BOOK REVIEWS thing given in advance, does the world prove to me not only that it does not belong to me alone but that I can never fully make itany more than I can make my own life-my solitary possession. On this note, Dodd concludes, the body is ultimately for Husserl, as it was for Plato, something to be overcome. This book is brimming with insights as it creatively and painstakingly reconstructs Husserl's developing ruminations on the body. While keenly attentive to the context and import of individual texts and their place in the Husserlian corpus, the author remains a critical student of them. The laudable economy of examining the phenomenon of the body as the key to the phenomenon of intersubjectivity provides a unifying framework (though more treatment of the intersection of these problems in chapters two through four might have produced an even richer and more coherent study). For anyone trying to develop a theory of corporeity and especially for those attempting to do so against the backdrop of Husserl's thinking, Dodd's work is invaluable. Daniel Dahlstrom Boston University NOTES 1. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991), §44. 2. James Dodd, Idealism and Corporeity: An Essay on the Problem of the Body in Husserl's Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), p. 24; subsequent citations of this work will be given in parentheses. 3. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, trans. F. Kersten (Boston: Kluwer, 1982), §149. 4. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer (Boston: Kluwer, 1989), §145. Critique and Totality, by Pierre Kerszberg. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997,274 pp. As Pierre Kerszberg retraces Kant's critical account of the human being's confounded, if not tortured, attempts to grasp totality, the reader may occasionally lose sight of the general objectives of the book. In fact, my main criticism of the book concerns Kerszoorg's somewhat cavalier approach to presenting a clear 343 GRADUATE FACULTY PHILOSOPHY JOURNAL structure of thought. Yet, regardless of the occasional confusion, Critique and Totality is rich with insight and fresh historical perspectives. To draw the reader through the complex intellectual pilgrimage to totali ty, each of the seven cha pters progressively addresses the central role that cosmology and, relatedly, the antinomies of pure reason play in Kant's philosophy-this aspect of the book is clear enough. Further, I think there can be little doubt regarding the centrality of the antinomies and cosmology in Kant's work; as a reminder, Kerszberg cites a particularly telling passage: "the antinomy of pure reason ... that is what aroused me from my dogmatic slumber to the critique of reason itself, in order to resolve the ostensible contradiction of reason with itself" (p. 100).1 As a result, although this book would prove extremely difficult for the beginning reader of Kant, the emphasis it places on the role of totality and the antinomies of pure reason may provide the keen student with an instructive general orientation. Below, rather than criticizing or lauding Kerszberg's work, I will simply summarize what I take to be the main points of the book, leaving it up to the reader to make hislher own judgment. In the opening chapter, "Totality, Finitude and Division," Kerszberg briefly explains the relationship between his book and Heidegger's work on Kant. After explicating the cosmic concept of philosophy in Kant, Kerszberg sets out to follow and expand on Heidegger's claim that transcendental knowledge cannot ground the positive sciences. To set the stage for this illumination of Heideggerian thought, in the second chapter, "The Mathematical Dream of Philosophy," Kerszberg discusses some of the fundamental differences between mathematical and philosophical thought in the first Critique. In particular, Kerszberg draws our attention to two of the major outcomes of the Transcendental Analytic, the Axioms of Intuition and the Anticipations of Perception (AI61761B202-18). From his consideration of these two outcomes, which comprise the "mathematical principles" of any rational thought, Kerszberg concludes that according to the first Critique, the natural world may not be transcendentally reduced to anything more than the two fundamental forces of repulsion and attraction. Thus, by way of exclusion, Kant must conclude that the natural world may not be reduced to "origin" and/or "totality." Nor do the notions of origin and totality admit of scientific inquiry. Rather, they must be the objects of a speculative, transcendental inquiry. Yet, necessarily concomitant to this inquiry is a prolonged, if not somewhat labyrinthine, consideration of cosmology and the antinomies of pure reason-and so the 344 BOOK REVIEWS journey towards totality properly begins. In the third chapter , "An Experiment with Concepts," Kerszberg defines three central notions: cosmological ideas, the Copernican revolution, and Kant's cosmological principle. The first, cosmological ideas, are "those transcendental ideas that refer to 'the absolute totality in the synthesis of appearances'" (p. 55; A4071B434). After having underscored the dependence of the cosmological ideas on the realm of appearances, Kerszberg argues that Kant's Copernican revolution, properly understood, falls out of the distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Generally put, the Copernican revolution follows because things in themselves act as hypothetical proxies, which, although they are not given in experience, help to explain our world. This is similar to the original Copernican tum: we hypothesize that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than vice versa. However, although this hypothesis is not grounded by what seems to be the case-namely, by appearancesits explanatory power is extensive. As such, Kant's Copernican revolution represents a problem for the faculty of reason simply because noumena belong to the realm of reason, not to that of experience. With the explication of Kant's Copernican reversal in place, Kerszberg goes on to define Kant's cosmological principle, which reflects a dynamic, albeit structured, picture of the universe as a whole. According to this principle, the world may be viewed as the totality of an infinite series of conditions given for appearances. However, the cosmological principle is not a principle of the understanding, because it is not subject to the limited world of experience. Nor is it a principle of reason, because it does not implore us to construct knowledge through various analogies to the world of experience. "Rather, the cosmological principle 'serves as a rule postulating what in the regress ought to happen from us, but not anticipating what is given in the object prior to all regress'''(p. 69; A5091B537; translation modified . by Kerszberg). As such, Kerszberg explains, the cosmological principle must be understood as a combination of the faculty of reason and the faculty of understanding-it is a rule that may not anticipate. However, the cosmological principle necessarily incurs illusion, simply because reason lures us beyond the limits of experience, much as, Kant explains, our speculations about the movements of planetary orbits do (pp. 77-8; A667-731B690-1). In the fourth chapter, "Reversing the Order of Time," Kerszberg begins by pointing out that within the realm of the transcendental a priori, time may be suspended. As such, the imagination is free to run either backward 345 GRADUATE FACULTY PHILOSOPHY JOURNAL or forward through a given series of events. In doing so, the imagination must surrender a certain "givenness" of experience, namely, the forward motion of a sequence. In tum, all appearances may now be transcendentally viewed as "unconditioned." Ultimately, the imagination reaches a certain "remotest point," namely, a beginning point in time. This constitutes the reversal of the order of time. After this beginning point has been reached, both transcendental thought and thought concerning appearances may proceed forward through the series. Yet as such, a certain overlap between these two kinds of thought is invoked, at which point it may be said that the "transcendental a priori ... is forced to mix with being" (p. 89). Further consideration of this overlap takes us to the core of the antinomies of pure reason, for Kerszberg claims: "The arguments developed in the four antinomies are aimed at showing that the reconstruction of immediate experience remains incomplete even from an absolute origin [namely, the beginning point above]" (p. 89). In particular, the antinomies spotlight the inextricable confusion between the phenomena and the noumena, consti~ tuting a tragic "point of fracture between reason and the phenomenality of the world" (p. 91). In conjunction with this claim, Kerszberg then presents a detailed, historically informed argument to show that the first antinomy is nothing more than a declaration of the uncertainty of the relation between the thing in itself and the object of experience. In the fifth and longest chapter, "A Logic of Illusion," Kerszberg begins by reminding us that the notion of the world in its totality (namely, the world as a cosmological idea) may only be an idea of reason. This is the case because, while the totality of experience is limited, its limits may never be thought as such. As a result, the "world as totality of things is, in experience, an object without [thinkable] limit" (p. 114). Further, after the journey through the reversal of time and the first antinomy, it is clear that this distinction between the "world of sense" (phenomena) and the "world of the intellect" (noumena) has become hopelessly blurred. Yet precisely because the world of experience is part of the totality of things, we may not say that it disintegrates due to its indeterminate nature. Rather, Kerszberg explains, there is, according to Kant, a need for some kind of determination, namely, there must be a schema for this idea. All is not lost, however, since reason may hypothesize a schema for that to which no determinate object corresponds. This is done by an analogy with the world of experience, specifically, an analogy with the "relations between appearances" (p. 118). After an extensive discussion of this matter, Kerszberg ultimately con346 BOOK REVIEWS eludes that "the transcendental object is the unknowable x that I come up against when digging underneath the surface of a thing to understand it as an individual" (p. 124). After another lengthy discussion, Kerszberg explains that this transcendental object may be constituted by means of a regressive synthesis, as a "cosmic appearance of an appearance" (p. 150). Nevertheless, the idea of totality has no correlate in experience, and thus, the "critical solution" to the first antinomy is to adopt an empirical concept as the "standard of measure" for totality. Kerszberg concludes that this solution is not nihilistic, but instead, preparatory. In chapter six, "A Reversal of the Reversal," we discover that for which this is preparatory. Here Kerszberg shifts to a discussion of the Critique of Judgment. In this work, Kant offers a potential reconciliation between philosophy (namely, reason and noumena) and experience (namely, "common understanding"). This reconciliation marks the beginning of moral philosophy, leading Kerszberg into a lengthy discussion of the principle of purposiveness, which helps to bring about the "reversal of the reversal." As such, the focus is once again on the immediate world of phenomena. Generally put, this occurs by "extract[ing the principle of purposiveness] from already constituted physics and metaphysics, instead of being established in anticipation of any such constitution" (p. 189). In the final, and shortest chapter, "Lost Illusions," Kerszberg very briefly discusses concepts other than the cosmos, for these may rescue the cri tical en terpri se from the "fragility" of the concept of purposiveness. Generally put, Kerszberg concludes that the "solution" lies in the human being, for the human being is a totality that may be grasped/represented with critical limits. As such, it is the "source of freedom and moral ends" (p. 228). NOTES Stefanie Rocknak Boston University and University of Os nab ruck 1. Kerszberg is quoting Kant's letter to Christian Garve, 1798, in Kants Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 10 (Berlin: Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1902-), p. 252. All of Kerszberg's citations from the Critique of Pure Reason are taken from the Norman Kemp Smith translation (London: Macmillan, 1929) and follow the standard 'AlB' format. References to the book under review will be given parenthetically; in those instances where Kerszberg cites Kant, I will also provide a reference to Kant following the above style. Likewise, my own citations of Kant will also follow the above format.


A C T A U N I V E R S I T A T I S L O D Z I E N S I S FO L IA G E R M A N IC A 1, 1997 Aleksandra Czechowska-Blachiewicz WELCHE ROLLE SPIELEN BEI DER ENTLEHNUNG DIE GRAMMATISCHEN EIGENSCHAFTEN? GEZEIGT AM BEISPIEL DEUTSCHER ENTLEHNUNGEN IN DER POLNISCHEN GEGENW ARTSSPRACHE G egenstand folgender U ntersuchung sind deutsche E ntlehnungen1, die im Polnischen von heute lebendig sind. Es w urden ca. 800 Beispiele untersucht, die in verschiedenen Bereichen des Alltags verwendet werden und die au f unterschiedliche Weise stilistisch m otiviert und gefärbt sind. Die wichtigsten Quellen dieser Analyse waren: Słownik języka polskiego von M. Szymczak, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego von A. Bruckner, Słownik wyrazów obcych von J. Tokarski sowie T onbandaufnahm en und selbst durchgefiihrtc Alltagsgespräche. Die letzte Quelle war auch für meine U ntersuchung in vielen Fällen die beste und sicherste, zum al hier die M ehrdeutigkeit der Schrift nicht in Frage kom m t. Innerhalb der gegenwärtig in Polen gebrauchten W örter deutscher H erkunft kann m an drei G ruppen unterscheiden2. Die erste G ruppe um fasst W örter, bei denen einerseits eine Ä hnlichkeit in der phonetischen G estalt vorlicgt, zugleich aber entsprechende graphische V eränderungen zu verzeichnen sind, z.B.: bruderszaft (Brüderschaft), bryle (Brille), fa n t (P land), glanc/glans (G lanz)1, kapsel (Kapsel), rausz (Rausch), akselbant (Achselband), kocher (Kocher), maswerk (M asswerk), preser (Presser), U nter E ntlehnung verstehen wir W örter frem der H erkunft, die in der jeweiligen Sprache in graphischer und m orphologischer Hinsicht m odifiziert worden sind. A us m einer U ntersuchung schliesse ich die Frage nach dem U nterschied zwischen den L ehnübersetzungen, L ehnprägungen und L ehnw endungen aus, d a diese einer besondern U ntersuchung bedürfen. In diesem T ext treten auch E ntlehnungen auf, die im heutigen Polnisch salopp verstanden werden und früher vorwiegend zur Sprache der H andw erker gehörten. szpunt (Spund), zecer (Setzer) u.a. Zu dieser G ruppe gehören Entlehnungen (es sind grundsätzlich Substantiva), die nach den Regeln der polnischen Flexion dekliniert werden, z.B.: fa n t, fan ta , fantow i, fa n t, fan tem , fancie oder: kapsel, kapsla, kapslowi, kapsel, kapslem, kapslu. Viele von ihnen bilden die D erivationsbasis für polnische W ortb ildungsstruk tu ren , z.B. kartofel kartoflanka (K artoffclsuppc), cukier cukiernica (Zuckcrdose), grunt gruntowny (gründlich), pech pechowy (Pechvogel), druk drukarski (D ruck ...), drukarnia (Druckerei) u.a. Die hier besprochene Lexik um fasst Entlehnungen, die au f zweierleiweise durch das Polnische angecignet worden sind. Neben den Form en, die die grösstm ögliche Ä hnlichkeit der graphischen gestalt aufweisen, z.B.: handel Handel, rekrut Rekrut, to r f T orf, fach Fach, jubel Ju bel, haben wir solche Form en, in denen die grösstm ögliche Ä hnlichkeit (der K om petenz des polnischen Lautsystems entsprechend) in der phonetischen G estalt zu verzeichnen ist, was selbstverständlich zu den entsprechenden graphischen Veränderungen geführt hat, z.B.: Kittel kitel, A kkord akord, Fehler J'eler, Schlauch szlauch, Spitz szpic, Filz file , K lotz kloc, Setzer zecer, Pfand J'ant, Wechsel weksel, M eisterstück majstersztyk, Geschäft geszeft, K nödel knedel, Schnitzel sznycel, Giesser giser, K am m erdiener kamerdyner, Regal regal, F u tte ra l fu tera ł. Es ist anzunehm en, dass im Falle der letzten vier Beispiele die graphische G estalt als Grundlage für die E ntlehnung diente. In der zweiten G ruppe befinden sich Entlehnungen, die sowohl durch Substantiva als auch durch Verben repräsentiert werden. Die M orphem konstruktionen, die sie darstellen, bestehen aus dem deutschen G rundm orphem und einem polnischen Form ans, z.B.: blokada Blockade, kombinować kom binieren, flanca Pflanze, pasować passen, rama - R ahm en, rolować rollen u.a. M orphologische Substitutionen können in dieser G ruppe folgenderm assen zusam m engefasst werden: 1. Am produktivsten ist das Form ans -a. Die F unktion dieses Form ans ist die Z uordnung des entlehnten Substantivs zum polnischen weiblichen Paradigm a. Polonisiert wurden in erster Linie deutsche weibliche Substantiva au f -e: Felge felga, Halle hala und deutsche weibliche Substantiva auf einen K onsonanten: Schicht szychta, K lam m er klamra, Muschel muszla. Seltener polonisierte m an m it Hilfe von -a deutsche m ännliche Substantiva: F ang fanga, Raspel raszpla, R iss rysa. 2. Z ur Polonisierung diente weiter das Form ans -ka, das neben der Zureihung des W ortes zum weiblichen Paradigm a auch eine dem inutive F unktion erfüllen konnte: M utter (Schraubenm utter) muterka, K lappe klapka, F ass fa ska , Spule szpulka. 3. Z ur Polonisierung der deutschen Verben diente hauptsächlich das Form ans -owa&. jodeln jodłować, putzen pucować, schlachten szlachtować, tapezieren tapetować. 4. Seltener tritt das F orm ans -ać auf: spüren szperać, stören szturać. Die dritte G ruppe um fasst W örter, die zwar ohne Zweifel aus dem D eutschen entlehnt wurden, das G rundm orphem aber schon in den meisten Fällen eine, m orphologisch gesehen, m odifizierte F orm im Polnischen angenom m en hat4, z.B.: browar Brauerei, fa lda Falte, gmina Gemeinde, rynsztok R innstein, blacha Blech, drut D rah t, lufa Lauf, ryngraf R ingkragen u.a. Auch in dieser G ruppe überwiegen Substantiva. Neue m orphologische Substitutionen (das F orm ans -a und -ka wiederholt sich in dieser G ruppe auch, z.B.: bela Ballen, szopa Schuppen, ßszb inka Fischbein, firanka F ürhang (V orhang), die in dieser G ruppe erscheinen, sind für Substantiva: a) das Form ans -arz/erz: wachlarz Fächer, stolarz Tischler, kuśnierz K ürschner. b) das Form ans -ik /y k : lufcik Luft, Oberfenster, capstrzyk Z apfenstreich. c) das F orm ans -arka: gręplarka Krem pelm aschine, cykliniarka Ziehklingemaschinc . d) das Form ans -ówka: zelówka Sohle, szpachlówka Spachtelkitt. e) das F orm ans -nia/arnia: farbiarnia Färberei. Verben, die m an in diese G ruppe einordnen kann, haben ebenfalls das Form ans -ować angenommen, z.B.: strofować strafen, cembrować zimmern, selten -ać, z.B.: szturać stören. Adjektíva, die durch das Polnische entlehnt w urden, erscheinen m it folgenden Form ans: -ny, -owy, -owny, -ski, z.B.: felerny, trafny, pluszowy, szamotowy, frajerowaty, kunsztowny, rentowny, drukarski, szlisserski usw. Die durchgeführte Analyse lässt folgende Schlussfolgerungen ziehen: 1. Bei der Ü bernahm e des deutschen W ortgutes durch das Polnische war die phonetische G estalt vielfach entscheidend. D .h. die heute vorliegende graphische G estalt entspricht den M öglichkeiten des polnischen Lautsystem s, bestimmte K onsonanten bzw. Konsonantenverbindungen und Vokale m iteinander zu kom binieren. 2. Bei der Übernahm e verschiedener W ortarten ins Polnische konnten folgende F aktoren eine Rolle gespielt haben: a) Bei Entlehnungen, die in eine bestim mte gram m atische K lasse einordnenbar waren, m achte sich die D om inanz der phonetischen G estalt deutlich ' D ie entlehnten W örter unterscheiden sich von den deutschen Lexemen, au f d ie sie zurückzuführen sind, auch in sem antischer H insicht sehr deutlich. D er Weg, a u f welchem zur B edeutungsveränderung des jeweiligen Lexems gekom m en ist, wird später anhand von D ia lek tw örterbüchern und anderen historischen Quellen näher untersuch t werden. bem erkbar: die gram m atische Bedeutung, die sich in erster Linie im G enuswechscl ausdrückte, spielte eine sekundäre Rolle, z.B. (m) bruderszaft (0 Brüderschaft, (m) kapsel - (f) Kapsel, (m) fach - (n) Fach, (m) kartojfel, - (f) K artoffel, (m) furm an - (m) Fuhrm ann, (m) stem pel - (m) Stempel. K onsonantisch auslautende W örter wurden also m eistens als M askulina im Polnischen adaptiert. Die deutsche Form wurde in jedem Falle als N om inativform im Polnischen angenomm en. b) Die deutsche G estalt des zu entlehnenden W ortes m usste im Polnischen verändert werden, da die Entlehnungen verschiedenartigen m orphologischen A daptationen unterlagen. Es können hier folgende G ruppen unterschieden werden: b,) Substantiva, bei denen die G enuskenntnis die entscheidende Rolle spielte, z.B.: deutsche Substantiva auf -e bekamen im Polnische das Form ans -a und blieben alle feminin: (f) Felge - (0 felga, (f) Blende - (f) blenda. b2) Substantiva und Adjektíva, die im Polnischen einer differenzierterer m orphologischen A dap ta tion unterlagen, da die deutsche U rform dem polnischen W ortbildungstyp nicht entsprach, z.B.: Substantiva auf: -a, -ka, -arz/erz, -ik /yk, -arka, -nia, -arnia, darunter auch zusamm engesetzte Substantiva , z.B.: gmina Gemeinde, leberka Leberwurst, kajzerka K aisersemmel, ślusarz Schlosser, pręgierz Pranger, gwintownik G ewindebohrer, placyk Platz, hafeiarka - (m hd.) haft, waltornia W aldhorn, latarnia Laterne; A djektíva auf: -ny, -owy, -owaty, -owny, -ski, z.B.: krajeowany K reuz/krcuzcn, pluszowy Plüsch, frajerow aty frei/Freier, kunsztowny K unst, szachrajski Schacherei usw. Die semantische M otivation spielte bei vielen Entlehnungen keine Rolle. D er D em otivierungsprozess, der zu vielen K ürzungen geführt hat, m acht sich bem erkbar z.B. bei: (f) firanka - (m) Fürhang/V orhang, (m) kiermasz - (f) K irchm esse u.a. c) Verben, die durch das polnische Verbsystem assimiliert werden konnten, d .h. solche, bei denen es möglich war, zum deutschen G rundm orphem die polnische E ndung -ować bzw. -ać hinzuzufügen, z.B.: packen pakować, schätzen szacować, lackieren lakierować, spachteln szpachlować usw. Die durchgeführte Analyse sollte einen Nachweis liefern, dass der Prozess der Entlehnung aus dem Deutschen als Quellensprache sich nach ganz bestim m ten M ustern im Polnischen vollzogen hat. Dabei wollte ich insbesondere Entlehnungen, die ihre spracheigene G estalt in der Zielsprache beibehalten haben, den Entlehnungen gegenüberstellen, in denen der frem dsprachige Einfluss au f das jeweilige polnische W ort nicht immer deutlich erkennbar ist. Dieses interessante Sprachphänom en w urde hier in seiner Vielschichtigkeit ansatzweise angedeutet. Eine W eiterführung dieser A rbeit sei somit angedeutet. Aleksandra Czechowska-Blachiewicz JA K Ą R O L Ę O D G R Y W A JĄ W Z A PO Ż Y C Z E N IA C H W ŁA ŚC IW O ŚC I G R A M A T Y C Z N E ? P R Z Y K Ł A D Y N IE M IE C K IC H ZA PO ŻY C ZEŃ W PO LSK IM JĘ Z Y K U W SPÓ ŁC ZESN Y M A rtyku ł trak tu je o cechach gram atycznych niem ieckich zapożyczeń we współczesnej polszczy żnie. A naliza m ateriału leksykalnego przeprow adzana jest w trzech grupach. Pierwsza grupa obejm uje zapożyczenia o najw iększym stopniu podobieństw a fonologicznego, d ru g a grupa to deryw aty z niem iecką bazą słow otw órczą i polskim form antem , a g rupa o sta tn ia zawiera słownictwo, k tórego postać m orfologiczna uległa znacznym m odyfikacjom .


Animal Sentience 2017.049: Browning on Birch on Precautionary Principle 1 Anecdotes can be evidence too Commentary on Birch on Precautionary Principle Heather Browning School of Philosophy Australian National University Abstract: Birch's criterion for the precautionary principle imposes a high evidential standard that many cases will fail to meet. Reliable, relevant anecdotal evidence suggestive of animal sentience should also to fall within the scope of the precautionary principle. This would minimize potential suffering (as happened in the case cephalopods) while further evidence is gathered. Heather Browning is a zookeeper and PhD candidate in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University, working on conceptual and methodological issues in the measurement of subjective animal welfare. philrsss.anu.edu.au/profile/heather-browning 1. Scope of the precautionary principle. Birch (2017) provides a formulation of the precautionary principle as a scientific criterion to make it more applicable to animal sentience and the use of animals. He divides the principle into an epistemological component (what standards should we use to judge whether we have sufficient evidence to consider an animal most likely sentient?), which he calls BAR and a practical component (what action should we take on the basis of this evidence?), which he calls ACT. The concern with Birch's specification of BAR is that it may set an unreasonably high evidential requirement that would then rule out many of the cases in which we wish to apply the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle was originally intended to apply to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty where there is a possibility of doing great harm. According to the original document of the Commission of European Communities, it should be applied "where scientific information is insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain and where there are indications that the potential effects ... may be potentially dangerous" (cited in Croney & Millman 2007, p. 559). Birch outlines the general animal sentience precautionary principle (ASPP): "where there are threats of serious, negative animal welfare outcomes, lack of full scientific certainty as to the sentience of the animals in question shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent those outcomes" (3). However, the cases in which we have less than full scientific certainty vary widely, from a level of confidence less than 1 all the way down to having no idea either way (Steel 2015). Many of these cases will not fall under the conditions described in BAR: "for the purposes of formulating animal protection legislation, there is sufficient evidence that animals of a particular order are sentient if there is statistically significant evidence, obtained by experiments that meet normal scientific standards, of the presence of at least one credible indicator of sentience in at least one species of that order" (5). Although this is intended to be a lower than normal bar Animal Sentience 2017.049: Browning on Birch on Precautionary Principle 2 for evidence, as only a single credible indicator is required, the call for statistically significant results obtained through the process of scientific experimentation is still quite rigorous. If we accept the strong formulation of BAR, there may no longer be the uncertainty that the precautionary principle is designed to address, leaving instead just the standard scientific inference-to-the-best-hypothesis to account for the available evidence. This could be too demanding for the sentience hypothesis in many cases, thereby ruling out or deferring the protection of sentient species and causing the potential harm the principle was intended to minimize. If the precautionary principle is intended to provide "tools and guidelines for decisions in which the science is inadequate" (deFur & Kaszuba 2002, p. 165), then BAR will fail to rule on many such cases. So, which cases should we allow? Birch rules out applying the precautionary principle in all cases where there is no evidence – a "default presumption of sentience" (5) that could create significant practical roadblocks to animal use, possibly without warrant, and would undermine the role of scientific work in helping determine the scope of animal protection legislation. However, there is another set of cases between those in which we have no evidence either way and those in which we have strong scientific evidence of at least one indicator of sentience. These are the cases in which we have some indications of sentience through less rigorous observational or anecdotal evidence. This fits with Birch's comment that while "we should require some evidence ... the bar should be set at a level low enough to avoid a prolonged period of inaction that may turn out, retrospectively, to have allowed a serious and preventable harm to occur" (3). I suggest that reliable anecdotal evidence may be sufficient to prompt us to apply the precautionary principle in these cases, as this is an indicator of the potential for significant harm and seems to be precisely the sort of case for which this principle is intended. 2. Anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence has frequently been criticised as unscientific, too subjective, and prone to bias and anthropomorphism, leading to misinterpretation of the observations (Bekoff 2000, Heyes 1998, Moore & Stilgoe 2009). However, the use of carefully selected observations and anecdotes can overcome some of these issues. Bates & Byrne (2007) argue that carefully collected anecdotes can form a valuable source of information – "the plural of anecdote can be data" (14). Rollin (1997) argues that the use of anecdotal evidence is appropriate so long as there is a plausible link from the story to the inference made, supported by common sense and background knowledge. Use of any story from someone who has encountered a member of the species of interest is clearly insufficient, but repeated independent observations by researchers and husbandry professionals deeply familiar with the species should not be dismissed so lightly. This is the case for much work in animal cognition and behavioural ecology where rare observations of particular behaviour patterns may be all the evidence available. Russon & Galdikas (1993) used the analysis of a large collection of single observations of spontaneous behaviour in order to establish the capacity for imitation in orangutans – something that had frequently been observed but never scientifically accepted because of the 'anecdotal' nature of the reports and the inability to replicate results in a lab setting. Bates & Byrne (2007) describe the case of studies of infanticide: when researchers started looking into the cases described, they found that hunters and explorers had been witnessing the events for a century, "but each single observation had been rejected as anecdotal and unsubstantiated" (13). Wider sampling Animal Sentience 2017.049: Browning on Birch on Precautionary Principle 3 and observation confirmed these early observations: "If these anecdotes had been ignored, we would still be blind to the causes and consequences of this highly significant behaviour" (14). In cases like these, the right sort of anecdotal evidence may be the best source of evidence we have available: "if no formal evidence can be found, then anecdotal information provides the best and only information on which to base our understanding and decisions" (Enkin & Jadad 1998, p. 965). Anecdotal evidence is often cited as a good source of information to derive testable hypotheses and guide the direction of future study (Bekoff 2000, Burghardt 1985, Kamil 1988). This is useful precisely because well-collected anecdotal evidence often points at features that will later be confirmed through more rigorous scientific analysis. Where this is likely to be the case, we have a reason to apply the precautionary principle on the basis of reliable anecdotal evidence. 3. Lesson from the case of cephalopods. An example in which the precautionary principle could have been usefully applied in the face of long-running anecdotal evidence is the cephalopods (octopuses, squid and cuttlefish). Popular accounts and observations have long noted the cognitive abilities of octopuses (see anecdotal evidence described by Moynihan 1997, and stories collected by Linden 2002); however, underperformance in experimental settings led to these stories being ignored by researchers in favour of reductionist explanations that did not require intelligence or sentience. Godfrey-Smith (2016) suggests that the reason the experimental work failed to capture cephalopod abilities may have been the unpredictable nature of octopuses, who do not settle quietly into laboratory settings and often "turn the apparatus around them to their own octopodean purposes" (52). They often seem unmotivated to participate in experiments that are not interesting to them. More recent work has provided strong evidence to corroborate the earlier anecdotes and the presence of sentience (see e.g. Godfrey-Smith 2016, Catalani 2008, Vitti 2013, Ikeda 2009, Godfrey-Smith 2013, Mather 2008). Cephalopods have been widely used in scientific research for over a century (Fiorito et al. 2015). Although the UK has had animal protection legislation in place since 1876, this was not extended to cephalopods until the inclusion of Octopus vulgaris in 1993 and all cephalopods in the recent revision of European standards that took effect in 2013 (Andrews 2011). Canada included cephalopods in their 1991 regulations, New Zealand in 1999, some Australian states in 2004, Switzerland in 2008, and Norway in 2009 (Smith et al. 2013). The change to the European standards followed the examination of the evidence (Fiorito et al. 2015) from anatomy, physiology and behaviour) "of cephalopods' ability to experience pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm" (Smith et al. 2013). The change following this legislation was immediate and measurable. Between 2005 and 2011 (prior to the legislation), at least 370 papers on cephalopods were published by EU researchers using methods that could cause pain and suffering (Smith et al. 2013); between 2013 and 2015 no such invasive cephalopod studies were conducted (Fiorito et al. 2015). Had the precautionary principle been used earlier, based on the large body of anecdotal and observational evidence, this may have prevented much of what is now known to be pain and suffering for cephalopods. 4. Conclusion. Statistically significant experimental evidence may be the gold standard for validating the sentience of animals studied, but this may be too demanding for the application Animal Sentience 2017.049: Browning on Birch on Precautionary Principle 4 of the precautionary principle. Where we have relevant anecdotal or observational evidence that the animals are likely to be sentient, from reliable people familiar with the species, this should be accepted not only as a guide for future research, but as grounds for applying the precautionary principle and being more careful in our use of these animals until we have greater certainty. This proposal is compatible with a proportionality principle (Steel 2015) in which we scale the type of action taken to correspond to the degree of available evidence. Hence it does not necessarily entail costly action. That way we could minimise potential harm more effectively and avoid what happened with the cephalopods. References Andrews, P.L.R. (2011). Laboratory invertebrates: only spineless, or spineless and painless? ILAR Journal. 52: 121-125 Bates, L.A. & Byrne, R.W. (2007). Creative or created: Using anecdotes to investigate animal cognition. Methods. 42: 12-21 Bekoff, M. (2000). Animal emotions: Exploring passionate natures. BioScience. 50: 861-870 Birch, J. (2017). Animal sentience and the precautionary principle. Animal Sentience 16(1) Burghardt, G.M. (1985). Animal awareness: Current perceptions and historical perspective. American Psychologist. 40: 905-919 Catalani, J. (2008). Cephalopod intelligence. American Paleontologist. 16: 35-39 Croney, C.C. & Millman, S.T. (2007). The ethical and behavioural bases for farm animal welfare legislation. Journal of Animal Science. 85: 556-565 deFur, P.L. & Kaszuba, M. (2002). Implementing the precautionary principle. The Science of the Total Environment. 288: 155-165 Enkin, M.W. & Jadad, A.R. (1998). Using anecdotal information in evidence-based health care: Heresy or necessity? Annals of Oncology. 9: 963-966 Fiorito, G., Affuso, A., Basil, J., Cole, A., de Girolamo, P., D'Angelo, L., Dickel, L., Gestal, C., Grasso, F., Kuba, M. & Mark, F. (2015). Guidelines for the care and welfare of cephalopods in research – A consensus based on an initiative by CephRes, FELASA and the Boyd Group. Laboratory Animals. 49: 1-90. Godfrey-Smith, P. (2013). Cephalopods and the evolution of the mind. Pacific Conservation Biology. 19: 4-9 Godfrey-Smith, P. (2016). Other Minds: The octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Heyes, C.M. (1993). Anecdotes, training, trapping and triangulating: do animals attribute mental states? Animal Behaviour. 46: 177-188 Ikeda, Y. (2009). A perspective on the study of cognition and sociality of cephalopod mollusks, a group of intelligent marine invertebrates. Japanese Psychological Research. 51: 146-153 Kamil, A. (1987). A synthetic approach to the study of animal intelligence. Papers in Behaviour and Biological Sciences. 14: 257-308 Linden, E. (2002). The Octopus and the Orangutan. New York: Dutton Mather, J.A. (2008). Cephalopod consciousness: behavioural evidence. Consciousness and Cognition. 17: 37-48 Animal Sentience 2017.049: Browning on Birch on Precautionary Principle 5 Moore, A. & Stilgoe, J. (2009). Experts and anecdotes: the role of 'anecdotal evidence' in public scientific controversies. Science, Technology and Human Values. 34: 654-677 Moynihan, M.H. (1997). Self-awareness, with specific references to coleoid cephalopods. In R.W. Mitchell, N.S. Thompson & H.L. Miles (eds.). Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 213-219 Rollin, B.E. (1997). Anecdote, anthropomorphism, and animal behaviour. In R.W. Mitchell, N.S. Thompson & H.L. Miles (eds.). Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 125-133 Russon, A.E. & Galdikas, B.M. (1993). Imitation in free-ranging rehabilitant orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Journal of Comparative Psychology. 107: 147-147 Smith, J.A., Andrews, P.L., Hawkins, P., Louhimies, S., Ponte, G. & Dickel, L. (2013). Cephalopod research and EU Directive 2010/63/EU: Requirements, impacts and ethical review. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 44: 31-45. Steel, D. (2015). Philosophy and the Precautionary Principle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Vitti, J.J. (2013). Cephalopod cognition in an evolutionary context: Implications for ethology. Biosemiotics. 6: 393-401 ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS On November 17-18, 2017, the NYU Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, the NYU Center for Bioethics, and NYU Animal Studies will host a conference on Animal Consciousness. This conference will bring together philosophers and scientists to discuss questions such as: Are invertebrates conscious? Do fish feel pain? Are nonhuman mammals self-conscious? How did consciousness evolve? How does research on animal consciousness affect the ethical treatment of animals? What is the impact of issues about animal consciousness on theories of consciousness and vice versa? What are the best methods for assessing consciousness in nonhuman animals? Speakers and panelists include: Colin Allen (University of Pittsburgh, Department of History & Philosophy of Science), Andrew Barron (Macquarie, Cognitive Neuroethology), Victoria Braithwaite (Penn State, Biology), Peter Carruthers (Maryland, Philosophy), Marian Dawkins (Oxford, Zoology), Dan Dennett (Tufts, Philosophy), David Edelman (San Diego, Neuroscience), Todd Feinberg (Mt. Sinai, Neurology), Peter Godfey-Smith (Sydney, Philosophy), Lori Gruen (Wesleyan, Philosophy), Brian Hare (Duke, Evolutionary Anthropology), Stevan Harnad (Montreal, Cognitive Science), Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv, Cohn Institute), Björn Merker (Neuroscience), Diana Reiss (Hunter, Psychology), Peter Singer (Princeton, Philosophy), Michael Tye (Texas, Philosophy) Organizers: Ned Block, David Chalmers, Dale Jamieson, S. Matthew Liao. The conference will run from 9am on Friday November 17 to 6pm on Saturday November 18 at the NYU Cantor Film Center (36 E 8th St). Friday sessions will include "Invertebrates and the evolution of consciousness", "Do fish feel pain?", and "Animal consciousness and ethics". Saturday sessions will include "Animal self-consciousness", "Animal consciousness and theories of consciousness", and a panel discussion. A detailed schedule will be circulated closer to the conference date. Registration is free but required. Register here. See also the conference website.


23 Metascience ISSN 0815-0796 Volume 21 Number 2 Metascience (2012) 21:321-330 DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9672-3 Sympathy for the devil: Reconsidering Ernst Mach's empiricism Erik C. Banks 1 23 Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science+Business Media B.V.. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author's version for posting to your own website or your institution's repository. You may further deposit the accepted author's version on a funder's repository at a funder's request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication. SURVEY REVIEW Sympathy for the devil: Reconsidering Ernst Mach's empiricism John Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki and Setsuko Tanaka (eds): Ernst Mach's Prague. Bethesda and Tokyo: Sentinel Open Press, 2010, 476pp, $40.00 HB John Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki and Setsuko Tanaka (eds): Ernst Mach's philosophy: Pro and Con. Bethesda and Tokyo: Sentinel Open Press, 2009, 252pp, $25.00 HB Erik C. Banks Published online: 9 March 2012  Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Aristotle claimed that the sign of an educated mind was the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it. Yet, as we all know, sometimes we encounter a position so foreign to our own ways of thinking that even entertaining it is impossible. John Blackmore, over his long career of writing about the life, work and influence of Ernst Mach, has never been able to see anything of value in Mach's philosophical writings, and what is more, his historical coverage of Mach's career is often punctuated with tirades against what Blackmore calls Mach's ''phenomenalism,'' the belief in the reality of human sense experience and literally nothing else. Blackmore reiterates that view in Ernst Mach's Philosophy Pro and Con, his first book devoted exclusively to Mach's philosophy, along with a recent offering about Ernst Mach's Prague. In previous work, Blackmore has identified as an historian and claimed to avoid taking sides in philosophical disputes, but this has never been entirely true. It seems he cannot resist promulgating an erroneous, though widely shared, reading of Mach's philosophy that has damaged Mach's reputation for more than one hundred years, and one that I have tried to set straight in my (2003) and will again in this essay. Before getting to that, I will say that Blackmore's work purely as an historian has been exemplary and does certainly demonstrate his ability to serve as a neutral judge. He has done a great deal to get all of the evidence out there and even publishes documents by Mach himself and writings by others, which do not square with Blackmore's reading of Mach's philosophy. Since his 1972 biography of Mach, Blackmore published a selection from Mach's Correspondence in 1985 (with Klaus Hentschel), an excellent collection of essays called Ernst Mach-A Deeper Look in 1992, and Ernst Mach's Vienna in 2001. A fifth volume, called Ernst E. C. Banks (&) Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy, Dayton, OH 45435, USA e-mail: Erik.Banks@wright.edu 123 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9672-3 Author's personal copy Mach's Science (2006), was published in Japan by Tokai University Press. Recently, Blackmore has been releasing self-published volumes, along with his collaborators Ryoichi Itagaki and Setsuko Tanaka. The quality of these collections is not as high as that of the other volumes, which were presumably strengthened by the peer review process. Nevertheless, there are many good things here, including detailed materials on Mach's assistants and students in Prague, with a supplemental detailed essay by Emilie Těšınská, an account of Mach's work on shock waves, citing recent work by Christoph Hoffmann, and a chapter on the relationship between Mach and the chemist František Wald, including a translation of their correspondence. Blackmore has also included a useful catalog of Mach's correspondence. The only fault I have with Blackmore the historian is his neglect of the Notizbücher, which reveal Mach's mind at work. Blackmore says that the Notebooks are misleading, since we only have them dated roughly by year, and no one has keyed them exactly to the time and place of writing. Blackmore has used this excuse to dismiss notebook entries in which Mach acknowledges elements not given in sensory observation, doubts about his opposition to atoms, and other entries that fill out and inform his published writings. It is true that these Notebooks cover a long development, with many twists and turns and changes of mind, but they are surely important documents for those who would understand Mach's philosophy. As I said, this has never been Blackmore's goal, but he has also refused to remain neutral on the matter, expressing himself on philosophical matters of epistemological realism versus empiricism, with no serious scholarly study of the positions he defends or attacks. These rumblings and fulminations would not be acceptable as professional contributions to philosophy. He simply describes his own position of indirect realism and says that all other views are absurd because they are unscientific, as if there were only one philosophy of science, a distortion he would never fall victim to if this were his area of expertise. He gives grotesque counterexamples to his strawman ''Machian phenomenalism,'' such as the fact that objects grow and shrink in the visual field, which Blackmore thinks forces Mach to believe that the objects really are of different shapes and sizes. But this is just a howler. Mach answers this objection succinctly in the Analysis of Sensations (1959) by distinguishing the sensory appearance from its cognitive interpretation as an object in space, and indeed one that appears perspectively from different points of observation, as it should. Mach also says that there are no ''sense illusions'' properly speaking because sense appearances, as they are given, do not represent anything truly or falsely; again, this is a matter of further cognitive inference from the appearance to the object it is supposed to represent. Likewise, Blackmore faults Kant's empirical realism and transcendental idealism about space because we can take photographs of objects when no one is looking and the objects are still pictured in space and time. But that's what Kant means by calling space empirically real. A spatio-temporal representation of nature is always possible and always objectively valid, not just when someone is there to observe it. Space and time are transcendentally ideal simply because this is not the only objective representation of nature; other thinking beings may use different, equally objective, representations. Space and time are thus objective, but not uniquely so. Blackmore's 322 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 123 Author's personal copy ''subjective idealist'' reading of Kant is a beginner's error, easily corrected by studying the many fine scholarly works about the Critique. Of course, many people trained in other fields hold forth on philosophy; outsiders believe philosophy is a subject where no special training or knowledge is needed and only opinion reigns. Even brilliant scientists like Stephen Hawking or Richard Feynman never seem to get much beyond ''if a tree falls...'' In the case of Mach, this was decidedly not so. Despite his own protestations to the contrary, Mach was a major philosophical thinker and natural philosopher who devoted considerable time and effort to developing his philosophico-scientific worldview. His primary emphasis was not on sensations per se but on monism, on one philosophical and scientific conception of the world, which led him to include sensations among physical events, considering sensation as real as energy, force or a physical body, where materialists, and representative indirect realists alike, had dismissed sensations as mental, subjective and unreal. Bertrand Russell recognized Mach's ''service to philosophy'' as the idea that ''what is experienced may be part of the physical world and often is so'' (Banks 2003, 151). Sensations thus have a double interpretation, as experiences and as physical events. But Mach also thought that mind-independent elements of the physical world existed, similar to sensations, but bound up in mind-independent complexes by dynamic, functional relations with each other, governed by laws (Banks 2003). Sensations are just a special class of these general elements when they occur in the human nervous system, which is why he (1959, 16) explicitly recommends using the more general word ''element'' over the word ''sensation'' to head off the misunderstanding. Mach was thus the originator of a lesser known but important philosophical position, sometimes known as neutral monism, which influenced William James and Bertrand Russell and which has made a recent comeback in the philosophy of mind (Banks 2010). Despite these ties, and plainly realist tendencies, Mach is still associated with the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle, originally the Ernst Mach Verein. Authors from Paul Feyerabend to Friedrich Stadler to myself have fought against this reading by carefully distinguishing Mach's nuanced position from the cruder logico-linguistic positivism of Carnap and the Circle. As we have urged, Mach's philosophy deserves to be treated with far more respect than is evidenced by historians and philosophers, who still almost universally regard him as a rather simplistic positivist, phenomenalist, idealist (pick your label), forerunner of the Vienna Circle. That this is still the state of play, no thanks to Blackmore himself, even after so much work has been done to correct it, does not say much about our appreciation of such a pivotal historical figure. And Mach is indeed a major figure. Even if the subtleties did not always come across to his readers, then as now, there is no doubt that Mach's empiricism played a major role in twentieth century science by any standard: both Einstein's relativity of simultaneity and Heisenberg's representation of the atom as a matrix of ''observable quantities'' were probably influenced in some way by Mach, even while he simultaneously hindered the acceptance of the atomic theory and the kinetic interpretation of thermodynamics through his misguided belief that atoms were metaphysical Kantian things in themselves that could never be observed, not even in principle (Banks 2003, 12–13). When he was disabused of this bizarre notion, by observing scintillations on a Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 323 123 Author's personal copy screen in 1903 or thereabouts, he seems to have accepted atoms, finally, as ''not occult,'' but little objects continuous with sensory experience, although he may still have regarded his elements as more fundamental than atoms at some deeper level, perhaps in their innards (Banks 2003). Now let's do a little harmless historical comparison. Would Mach have preferred Heisenberg's matrix atoms to the billiard ball model? Mach reached his own negative appraisal of atoms in 1872, and even earlier, by reflecting that the spectral lines of the chemical elements required more degrees of freedom of vibration than simple billiard ball atoms could possibly execute in three dimensions. His correspondence with Wald in Ernst Mach's Prague indicated that he still approved of such a view, relating observable quantities in a multidimensional tabular arrangement as a substitute for atomism. Does that make Mach an actual precursor of Heisenberg and the quantum mechanical atom, a step beyond Planck and Boltzmann's indirect realism? Not by a long shot. But as my little example shows, it is easy to turn the tables by picking your period in the history of science, picking your heroes, picking your preferred philosophy of science and its triumphs, as Planck and Boltzmann are Blackmore's heroes. But should one have heroes and villains in such a complex Shakespearian story with so many reversals of fortune? In the period of Einstein and Perrin, a realist philosophy of science seems the way to go. In the period of the quantum theory and the 1927 Solvay Conference, Heisenberg's and Bohr's empiricism triumphed over Einstein's indirect realism, culminating in Bohr's refutation of EPR, not to mention the later work by J. S. Bell, which put another nail in the coffin of indirect realism, at least about hidden variables. A philosopher of science like Arthur Fine (placed in the ''pro-Mach'' camp by Blackmore), who draws his inspiration from this later period, can thus be fully informed about the facts of science and be anti-''realist.'' Lesson: science does not vindicate any one philosophical view: positivism, indirect realism, historico-constructivism, name your poison. Blackmore is just wrong to claim that the indirect realism of Planck, Boltzmann and Einstein and his other heroes is the only legitimate view. He is just not representing the philosophy of science in a professional way. I have not even mentioned what many consider Mach's greatest impact on science, the infamous Mach's Principle which played such a key role in Einstein's thinking about general relativity, but which Einstein was forced to discard. This is a whole area of study, and there are so many versions of the principle that the reader must turn to a volume like Barbour and Pfister (1995) for an overview. The coinage ''Mach's Principle'' is certainly not Mach's own, nor should he be associated with these many later formulations. As John Norton (in Barbour and Pfister 1995) pointed out, Mach never proposed that inertial effects, say on Newton's rotating bucket of water, were caused by the gravitational pull of distant bodies, through instantaneous action at a distance, as Einstein believed for a time.1 Blackmore seems not to know of Norton's essay, instead falling headlong into Einstein's reading in an essay he appends to Ernst Mach's Prague. It also never occurs to him that Mach might have 1 He only suggests the idea very vaguely: ''the natural investigator must feel the need of further insight of knowledge of the immediate connections, say of the masses of the universe. There will hover before him as an ideal an insight into the principles of the whole matter, from which accelerated motions and inertial motions result in the same way'' (1960, 296). 324 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 123 Author's personal copy rejected this reading when Einstein communicated it to him in a letter. Blackmore thinks Mach rejected Einstein's general theory because he rejected all theories, a wildly irresponsible charge, which can be refuted with the simplest look into any of Mach's scientific books or papers. Conveniently, when one resorts to simplistic accusations, one does not have to do the hard work to examine the deeper scientific issues and arguments. On a closer read, Mach merely said that the two cases, rotating universe/still bucket and rotating bucket/still universe, were the same case described twice but only given once (1960, 284). Inertial resistance in one reference frame is replaced by a gravitational force in another reference frame, but he is silent as to why, and he certainly never says that gravity acts instantaneously at a distance from the distant bodies to the bucket. He merely thinks that there is no absolute frame of reference, or state of motion, and so the invariant physical phenomena will rearrange themselves so that the two situations are symmetrical, which Norton calls the redescription argument. Mach also wished for an elimination of space and time from physics, first by relativizing accelerated reference frames, and then by reformulating physical laws without mentioning space and time at all (Norton in Barbour and Pfister 1995; Banks 2002). Today, I prefer to think of Mach as recommending a principle of physical invariance coupled with a universal relativity of reference frames, in the tradition of Leibniz. In Specimen Dynamicum, Leibniz showed that an elastic collision, say between two billiard balls, can be relativized even to accelerated reference frames, where the elastic deformation of the ball can be viewed either as an acceleration or a deceleration and what he called the passive (inertia, elasticity) and active forces (kinetic energy) switch places accordingly. Einstein's own achievement in special relativity, of relativizing the electromagnetic field to the Lorentz transformations, follows the same strategy. The field exchanges its electric and magnetic field components depending on the relative motion of the observer, showing that the physical phenomenon of the combined electromagnetic field is indifferent to the motion of the reference frame from which it is viewed. The principle of equivalence is yet another example of an exchange between inertial resistance to acceleration in one localized reference frame and the presence of a uniform gravitational field arising out of empty space in the other. This is supposedly non-Machian because there is no source body for the fictitious uniform gravitational field (Renn 1994), and yet it conforms completely to the spirit of Mach's defense of universal physical invariance, since there is no absolute space either. There is an invariant inertial-gravitational field, as in the case of electromagnetism and the Lorentz transformations; but while this field fills space, or is space, it is not absolute, nor does it require action at a distance from distant masses or bodies, since its inertial-gravitational effects are purely local. I do not know if Mach could have accepted Einstein's much later concept of space as the field, even a field invariant in all moving reference frames. The field concept was not so well established in his day, but Mach, full of surprises as ever, was capable of speculating that the medium of space might be responsible for inertia like a kind of molasses, as long as it was reference-frame invariant molasses. He even says in the Mechanics that he is open to the concept of an inertia-producing medium, as long as it is not identified with Newton's absolute space (1960, 282–283). It now seems to me that a physically invariant inertial field would indeed have been music to his ears. Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 325 123 Author's personal copy I now want to pass to Blackmore's book Ernst Mach's Philosophy: Pro and Con. This is a collection of reactions to Mach's philosophy, which the editors have grouped into those they feel are supportive of Mach and those that are in opposition to him. Since these quotations are all available from other sources, including my own essay on functionalism that was reworked as a Synthese article (Banks 2004), I will concentrate on the three introductory essays by Blackmore specifically about Mach's philosophy. As I said, Blackmore characterizes Mach's position as ''phenomenalism,'' which is the view that only human sensations exist, that theories are nothing but economized lists of individual observations, and that the external world of mind-independent space, time and objects does not exist except as a ''thought symbol'' for groupings of human sensations. Blackmore contrasts phenomenalism with what he calls indirect realism, sometimes representative realism when he wishes to emphasize epistemology. On this view, we subscribe to a basic dualism: there is a real, mind-independent and objective external world of atoms, space and time, law and causality on which scientists can agree and of which they obtain knowledge through experiment and theorizing. On the other side are sensations, which differ from observer to observer, and are mental. We have only an indirect picture of the real world in our sensations, which, though mental, are linked somehow to external reality via a causal chain, or representative theory of perception. According to Blackmore, all scientists Descartes, Galileo, Locke, Newton, Planck, Einstein, along with all right-thinking ''practical people''(?) are partisans of indirect realism. It is true that we all fall backward into naıve realism from time to time, mistaking our sensations of objects for the real objects external to our minds, but, like Empedocles, we quickly learn that what we see and taste is different from what others see and taste in the same object, and so we learn to be indirect realists instead. So far as it goes, indirect realism does accurately describe the commonsensical epistemological starting point of most philosophers, including empiricists like Mach. So what changed? In fact, Mach tells us clearly that after reading Kant's Prolegomena at fifteen, he began to have doubts about whether nature an sich really had to be pictured in a spatio-temporal way, as little atomistic objects moving around in space and time. Kant of course had stressed the transcendental ideality of space and time when these forms of human sensibility and imagination were applied to things in themselves. That Kantian idea would always be important for Mach, who stressed that we should not naively extend our sensory imagination and intuition to nature, lest we make unconscious ''metaphysical'' or disguised sensory additions to our science, adding excess baggage and misleading us.2 Mach soon had a powerful experience of monism, which convinced him to toss out the thing in itself and embrace one undivided view of reality, in which human sensations of color or sound could be considered just as real as the physical objects in the external world, and in which there would be no dualism between the mental and the physical. At the same time, the central problem of the causal or 2 As I have written in my (2003), 'metaphysics' for Mach does not mean unobserved, or abstract, but rather refers to this error of injecting sensory imagery and visualizations into scientific results and models which the results do not sanction. 326 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 123 Author's personal copy representative theory of perception would be solved, since there would be nothing problematic about a world where sensations interacted with objects sharing the same world, as opposed to the Cartesian problem of a causal relation bridging two utterly separate realms of the mental and the physical. Mach's monism thus made it impossible for him to accept the indirect realism or interactionism of the seventeenth century philosopher scientists. He had to find for himself a unified scientific world view in which sensations, which he studied extensively in his psychophysics (of light, color, sound, time, space and movement sensation), were just as real as the objects of the physical world. Contemporary philosophers of mind rediscovered this problem one hundred years later under the rubric of physicalism and qualia, asking whether sensations are not, after all, real and, if they are, how such things as colors and sounds can fit into a physicalist world view, which seems to have no room for them. Then, as now, this monist intuition puts pressure on orthodox physicalism, demanding a more inclusive view of the physical, which I have elsewhere called enhanced physicalism (Banks 2010). I trace the basic arguments for an enhanced physicalism back to Mach, as their originator.3 At about the same time, Mach began his researches into the history of science. He began to be suspicious of a priori knowledge and of the use of auxiliary models or picture thinking. Mach showed ruthlessly one by one, in the case of Archimedes' law of the lever, the principle of the superposition of forces, of virtual velocities, Helmholtz's purported proof of the conservation of energy, how the argument made empirical presuppositions, often of a very subtle nature, and presupposed exactly what it claimed to prove a priori. So complete was Mach's demolition of these arguments that one never hears the law of inertia or conservation of energy cited as a priori principles, as was quite common up until Mach's time. Another lesson he learned from his historical studies was that the various models scientists use to visualize and obtain their results often prove to be badly off the mark. The attempt to picture heat as an actual fluid called ''caloric'' had permitted the derivation of several results including Carnot's stunning deduction of the maximum efficiency for heat engines. And yet caloric did not exist, the model Carnot used for visualization of heat flowing ''downhill'' from hot to cold like water flowing over a mill while conserved in quantity, later had to be given up as a false picture or analogy, refuted by the experiments of Joule and Mayer. The history of science is replete with examples of subtle fluids, elastic media, billiard balls, hidden springs and gear wheels, which turn out to be misleading analogies, or picture thinking. Mach was always suspicious of those extras, trying to stick as much as possible to what he called ''phenomenological physics.'' Phenomenological physics was not a list of individual experiences, nor was it inductive, but rather could involve highly general, abstract and theoretical postulates of experience such as the first and second laws of thermodynamics, the principle of least action in mechanics, or Fermat's law of least time, independent of any realizing mechanisms, pictures, stories or model of the underlying processes. It is very wrong to say, as Blackmore does, that Mach disdained theories. No, he extolled them, and the more general and unifying the better. True, Mach failed to see that in the case of atoms the explanatory story was 3 Although Leibniz and Kant deserve some credit, as do Richard Avenarius and W. K. Clifford. Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 327 123 Author's personal copy beginning to converge on the same picture from several different quarters, although he purportedly said to Einstein that he was willing to countenance the atomic hypothesis as a unifying explanation for different ranges of phenomena, since this did not violate his view of the role of theories (Blackmore 1992, 152–153, quoting Phillip Frank). That debate still continues in some quarters, at least between those empiricists who still emphasize the explanatory unification of natural phenomena under the fewest number of laws, hypotheses and postulates, and those entityrealists who believe that science is the discovery of unobserved entities and mechanisms, the erector set of the universe. Both sides have their historical victories and embarrassing failures, and most scientists pursue both goals simultaneously. There are also more advanced empiricists, such as Bas Van Fraassen and Arthur Fine, who take a ''natural ontological attitude'' of realism about entities and models (similar to Kant's empirical realism), from the inside, or from the state of present knowledge, say about electrons, but who reject transcendental claims about the world an sich, or about future theories, God's eye views or what have you. Mach's solution to the problem of the unity of science took the form of a new kind of monism, which, as noted already, Russell later called ''neutral monism'' (Banks 2003, 2004, 2010). Materialist monism says that all is matter, making no room for mental phenomena. Idealistic monism says that all is an idea or a sensation in a mind, making matter a mere bundle of sensations and denying a mindindependent external world. Mach proposed a third option. The solution, Mach said, was to adopt elements, which started out as forceful, energetic qualities in dynamical relations to one another, and which he had found in the philosophy of J F Herbart, one of his early mentors (Banks 2003). Some of these elements came together in combination and formed human sensations, in manifolds of color, sound, sight, touch. Others of these elements formed mind-independent physical objects not dependent on minds, but causally continuous with sense experience, unlike the Ding an sich. In themselves, the elements were neutral, but became mental or physical depending on the kind of complex they were involved in. And really there is not much difference between complexes either except for the names; really, they could all be considered natural elements and complexes. In each case, as Mach insisted, we have to do with nothing but elements in various functional relations with each other. The added elements of the world independent of the mind are for Mach, not a new or foreign addition. Behind the world of observation, one simply finds more observations (figuratively speaking), more interactions, more elements of the same kind as those we encounter in experience. For Mach, there never was a line drawn between these world elements and the ego and its sensations. As Mach clarifies in his late masterpiece Knowledge and Error (1976), you get such artificial barriers between ego and world by dividing up what is really an indivisible fabric of experience-reality. I thus think of Mach's view as a kind of realism, a realistic empiricism, enhanced by the addition of realistic mind-independent elements. As I have shown in detail, Mach's position is perfectly consistent with James' radical empiricism and Russell's neutral monism, with very minor differences (Banks 2003). In his Analysis of Sensations, and in the conclusions to all of his scientific books, Mach describes laying out the contents of the universe, sensations in the mind right 328 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 123 Author's personal copy alongside the physical elements of the brain, body and the physical environment on one giant causal network, linked together by functions of various kinds to be discovered by science. What is true in indirect realism is still true here; there is indeed an indirect causal chain between elements making up external objects and sensations in the human nervous system. These objects are continuous with perception and constructed in an empiricist way from the unobserved elements, not bundles of present sensation, as Blackmore believes. But more abstract functional relations are permitted than spatio-temporal ones, including tabular and matrix-like arrangements. We are not bound to mental images or visualizations. There is no dualism, but there is a direct experience of the natural world in sensations, which exist in their own right, and not just mentally. Everything one wanted from indirect realism is preserved and everything that is unwanted, the dualism, the interactionism, the lack of causal continuity, the picture thinking, is eliminated. It is a stunning piece of work and does induce an awesome sense of calm and contemplation. But one question remains: what are these elements? Tiny energy quanta? Event particulars, a la Russell? Leibniz's petites perceptions? Feyerabend (1984) thought Mach's elements were ''even more fundamental than atoms.'' Mach thought the question was open to future investigation, not stipulation; so, true to form, he never answered it. Predictably, others rushed into fill the void. Elements are just another word for sensations, said Lenin in Empiricism and EmpirioCriticism, mere wordplay. I suppose the majority of interpreters have done the same: read Mach, scratched their heads at this new term ''elements'' and concluded that elements are just another word for sensations for what else could they be? And they cannot be convinced otherwise, since, pace Aristotle, they cannot conceive what is inconceivable for them. Like everyone, I have my own blind spots in philosophy: I do not get medieval theology, or why Hume thinks I cannot rationally prefer the scratching of my little finger to the destruction of the world (and my little finger). So I stay away. I do not have a dog in those fights. I think Blackmore would have done better to stick to the historical work at which he has succeeded so well. Scholars of Mach's works (including the present author) have much to thank him for. Scholars of Mach as a philosopher must look elsewhere. References Banks, Erik. 2002. Ernst Mach's 'new theory of matter' and his definition of mass. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33: 605–635. Banks, Erik. 2003. Ernst Mach's world elements: a study in natural philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Banks, Erik. 2004. The philosophical roots of Ernst Mach's economy of thought. Synthese 139: 23–53. Banks, Erik. 2010. Neutral monism reconsidered. Philosophical Psychology 23: 173–187. Barbour, Julian, and Herbert Pfister (eds.). 1995. Mach's principle: Newton's bucket to quantum gravity. Boston: Birkhäuser. Blackmore, John (ed.). 1992. Ernst Mach: a deeper look: Documents and new perspectives. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Feyerabend, Paul. 1984. Mach's theory of research and its relation to Einstein. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A 15: 1–22. Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 329 123 Author's personal copy Mach, Ernst. 1959. The analysis of sensations and the relation of the physical to the psychical. (Fifth edn.) (trans: Williams, C.M., Sidney Waterlow). New York: Dover. Mach, Ernst. 1960. The science of mechanics in its development. 6th English edition. (trans: Thomas McCormack). Chicago: Open Court. Mach, Ernst. 1976. Knowledge and error. (trans: Thomas McCormack, Paul Foulkes). Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Renn, Jürgen. 1994. The third way to general relativity. Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, pre-print no 9. 330 Metascience (2012) 21:321–330 123 Author's personal copy