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University of Arkansas Press University of Arkansas Press Helmholtz's Zeichentheorie and Schlick's Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre: Early Logical Empiricism and Its Nineteenth-Century Background Author(s): Michael Friedman Source: Philosophical Topics, Vol. 25, No. 2, Analytic Philosophy (FALL 1997), pp. 19-50 Published by: University of Arkansas Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43154262 Accessed: 16-11-2015 10:35 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Arkansas Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophical Topics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 171.67.34.69 on Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:35:50 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PHILOSOPHICALTOPICS VOL.25, NO. 2 FALL1997 Helmholtz' s Zeichentheorie and Schlick's Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre: Early Logical Empiricism and Its Nineteenth-Century Background1 Michael Friedman IndianaUniversity Theyear 1921 marked the one-hundredth anniversary ofthe birth of Hermann vonHelmholtz, one of the most remarkable minds of his era, who made fun- damentalcontributions toenergetics, physiological psychology, the founda- tionsof geometry,electrodynamics, and epistemology.In philosophy,in particular,he becameidentified as a leaderof the scientifically oriented "back to Kant!" movementand, as such,has a claimto be one of theprincipal foundersof the discipline we nowcall philosophyof science.2 When he died in 1894 Helmholtzwas universallyrecognized as thegreatest German sci- entificthinker of the nineteenth century. It is no wonder,then, that the cen- tenaryyear 1921 was distinguishedby a varietyof memorial lectures, journal issues,monographs, and thelike,3 including a collectionof Helmholtz's EpistemologicalWritings edited by MoritzSchlick and thephysicist Paul Hertz.4Schlick himself was thenidentified as perhapsthe most important of thesmall group of scientificallyminded philosophers inspired by the revo- lutionaryimport of Einstein'stheory of relativity.He hadpublished a sub- 5 stantialpaper on thespecial theory of relativityin 1915, followedby an 19 This content downloaded from 171.67.34.69 on Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:35:50 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions extremelyinfluential exposition of thegeneral theory, Space and Timein ContemporaryPhysics, first appearing in 1917 andgoing through four edi- tionsby 1922.6And his full-scale treatise on scientificepistemology, General 7 Theoryof Knowledge, had meanwhile appeared in 1918. On thestrength of theseachievements, especially his work on thephilosophical significance of thetheory of relativity,Schlick was namedin 1922 to theChair for the Philosophyof theInductive Sciences previously occupied by ErnstMach and LudwigBoltzmann at theUniversity of Vienna,where he becamethe leaderand guiding spirit of what we nowknow as theVienna Circle.8 In thecentenary collection of Helmholtz'sEpistemological Writings, Schlickcontributed extensive explanatory notes to the more explicitly philo- sophicalpieces, where, among other things, he attemptedto appropriate Helmholtz'sideas on behalfof his own developingversion of scientific empiricism- in explicitopposition, for example, to parallelattempts at appropriationby neo-Kantianphilosophers.9 Of particularimportance here is Schlick'sattempt to assimilateHelmholtz's celebrated Zeichentheorie of perception,according to whichour sensationsmust be viewed as signs [Zeichen],rather than pictures or images[Bilder] of external objects, to his owncharacteristic conception, developed at greatlength in GeneralTheory ofKnowledge, of the essence of knowledge and truth as consistingsolely in a relationof coordination [Zuordnung] or designation [Bezeichnung] between oursystem of concepts and judgments and its objects. In GeneralTheory of Knowledge itself, Helmholtz is notexplicitly invoked inthis context, but we do finda parallelrejection of the "popular" or "naive" conceptionof knowledge as somekind of picturing or imaging of reality: Thusthe concept of agreement [Übereinstimmung] melts awayunder the rays of analysis, insofar as itis supposedto mean samenessor similarity, and what remains is onlythe univocal coordination.In this consists the relation of true judgments to reality,and all those naive theories, according towhich our judg- mentsand concepts could somehow "picture [abbilden]" reality, arein principle destroyed. There remains no other meaning for theword agreement than that of univocal coordination. Univocality[Eindeutigkeit] is the sole essential virtue of a coordination,and, since truth isthe sole virtue of judgment, truth mustconsist in the univocality ofthe designation for which the judgmentis supposed to serve.10 AndSchlick makes it amply clear, moreover, that concepts so conceivedin theirpurely designative function operate merely as signs[Zeichen] and not as pictorialimages [Vorstellungen] (§§ 5, 8). Thesepassages from General Theory of Knowledge parallel Helmholtz's classicstatement of his Zeichentheorie in themost extensive presentation of hisepistemological position, "The Factsin Perception,"in 1878: 20 This content downloaded from 171.67.34.69 on Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:35:50 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Insofaras thequality of our sensation gives us a reportof the characterofthe external influence through which it is excited,it maycount as a sign[Zeichen] of the latter but not as animage [Abbild].For of an imageone requires some kind of sameness withthe pictured [abgebildeten] object, of a statuesameness of form,of a delineationsameness of perspective projection inthe visualfield, of a paintingalso sameness of color. But a signneeds tohave no kind of similarity atall with that of which it is a sign. Therelation between the two is limitedto the fact that the same object,exerting an influencein the same circumstances, calls forththe same sign, and thus that different signs always corre- spondto different influences. Tothe popular opinion, which accepts in good faith the full truthof images [Bilder], this remainder ofsimilarity, which we do recognize,may appear very insignificant. In reality it is not so; forwith it a matterof the very greatest importance can still be achieved,namely, the picturing [Abbildung] ofthe lawlike- nessin the processes of the actual world.11 In hisexplanatory notes of 1921,Schlick then comments on thisfamous pas- sage as follows: Anattempt ismade to show that such a picturing[Abbildung] ofthe lawlikeness of the actual with the help of a signsystem constitutes,ingeneral, the essence of all knowledge, so that our knowingcan fulfill its task in no other way, and needs no other methodfor this purpose, inSchlick, General Theory ofKnowledge, PartI.12 In thisway, the assimilation of Helmholtz's Zeichentheorie of perception to themost characteristic doctrines of GeneralTheory of Knowledge is made perfectlyexplicit and complete.13 I will hereexplore the relations between Helmholtz's Zeichentheorie and Schlick'sconception of coordinationor designationin some detail. We will see that,although it is certainlylegitimate to view Helmholtz's Zeichentheorieas a philosophicalprecursor of Schlick'sconception, there remaindeep and fundamentaldifferences between the two - differences directlyconnected with the very substantial changes in both the relevant sci- ences and in scientificepistemology that have since takenplace in the interim.Indeed, radically new developmentsin thefoundations of geome- try,in particular,make it entirelyimpossible for Schlick to embrace Helmholtz'sZeichentheorie in itsoriginal form, and themost that we can say,in theend, is thatSchlick's conception constitutes a radical transforma- tionor transmutation ofthe former theory.14 By thustracing out some of the fundamentaldivergences between the two theories, we willgain additional insight,more specifically, into the intimaterelationship between early- twentieth-centuryscientific epistemology and its contemporaryscientific 21 This content downloaded from 171.67.34.69 on Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:35:50 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions context.We willalso increaseour appreciation, more generally, of the sub- tleand imaginative strategies - which,nonetheless, are oftenextraordinar- ilymisleading from a historicalpoint of view- employedby philosophers in appropriatingtheir philosophical past. I Atthe center of Schlick'sepistemological conception is a sharpand perva- sive distinctionbetween conceptual knowledge, on theone side,and intu- itiveacquaintance, on theother. Indeed, the failure sharply to distinguish knowledge[Erkennen] from acquaintance [Kennen] constitutes, for Schlick, theroot of all philosophicalevil andleads, for example, to suchimpossible notionsas "intuitiveknowledge," "knowledge by acquaintance,"and so on (§ 12).To knowan objectis tosucceed in (univocally) designating itvia con- cepts,and knowledgeis thereforeessentially mediated by conceptual thought.To be acquaintedwith an object,by contrast,is simplyto experi- enceit [Erleben],as we experiencethe immediately given data of ourcon- sciousnessindependently ofall conceptualthought: "[i]n intuitive experiences
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