"Without renouncing the support of physics, it is possible for the physiology of the senses, not only to pursue its own course of development, but also to afford to physical science itself powerful assistance"
About this Quote
Mach is staking out a borderland and then immediately refusing to police it. “Without renouncing the support of physics” is a preemptive concession to his fellow hard-nosed empiricists: he’s not drifting into mysticism or airy speculation. But the real move is the pivot that follows. The physiology of the senses can “pursue its own course of development” - meaning it doesn’t have to live as physics’ handmaiden - and, more provocatively, it can turn around and “afford to physical science itself powerful assistance.” The subordinate discipline becomes a corrective.
That inversion is the subtext. Mach is arguing that what we call “physical fact” arrives already filtered through human apparatus: eyes, ears, nerves, attention, expectation. If physics wants to be rigorous, it must take seriously the machinery that delivers its data. In late-19th-century science, this was both timely and disruptive. Psychophysics and sensory physiology were booming; instruments were multiplying; debates about measurement, perception, and error were intensifying. Mach is positioning perception studies not as a soft adjunct but as infrastructure for objectivity.
It also telegraphs his broader philosophical program: a suspicion of metaphysical leftovers in physics. Treating sensations as primary doesn’t shrink science; it disciplines it, forcing concepts to answer to experience. The quote’s quiet audacity is that it recasts “the observer” from nuisance to key variable - an idea that would become unavoidable as physics marched toward relativity and quantum theory, where the conditions of observation stop being background noise and start shaping the story.
That inversion is the subtext. Mach is arguing that what we call “physical fact” arrives already filtered through human apparatus: eyes, ears, nerves, attention, expectation. If physics wants to be rigorous, it must take seriously the machinery that delivers its data. In late-19th-century science, this was both timely and disruptive. Psychophysics and sensory physiology were booming; instruments were multiplying; debates about measurement, perception, and error were intensifying. Mach is positioning perception studies not as a soft adjunct but as infrastructure for objectivity.
It also telegraphs his broader philosophical program: a suspicion of metaphysical leftovers in physics. Treating sensations as primary doesn’t shrink science; it disciplines it, forcing concepts to answer to experience. The quote’s quiet audacity is that it recasts “the observer” from nuisance to key variable - an idea that would become unavoidable as physics marched toward relativity and quantum theory, where the conditions of observation stop being background noise and start shaping the story.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
|---|
More Quotes by Ernst
Add to List
