Wheeler eds., Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1987), p. 223. These maxims and reflections are not dated, but while they begin as early as the 1780s, most come from after the turn of the century. See Hans J. Schrimpf, “Anmerkungen der Herausgeber,” in H. Schrimpf ed., Goethes Werke, 5th ed. (Hamburg: Christian Wegner Verlag, 1963), XII, pp. 698–9.

  14 Zajonc, op. cit., p. 230.

  15 Dennis Sepper, Goethe contra Newton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 65ff, 91–9.

  16 Zajonc, op. cit., p. 232.

  17 Johannes Müller, Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (Coblenz: Verlag von J. Hölscher, 1840), II, p. 519.

  18 For a summary of Helmholtz’s work with Müller, see Laura Otis, Müller’s Lab (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 112–18.

  19 Hermann von Helmholtz, “On the Relation of Natural Science to Science in General,” in David Cahan ed., Science and Culture. Popular and Philosophical Essays: Hermann von Helmholtz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 90.

  20 Helmholtz, “On the Relation of Natural Science to Science in General,” p. 79.

  21 Apelt first established contact with Fries as a teenager in 1829 (Frederick Gregory, “Extending Kant: The Origins and Nature of Jakob Friedrich Fries’s Philosophy of Science,” in Michael Friedmann and Alfred Nordmann eds., The Kantian Legacy in Nineteenth Century Science (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), pp. 81–2). The encouraging response he received flowered into a career as a major contributor to the formation of a Friesian school. With the botanist Matthias Schleiden, Apelt founded the first Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule in 1847. A second series appeared in 1904 and continued to 1937. A third, under the name Ratio, began in 1957 and has continued since.

  22 Ernst Apelt, Die Theorie der Induction (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1854), p. vi.

  23 Apelt, Die Theorie der Induction, p. 153.

  24 “The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.”

  25 Apelt, Theorie der Induction, p. 158.

  26 Apelt, Theorie der Induction, p. 159. Apelt uses here the word Naturphilosophie, by which he understood what his mentor Jakob Fries called “mathematische Naturphilosophie” as opposed to what Schelling meant by the term.

  27 Apelt, Theorie der Induction, p. 163.

  28 Apelt, Theorie der Induction, p. 158.

  29 Apelt, Theorie der Induction, p. 146.

  30 Moses Hess, in E. Silberner ed., Briefwechsel, 1825–1881 (’s-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1959), p. 635. The letter is marked “Hess an einen Unbekannten” and the date is given as “1873?”

  31 For a treatment of the critique of philosophy by scientific materialists, see Frederick Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1977), pp. 145ff.

  32 Indeed, Haeckel’s monism stood in the shadow of Schelling as well. Cf. Frederick Gregory, “Proto-monism in German Philosophy, Theology, and Science, 1800–1845,” in Todd Weir ed., Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), pp. 46–50.

  33 Robert Richards, The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggles over Evolutionary Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 128.

  34 Alan Richardson, “‘The Fact of Science’ and Critique of Knowledge: Exact Science as Problem and Resource in Marburg Neo-Kantianism,” in Friedmann and Nordmann, op. cit., p. 211. Richardson deals in the main with the work of the Marburg Neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen. Another Neo-Kantian thinker, Hans Vaihinger, who examined the nature of scientific hypotheses, is not considered here because his major work, Die Philosophie des Als Ob, although completed in 1877, was not published until 1911.

  35 Wilhelm Herrmann, Die Religion im Verhältnis zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit (Halle: Niemeyer, 1879), p. 71. A general treatment of Herrmann may be found in Frederick Gregory, Nature lost? Natural Science and the German Theological Traditions of the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), chs. 6 and 7.

  36 Herrmann, op. cit., p. 35.

  37 Paul Natorp, “Über das Verhältnis des theoretischen und praktischen Erkennens zur Begründung einer nicht empirischen Realität,” Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 79 (1881), p. 252.

  38 Hilary Putnam, “What is Realism?” in Jarett Leplin ed., Scientific Realism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 41.

  39 In the United States the founder of the Open Court Publishing Company formed The Monist in 1888, a journal that today regards itself as one of the oldest and most important journals of philosophy.

  40 Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations, 5th ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), p. 30, n. 1.

  41 Carlo Cercignani, Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man who Trusted Atoms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 170.

  CHAPTER 18

  PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

  BARBARA GAIL MONTERO

  18.1 INTRODUCTION

  IN Germany during the nineteenth century there was, as there is today, enormous interest in understanding the mind, its structure, its place in the world, and the possibility of a complete scientific account of human nature. Nineteenth-century Germany also witnessed a flowering of thought a
bout the machinations of unconscious mental processes, thought which would go on to influence Sigmund Freud’s work at the turn of the twentieth century. And, as today, these ideas were discussed and debated among philosophers as well as natural scientists and educated members of the general public. In this chapter, I focus on a small sampling of issues from nineteenth-century German philosophy and point out ways in which they resonate with various topics in contemporary philosophy of mind. For some this approach may prove to be a puzzle inside of a conundrum, however, I hope that for others it will bring out some interesting connections between then and now.

  18.2 THE REINHOLD-FICHTE-HEGEL MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

  Although there were deep and virulent disagreements among the philosophers Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Johann Gottlieb Fichte about how to understand consciousness—Fichte (1745/1930),1 for example, writing to Reinhold in 1795, “I am a declared opponent of your system”—these and other philosophers at the turn of the nineteenth century held a similar view about the basic structure of consciousness, a view about what all forms of consciousness share. This is the idea, roughly, that consciousness involves awareness of an object, of the self, and of the self’s representation of the object. Reinhold (1789, p. 167) referred to this as the “principle of consciousness,” which he stated as follows: “in consciousness representation is distinguished through the subject from the subject and object and related to both.”

  Much of the interest in this principle at the time had to do with what Reinhold saw as its primary value: that it would give philosophy its much-needed indubitable grounds, thus enabling it to become a science—not an empirical science, but, even better, a science about which no doubt remains. For the principle of consciousness, according to Reinhold, was a self-evident principle from which all further philosophical claims could be derived. “Consciousness forces everyone to agree,” Reinhold (1789, p. 200) claimed, “that to every representation there pertains a representing subject and a represented object, both of which must be distinguished from the representation to which they pertain.” Furthermore, such a self-evident, universally valid proposition was needed, he argued, “or else philosophy as a science is impossible, and in that case the bases for our ethical duties and rights—as well as these duties and rights themselves—must remain forever undecided.”2