Between soul and precision : Ernst Mach's biological empiricism and the social democratic philosophy of science

This dissertation has three primary aims. The first is to offer a new perspective on the philosophical world view of Ernst Mach, and in particular on his well-known doctrine of elements. This is achieved primarily within a historical context, specifically by exposing two misrepresentations of Mach's thought framed by two of his most famous detractors, Vladimir Lenin and Max Planck. Contrary to their claims that Mach was either a reactionary idealist or a solipsistic positivist, I argue that Mach's philosophical standpoint is best described as a biological empiricism. This re-constructed position is developed throughout the text as the one that best captures the variety of roles actually played by the doctrine of elements within Mach's philosophy. The second aim of the dissertation is to explore the relevance of Mach's standpoint in the philosophy of science to questions of politics and justice. In order to do so, however, an additional standpoint, one linked to Mach's both historically and conceptually, must be developed. This is the standpoint of technological empiricism, which I re-construct from the works of Alexander Bogdanov, Otto Neurath, and Nancy Cartwright. Like Mach, these thinkers are dedicated to the priority of human experience in gathering and deploying scientific knowledge. Their focus, however, is not on the psychological, but on the technical, social, and physical aspect of that experience. Once the relevant similarities and differences are developed, I explore the political aspects of biological and technological empiricism, identifying a series of both shared and independent commitments to the freedom of thought, psychological development, economic planning, and social solidarity. These ideas are synthesized into a common standpoint that moreover views science as a tool of human adaptation, capable of making contributions to both welfare and justice. I conceptualize this standpoint as the social democratic philosophy of science. The third aim of the dissertation is to revisit the polemics of Lenin and Planck in order to expose the shared ethical concerns that lie behind their caricatured attacks on Mach's 'positivism.' The goal is to lend an additional voice to the claim that the opposition between sobriety and resolve is one-sided and untenabl