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206Grete Hermann as Neo-Kantian Philosopher of Space and Time RepresentationJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 6 (3). 2018.Grete Hermann’s essay “Die naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik” has received much deserved scholarly attention in recent years. In this paper, I follow the lead of Elise Crull who sees in Hermann’s work the general outlines of a neo-Kantian interpretation of quantum theory. In full support of this view, I focus on Hermann’s central claim that limited spatio-temporal, and even analogically causal, representations of events exist within an overall relational structure of entangled …Read more
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Ernst Mach's contributions to the philosophy of mindIn Sandra Lapointe (ed.), Philosophy of mind in the nineteenth century, Routledge, Taylor & Francs Group. 2018.
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15Metaphysics for Positivists: Mach versus the Vienna CircleDiscipline filosofiche. 23 (1): 57-77. 2013.Ernst Mach and the Vienna Circle are linked historically, but conceptually the views of Mach do not fit well with logical positivism. My purpose in the present paper is to reconsider 1) Mach’s positive natural philosophy 2) what Mach meant by “anti-metaphysics”, 3) whether Mach really was “anti-metaphysical” in the sense of demanding verification in principle for every term or statement in science, and 4) how Mach’s views on metaphysics differed from those of many Vienna Circle philosophers. I b…Read more
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10Empiricism or Pragmatism? Ernst Mach’s Ideas in America 1890–1910In Friedrich Stadler (ed.), Ernst Mach – Life, Work, Influence, Springer Verlag. 2019.Ernst Mach’s philosophical ideas were warmly received in America, which already had a pragmatist tradition close to Machian empiricism and budding schools of philosophy, psychology, and physics more or free of the neo-Kantian influences which were a strong academic competitor to the spread of empiricism in Europe. The founding pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and William James engaged directly with Mach and Paul Carus, the editor of the Monist and publisher of the Open Court press actively tra…Read more
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Ernst Mach's World Elements: A Study in Natural PhilosophyDissertation, City University of New York. 2000.This dissertation studies Mach's world-elements and his reduction of space and time to unextended intensities. The elements included not just human sensations, but mind-independent physical qualities in matter. Influenced by J. F. Herbart, Bernhard Riemann and Hermann von Helmholtz, Mach strove to develop a construction of space from these qualities. The study follows these ideas from Mach's intellectual struggles of the 1860s to his late writings, and relies upon extensive extracts from his sci…Read more
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A look at Mach's contributions to psychology in historical context and his elimination of metaphysical problems (in psychology).
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233Empiricism or Pragmatism? Mach's Ideas in AmericaVienna Circle Institute Yearbook. forthcoming.I examine Mach's influence on American philosophy from 1890-1910, on Carus, James, Peirce, the American Realists and J.B. Stallo. I also consider the question of whether Mach was a pragmatist in the sense of Peirce and James. I conclude that early pragmatism was a method-centric theory whereas Mach's empiricism prized agreement with experience and downplayed the significance of inductive-scientific methods in general as a guide to discovery.
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226This paper offers a "tu quoque" defense of strong AI, based on the argument that phenomena of self-consciousness and intentionality are nothing but the "negative space" drawn around the concrete phenomena of brain states and causally connected utterances and objects. Any machine that was capable of concretely implementing the positive phenomena would automatically inherit the negative space around these that we call self-consciousness and intention. Because this paper was written for a literary …Read more
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509This paper, for two upcoming volumes, makes what I consider to be the definitive textual case for finally rejecting the phenomenalist interpretation of Ernst Mach's works, and his customary association with the Vienna Circle, in favor of a stronger realistic neutral monist reading connecting him to James, Russell and the American realist movement and today's neutral monism (for example my 2014). I hope that this reading will eventually supplant the previously mistaken view of Mach's work and tha…Read more
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308This paper for an upcoming journal volume examines Grete Hermann's Naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (1935) and the relative context, or perspectival, interpretation of standard quantum mechanics found therein. I find an argument for the emergence of limited spatio-temporal and retrocausal stories, from a chosen experimental perspective, within a larger set of entangled systems not subject to a spatio-temporal interpretation. This argument can be read in reverse as giving some …Read more
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209Bertrand Russell in "My Philosophical Development" claimed he converted to neutral monism in 1919, in the essay "On Propositions." I question whether Russell was really a complete neutral monist in the style of Mach and James and conclude that he was not. Russell's lingering commitment to image propositions and a linguistic theory of meaning and truth and falsity separate him from the more naturalistic causal theory of knowledge and error one finds in James and Mach.
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824The Problem of Extension in Natural PhilosophyPhilosophia Naturalis 45 (2): 211-235. 2008.An overview of the problem of constructing extension combinatorially from qualities cum dispositional powers. In the model recommended here, Grassmann's algebra provides the combinatorial structure while Machian elements give the content.
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185Ernst Mach’s World Elements: A Study in Natural PhilosophyKluwer Academic Publishers. 2003.A consideration of Mach's elements, his philosophy of neutral monism, and philosophy of physics, especially space and time, much of it based on unpublished writings from the Nachlass and other original sources. The historical connection between Mach and logical positivism is shown to be superficial at best, and Mach's elements are shown to be mind independent natural qualities (world-elements) with dynamic force, not limited to human sensations.
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39Russell's hypothesis and the new physicalismProceedings of the Ohio Philosophical Association 6. 2009.Bertrand Russell claimed in the Analysis of Matter that physics is purely structural or relational and so leaves out intrinsic properties of matter, properties that, he said, are evident to us at least in one case: as the internal states of our brains. Russell's hypothesis has figured in recent discussions of physicalism and the mind body problem, by Chalmers, Strawson and Stoljar, among others, but I want to reject two popular interpretations: 1. a conception of intrinsic properties of matter a…Read more
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2114The Realistic Empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell: Neutral Monism ReconceivedCambridge University Press. 2014.The book revives the neutral monism of Mach, James, and Russell and applies the updated view to the problem of redefining physicalism, explaining the origins of sensation, and the problem of deriving extended physical objects and systems from an ontology of events.
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174The philosophical roots of Ernst Mach's economy of thoughtSynthese 139 (1): 23-53. 2004.A full appreciation for Ernst Mach's doctrine of the economy of thought must take account of his direct realism about particulars (elements) and his anti-realism about space-time laws as economical constructions. After a review of thought economy, its critics and some contemporary forms, the paper turns to the philosophical roots of Mach's doctrine. Mach claimed that the simplest, most parsimonious theories economized memory and effort by using abstract concepts and laws instead of attending to …Read more
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3084Kant, Herbart and RiemannKant Studien 96 (2): 208-234. 2005.A look at the dynamical concept of space and space-generating processes to be found in Kant, J.F. Herbart and the mathematician Bernhard Riemann's philosophical writings.
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1868Extension and Measurement: A Constructivist Program from Leibniz to GrassmannStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (1): 20-31. 2013.Extension is probably the most general natural property. Is it a fundamental property? Leibniz claimed the answer was no, and that the structureless intuition of extension concealed more fundamental properties and relations. This paper follows Leibniz's program through Herbart and Riemann to Grassmann and uses Grassmann's algebra of points to build up levels of extensions algebraically. Finally, the connection between extension and measurement is considered.
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1444Williams James' Direct Realism: A ReconstructionHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 30 (3): 271-291. 2013.William James' Radical Empiricist essays offer a unique and powerful argument for direct realism about our perceptions of objects. This theory can be completed with some observations by Kant on the intellectual preconditions for a perceptual judgment. Finally James and Kant deliver a powerful blow to the representational theory of perception and knowledge, which applies quite broadly to theories of representation generally.
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986Metaphysics for Positivists: Mach Versus the Vienna CircleDiscipline Filosophiche 23 (1): 57-77. 2013.This article distinguishes between Machian empiricism and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and associated philosophers. Mach's natural philosophy was a first order attempt to reform and reorganize physics, not a second order reconstruction of the "language" of physics. Mach's elements were not sense data but realistic events in the natural world and in minds, and Mach admitted unobserved elements as part of his world view. Mach's critique of metaphysics was far more subtle and concern…Read more
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697Review of Blackmore (review)Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 48 (4): 395-397. 2012.
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1011Ernst Mach and the Episode of the Monocular Depth SensationsJournal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 37 (4): 327-348. 2001.A look at Mach's work on monocular stereoscopy with relation to Mach Bands and the sensation of space.
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84Ernst Mach's ''new theory of matter'' and his definition of massStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33 (4): 605-635. 2002.
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4819Neutral Monism ReconsideredPhilosophical Psychology 23 (2): 173-187. 2010.Neutral monism is a position in metaphysics defended by Mach, James, and Russell in the early twentieth century. It holds that minds and physical objects are essentially two different orderings of the same underlying neutral elements of nature. This paper sets out some of the central concepts, theses and the historical background of ideas that inform this doctrine of elements. The discussion begins with the classic neutral monism of Mach, James, and Russell in the first part of the paper, then c…Read more
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