Ernst Mach — A Deeper Look


Book Description

Ernst Mach -- A Deeper Look has been written to reveal to English-speaking readers the recent revival of interest in Ernst Mach in Europe and Japan. The book is a storehouse of new information on Mach as a philosopher, historian, scientist and person, containing a number of biographical and philosophical manuscripts publihsed for the first time, along with correspondence and other matters published for the first time in English. The book also provides English translations of Mach's controversies with leading physicists and psychologists, such as Max Planck and Carl Stumpf, and offers basic evidence for resolving Mach's position on atomism and Einstein's theory of relativity. Mach's scientific, philosophical and personal influence in a number of countries -- Austria, Germany, Bohemia and Yugoslavia among them -- has been carefully explored and many aspects detailed for the first time. All of the articles are eminently readable, especially those written by Mach's sister. They are deeply researched, new interpretations abound, and the bibliography includes recent works by and about Mach from over a dozen countries. The book also contains many articles by or about Mach's contemporaries, including Ostwald, Dingler, Weichert and, especially, Einstein. Finally, and most intriguingly, the original ideas of Japanese scholars are presented, built on Mach's philosophy. These demonstrate how Mach's world view is currently contributing to the solution of contemporary philosophical problems.




Ernst Mach’s World Elements


Book Description

By exploring Mach's views on science as well as philosophy, this book attempts to wrest him free from his customary association with logical positivism and to reinterpret him on his own terms as a natural philosopher and naturalist about human knowledge. Physicists, psychologists, philosophers of science, historians of twentieth-century thought and culture, and educators will find this volume a valuable help in interpreting Mach's ideas.




Ernst Mach's Vienna 1895-1930


Book Description

Section Guide 1. Prolegomena 2. Biographical Sketch 3. Epistemology 4. Textbook Ontology 1. PROLEGOMENA While both philosophers and historians almost always love truth and the search for truth, and both often carry out extensive research, there can be noticeable differences when historians write about the history of philosophy and when philosophers write about it. Philosophers often look at the past with categories and interests taken from the present or at the least from the recent past, but many historians, especially those who love research for its own sake, will try to look at the past from a perspective either from that period or from even earlier. Both camps look for roots, but view them with different lenses and presupposi tions. This prolegomena has been added to prepare some philosophers for what will hopefully only be the mildest of shocks, for seeing the history of philosophy in a way which does not treat what is recent or latest as best, but which loves the context of ideas for its own sake, a context which can be very foreign to contemporary likes and dislikes. To be sure, we historians can deceive ourselves as easily as philosophers, but we tend to do so about different things.




Interpreting Mach


Book Description

A collection of new essays on Ernst Mach's scientific and philosophical thought by leading Mach scholars.




Ernst Mach – Life, Work, Influence


Book Description

This edited volume features essays written in honor of Ernst Mach. It explores his life, work, and legacy. Readers will gain a better understanding of this natural scientist and scholar who made major contributions to physics, the philosophy of science, and physiological psychology. The essays offer a critical inventory of Mach’s lifework in line with state-of-the-art research and historiography. It begins with physics, where he paved the way for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The account continues with Mach's contributions in biology, psychology, and physiology pioneering with an empiricist and gestalthaft Analysis of Sensations. Readers will also discover how in the philosophy of science he served as a model for the Vienna Circle with the Ernst Mach Society as well as paved the way for an integrated history and theory of science. Indeed, his influence extends far beyond the natural sciences -- to the Vienna Medical School and psychoanalysis (R. Bárány, J. Breuer, S. Freud), to literature (Jung Wien, R. Musil), to politics (F. Adler, Austro-Marxism and the Viennese adult education), to arts between Futurism and Minimal Art as well as to social sciences between the liberal school (J. Schumpeter, F. A. von Hayek) and empirical social research (P. Lazarsfeld und M. Jahoda).




Inspiring the Youth of America


Book Description

Here at Remington, many people are curious about this powerful book commonly known as Inspiring the Youth of America. Well, as you may know, our youth today in America are in dire need of mentorship and guidance. This book is a whole new step forward for all of us as a civilization. For many years, and even today, young Americans wander aimlessly in a pool of confusion. They end up in meaningless careers with no past, no future, and nothing to hope for. Undoubtedly, the end result is misery and despair. The end result is poverty and surely a feeling of emptiness. Well, we at Remington, after interviewing over thirty thousand professionals, were surprised to find that many successful professionals were disgusted with vanity publications. They were disappointed with the meaningless dribble of a phone book–type registry that possibly required a magnifying glass just to read. But surprisingly enough, these professionals encouraged any use of their biography for humanitarian purposes. Undoubtedly, mentorship for our youth fell into that category. So there it was born. Our proudest moment as publishers was laid out before us. But there was one big problem. All these people needed to be interviewed in depth, and generic biographies certainly would not inspire. So with that, we swallowed hard, and our staff got to work. Yes, it was and still is a grueling, time-consuming mission and undertaking. But in the end, as you may witness as you read this book, the content is quite spectacular and certainly worth the effort. We would also like to mention that the participants in this book also spent much time sending us information and encouraging us to make this book worthy of their efforts. Now it was up to us to uphold the dignity of these professionals and forge forward into a future where students can explore their lives with the ability to fulfill their own potentials. With that, this book is presented to you today, and we hope that you share in our dream to build a better America from where it really matters—our youth.




Inspiring the Youth of America by Remington Registries


Book Description

Here at Remington, many people are curious about this powerful book commonly known as Inspiring the Youth of America. Well, as you may know, our youth today in America are in dire need of mentorship and guidance. This book is a whole new step forward for all of us as a civilization. For many years, and even today, young Americans wander aimlessly in a pool of confusion. They end up in meaningless careers with no past, no future, and nothing to hope for. Undoubtedly, the end result is misery and despair. The end result is poverty and surely a feeling of emptiness. Well, we at Remington, after interviewing over thirty thousand professionals, were surprised to find that many successful professionals were disgusted with vanity publications. They were disappointed with the meaningless dribble of a phone booktype registry that possibly required a magnifying glass just to read. But surprisingly enough, these professionals encouraged any use of their biography for humanitarian purposes. Undoubtedly, mentorship for our youth fell into that category. So there it was born. Our proudest moment as publishers was laid out before us. But there was one big problem. All these people needed to be interviewed in depth, and generic biographies certainly would not inspire. So with that, we swallowed hard, and our staff got to work. Yes, it was and still is a grueling, time-consuming mission and undertaking. But in the end, as you may witness as you read this book, the content is quite spectacular and certainly worth the effort. We would also like to mention that the participants in this book also spent much time sending us information and encouraging us to make this book worthy of their efforts. Now it was up to us to uphold the dignity of these professionals and forge forward into a future where a student can explore his or her life with the ability to fulfill their own potentials. With that, this book is presented to you today, and we hope that you share in our dream to build a better America from where it really mattersour youth.




Einstein in Bohemia


Book Description

A finely drawn portrait of Einstein's sixteen months in Prague In the spring of 1911, Albert Einstein moved with his wife and two sons to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, where he accepted a post as a professor of theoretical physics. Though he intended to make Prague his home, he lived there for just sixteen months, an interlude that his biographies typically dismiss as a brief and inconsequential episode. Einstein in Bohemia is a spellbinding portrait of the city that touched Einstein's life in unexpected ways—and of the gifted young scientist who left his mark on the science, literature, and politics of Prague. Michael Gordin's narrative is a masterfully crafted account of a person encountering a particular place at a specific moment in time. Despite being heir to almost a millennium of history, Einstein's Prague was a relatively marginal city within the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yet Prague, its history, and its multifaceted culture changed the trajectories of Einstein's personal and scientific life. It was here that his marriage unraveled, where he first began thinking seriously about his Jewish identity, and where he embarked on the project of general relativity. Prague was also where he formed lasting friendships with novelist Max Brod, Zionist intellectual Hugo Bergmann, physicist Philipp Frank, and other important figures. Einstein in Bohemia sheds light on this transformative period of Einstein's life and career, and brings vividly to life a beguiling city in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.




Friedrich Waismann - Causality and Logical Positivism


Book Description

Friedrich Waismann (1896–1959) was one of the most gifted students and collaborators of Moritz Schlick. Accepted as a discussion partner by Wittgenstein from 1927 on, he functioned as spokesman for the latter’s ideas in the Schlick Circle, until Wittgenstein’s contact with this most faithful interpreter was broken off in 1935 and not renewed when exile took Waismann to Cambridge. Nonetheless, at Oxford, where he went in 1939, and eventually became Reader in Philosophy of Mathematics (changing later to Philosophy of Science), Waismann made important and independent contributions to analytic philosophy and philosophy of science (for example in relation to probability, causality and linguistic analysis). The full extent of these only became evident later when the larger (unpublished) part of his writings could be studied. His first posthumous work The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (1965, 2nd edn.1997; German 1976) and his earlier Einführung in das mathematische Denken (1936) have recently proved of fresh interest to the scientific community. This late flowering and new understanding of Waismann’s position is connected with the fact that he somewhat unfairly fell under the shadow of Wittgenstein, his mentor and predecessor. Central to this book about a life and work familiar to few is unpublished and unknown works on causality and probability. These are commented on in this volume, which will also include a publication of new or previously scattered material and an overview of Waismann’s life.




Reader's Guide to the History of Science


Book Description

The Reader's Guide to the History of Science looks at the literature of science in some 550 entries on individuals (Einstein), institutions and disciplines (Mathematics), general themes (Romantic Science) and central concepts (Paradigm and Fact). The history of science is construed widely to include the history of medicine and technology as is reflected in the range of disciplines from which the international team of 200 contributors are drawn.