Abstract
Although it is generally assumed that the thoughts of Ernst Mach and the scientific fields he influenced (in this case psychophysics and Gestalt psychology) emigrated from Europe during Second World War they apparently survived in Finland, influencing the Finnish education system. The following article evaluates this relationship and its implications from a historical and an empirical perspective. In empirical studies comparing the education systems of different countries, such as PISA, the Finns are in general regarded as being very successful with their school system. Does this apparent success have anything to do with a Machian influence? Our current research has so far revealed that the Finns have gone through an independent cultural development in two specific aspects: in the idea of the development of the individual personality (Snellman) and in a specific phenomenalism (developed primarily by Eino Kaila, in which Kaila was heavily influenced in this by Ernst Mach). The result can be regarded as a nation-wide “Experiment”, the empirical evaluation of which can be found partly in the statistics of the PISA Studies, especially the evaluation of Finland in relation to other countries.
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Notes
This analysis neither claims completeness, nor historical causality. Other interpretations are possible, for example by focusing more on classical philosophical dimensions. The main perspective taken here is the psychological aspects of Kaila’s conceptual epistemology as one basis for Finnish philosophy and education system.
Kurki-Suonio is professor emeritus for physics at the University of Helsinki.
This explicitly does not exclude other influences on the Finnish education system.
PISA is used here only for its statistical value for the purpose described, without evaluating its general quantitative value.
“Zeitschrift für den physikalischen und chemischen Unterricht” (see Hohenester 1988).
Most of these works have unfortunately not or only partially been translated into English.
Such a conceptual analysis of the influence of Machian ideas is necessary, as it often acts on the intuitive rather than the conscious level, or as Einstein stated it is “imbibed like mother’s milk” (Matthews 1990). Einstein therefore could not state how he was influenced by Mach, only that he was strongly influenced.
Mach (1915, p. 19) states that “the most simple sensual experiences” are followed by “vivid sensual representational images” relating more or less to the original experiences. In heuristic adaptation processes (as Hume described them), such images become refined and usable for adaptation to new contexts. By conscious reflection and social exchange, the “representational images” are finally shaped into “concepts” (see also Mach 1900).
“Every human discovers within himself, when waking up to his complete consciousness, already a completed image of the world, to which accomplishment he did not at all willingly contribute to and which he accepts on the contrary as a gift from nature and of the civilization and as something immediately intelligible. This image was built up under the pressure of the practical life; extremely valuable, in this regard, it is inerasable and never ceases to act upon us, no matter which are the philosophical views that we will later adopt” (Mach 1906, p. 304).
Except for the epistemology of Richard Avenarius (1891), but that was read much less.
The concept existed before, for example for Leibnitz, but was not built on Darwin’s concept of evolution (see Schubring 1978).
Likewise, one always has to examine in scientific theories whether the thoughts from before Darwin have been resumed unaltered after the publication of the “Origin of the Species” excluding the idea of Darwin, or whether the evolutionary concept has since been appropriately considered in them.
His first publication in a similar direction dates from 1863.
Or “instinctive” as Mach writes (1883, pp. 72–73); although instinct for Mach has a strong learning aspect and therefore, in our current terminology, comes closer to the concept of intuition.
Mach (1883, p. 316), translation by McCormack.
For example Wilczek (2004a, b, c), physics Nobel laureate, suggested that the concept of force is superfluous in modern physics, but apparently extremely central for teaching physics in the classroom. Wilczek sees the reason of this discrepancy in a difference between phenomenological versus mathematically oriented physics. Will we be able to banish the concept of force from the classroom or is this even desirable? Probably not, but then we certainly cannot claim that force is a physical concept, but a historical one. Kaila abstracted concepts from sense perceptions, because he asked if a deaf-blind person can learn physics. Of course he or she can, as the famous example of Helen Keller has shown. But she is not an example of the irrelevance of sense perceptions for concept formation. On the contrary, she is an example of haptic and enactive sense perceptions in concept formation. Without body experience we cannot live, nor make sense of the world.
This is an argument Mach made, before it was promoted by the pragmatists. It forms one of the bases for his scientific friendship with William James (see Thiele 1978).
The phenomenalism of Eino Kaila in Germany is to a large extent unknown, as are the variants from Hans Freudenthal (one of the intellectual “fathers” of PISA) and A. I. Wittenberg concerning mathematics.
Interestingly, for Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans themselves, the theorem was certainly something different than for Frege, because they regarded it as initiatory. The theorem initially held mystical, even religious dimensions (Eliade 1978, p. 171ff). Thus, culture has a strong influence also on the dimensions of mathematical concepts, from which Frege abstracts. Frege’s Platonic objective thoughts are a thing-in-itself, i.e. metaphysical in the Machian sense.
Quoted after Kükelhaus (1978).
Chuar is an Indian chief who interprets an optical phenomenon (i.e. misinterpreting the width of a chasm, while trying to throw stones onto the other side) as a physical “pull” of the depth of the chasm. He likens it to the psychological attraction of depths and interprets it as a physical phenomenon (Mach 1905, p. 120). Mach suggested that an experiment (e.g. moving a scales half-way over a chasm) should resolve the issue. Piaget (1978, p. 150) commented on this by criticizing Mach for taking chief Chuar seriously. What for Mach was two concepts, from which the one closer to the description of phenomena could be found by appropriate experiments (i.e. by putting a scales in equilibrium half-way over the chasm), Piaget saw as an absurd example “One can ask oneself whether the answers just analyzed are really primary and the first stage of the childlike animism. We have found 5 to 6-year-old children, who had already reached later stages.” Piaget overlooked that his “stages” are not primary age, but culture-dependent. This in turn constituted Bruner’s critique on Piaget: the omission of culture on the development (cultural genesis) of children (for details, see Siemsen and Siemsen 2008). If one does not take historically earlier or culturally different explanatory Gestalt concepts seriously, one will never be able to help people to see their inconsistencies and move on to more consistent (scientific) concepts. If not addressed and connected to the old Gestalt, newly taught concepts will remain superficial. Gestalts tend to be psychologically very stable (see also Lorenz 1959).
This should also probably be subtracted by the group, who he accuses of being psychologistic.
By this we mean the initially unified (associatively clustered, including all somato-sensori-motor aspects) elementary sensations of the newborn baby, before it starts to distinguish between different senses. Therefore, these elements include sets of touch, taste, smell, feelings, reaction and action, such as gripping and putting things into the mouth, etc. Based on reflexes and instincts, the initial randomness becomes refined into Gestalts and engrained in its intuition by empirical learning (as Hume described). Later, conscious reflection might refine the intuitive concepts, by adapting them to each other, as well as these newly adapted concepts, to our sensations.
Ratiomorphism: so the idea that our thinking processes only look similar to a rational process in their final result, but actually consist of genesis processes, derives from Egon Brunswik (1955). Brunswik in turn derives the term indirectly from Helmholtz’s “unconscious inference”. Rationality in this perspective is only a highly abstracted conceptual approximation (instead of a fundamental understanding of mental processes, for which it is often mistaken). This idea was taken up by (Lorenz 1959), basing his critique and elaboration of Gestalt psychology on it.
Wittgenstein at the end of his Tractatus spoke of a cognitive “ladder” which the book provides for the competent reader and which for Wittgenstein can be thrown away as soon as it is climbed. Unfortunately, if one throws away the latter, the next person cannot access it anymore.
This is done in favour of the “little green men on Mars” (Planck), who are supposed to have the same physics as humans.
As Karl Popper argued, we can never be sure, how close we are to the truth, even if we had found it. This concept of science implicitly assumes the thing-in-itself (god’s thoughts) and science as an asymptotically approximating process to it. But as the history of science tells us, seen from today’s perspective, science was often erratic and we have no hint why this should have ceased to be so. Historically, scientists have so often claimed to have found the final truth that this claim seems empirically unlikely.
Richard Avenarius (1891) called this the mistake of introjection: We mistake our model for reality.
Such a world Fechner apparently had in mind (Sommer 1996).
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
This was also elaborately done earlier by Freudenthal’s friend and colleague Alexander Israel Wittenberg, who was key speaker at a conference Freudenthal organized in Utrecht in Dec 1964 on “Modern Curricula in Secondary Mathematical Education” (Wittenberg 1965, 1968; see also Siemsen 2008c). Wittenberg’s contribution is especially aimed among other things at the initial efforts by the OECD to “modernize” education. He criticized them as “having no aims”, their curricular and un-empirical approach, especially by uncritically supporting the "new maths", thereby putting logic before psychology in school education and promoting half-baked reforms based on this. Freudenthal mentions Wittenberg’s sudden death at the beginning of his following colloquium (Freudenthal 1968).
The approach included also other international influences, but Freudenthal has been very important in the process (see for example De Lange 2006; Chick and Vincent 2005; Hopmann et al. 2007, etc.). The term “literacy”—what PISA claims to measure—is (among other sources) explicitly based on Freudenthal’s critique and terminology (see OECD 1999, p. 41). This fact was even used by PISA critics as attempts of ridicule. Freudenthal himself is quoted several times in central places of different PISA publications, especially in the maths sections. Additionally, several people from the reference lists have been influenced by Freudenthal or directly belong to his institute. For example Jan de Lange, the chair of the maths group for the PISA framework is also a former director of the Freudenthal Institute.
For Freudenthal, Piaget’s results are often built into in his assumptions and conceptualizations, or sometimes even contradict them (see for instance Freudenthal 1983, p. 413/414). Freudenthal gives an example: “Piaget’s idea of mathematics is one picture of mathematics, unambiguously structured and moreover such that its structure is an image of cognitive development. Mathematicians are less dogmatic. They know about many a way to build mathematics and they choose according to needs. Piaget’s starting point is the straight line as a model of the linear order; […] As he noticed, this cannot succeed but by prestructuring. […But] the [historically] primordial and natural coordinatisation is the polar rather than the cartesian one.” Freudenthal’s critique of Piaget is especially interesting, because of ideas-historical links between Mach and Piaget (on Piaget’s roots in Mach via Binet, see Siegler 1992; Smith 1994; conceptually, see Matthews 1990; Siemsen 2008b).
This can only be found in his notebooks.
Mach once wrote that “the capacity to profit by experience might well be set up as a test of intelligence” (Mach 1908).
See for example at the Freudenthal Institute www.fi.uu.nl/fisme/en/.
Freudenthal even explicitly quotes Mach as the—in his view leading—authority on historical and epistemological phenomenology in mechanics. But he apparently overlooks Mach’s didactical aspects as well as the general scientific ones (Freudenthal 1993, p. 73).
This concerned in Freudenthal’s own terminology especially the implicitly assumed “horizontal”, i.e. real-life situated (versus the “vertical”, i.e. “within the world of symbols”), mechanization of the structuralists in the 90s. Freudenthal rejected a mechanistic interpretation of acting in life and especially a “mechanizing” of the contents of teaching, e.g. in the mechanical repetition of formulas. He instead asks for “didactical phenomenology” (Freudenthal 1993).
See for example Stadler and Weibel (1993).
The authors do not regard this as a solely European phenomenon, but Europe is especially interesting as a case where the problem originated.
This was the original scientific question for the EU research proposal POPBL. For details see Science Education and Careers 2005 FP6-2005-Science-and-Society-16—No. 042936—POPBL—2006-07-04: School Science Teaching by Project Orientation - Improving the Transition to University and Labour Market for Boys and Girls (POPBL annex 1).
This “individuelle Persöhnlichkeitsbildung” (individual personality formation) is not to be mistaken for a focus on self-esteem or even ego-centrism. An integral part of Tengströms and Snellmanns formation concept is always the individual’s responsibility towards others and the whole, the Hegelian “Weltgeist” (world spirit). In this respect, the Finnish individualism is inherently humanistic.
The authors hereby assume that the concept of a “workers’ class”, even if it is assumed in order to promote the goals of this class, is in fact cementing the social phenomena leading to the concept of a workers’ class.
See OECD (2006a).
A summary of his works can be found by his pupil von Wright (1993), who continued Kaila’s tradition in Finland as well as during his time in Cambridge as successor to Wittgenstein.
Kaila also quoted Mach several times in nearly all his larger publications, one of them even starting with a quotation from Mach (see below). Probably not by chance von Wright’s article on Kaila (“Kaila’s Monism”) starts and ends with Mach.
Kaila’s tradition in Finland is mostly upheld in philosophy, for the purpose of this article, and although his psychological focus is more central.
“Die höchste Philosophie des Naturforschers besteht darin, eine unvollendete Weltanschauung zu ertragen.”
Kaila is regarded as a strong and (at least in the Nordic countries) influential proponent of Gestalt psychology. Although he has a high affinity to Köhler and his physicalist Gestalt theory, the idea of Gestalt psychology is based on an originally Machian idea (see von Ehrenfels 1890) before the next generation of researchers, such as Wertheimer and Köhler, founded a psychological school on it. Nevertheless, the Bühler school—for whom Kaila has worked—was proposing a more genetic (stronger Machian) Gestalt concept. Karl Bühler had been a student of Oswald Külpe, who in his book on “Philosophy of the Present in Germany” has spent the first chapter dealing centrally and exclusively with Mach (to whom he even sent a signed copy of his book). The difference between Kaila’s and Charlotte Bühler’s interpretation of the origins of “Gestalts” in instincts or learning led to a very interesting discussion between the two regarding the face-recognition of sucklings (for example Kaila 1935).
For Mach, empiry (Empirie) is the process of using psychophysical evidence (phenomena and experimentation, i.e. variation of specific parts of phenomena) as a necessary part of the general process of adapting the thoughts to the sensual perceptions and the thoughts to each other. If we rely too much only on the latter (adapting the thoughts to each other) we are in danger of developing thought constructions, which become too detached from the "world" and can mislead us maybe for a very long time (as can be seen with some ideologies). This is what Mach called metaphysics.
This is also the basis of his criticism of the Vienna Circle that the psychological basis of Carnap’s “Aufbau” was insufficient, thereby providing an important motive for the rethinking process within the Vienna Circle towards different forms of physicalism (see Kaila 1930). We will see in the following that experiments are still currently very important in Finnish science and science education.
There were definitely contacts, but as in the case of Kaila’s critique on Carnap’s “Aufbau” (1969), these contacts served more to strengthen Kaila in pursuing his own approach.
Kaila was a psychologist by training and a strong promoter of the (Machian inspired) Gestalt theory.
The result can be regarded as a nation-wide “Experiment”, the evaluation of which according to this analysis can be found at least partly in the Finnish PISA Study results. Again, we stress here that this is only one possible perspective to explain the effect.
This is a comment by von Wright on Kaila (von Wright 1993).
Some examples: Kaila bases his world view on perception, Mach on the senses; both strongly promote experimentation and give many experimental examples in their work; Kaila also takes a genetic-psychological view; contrary to many Gestalt psychologists, he clearly distinguishes between optical and haptical perception and (his wife being blind herself) gives priority to haptics, which is genetically correct (see Siemsen 1981), although he does not always consistently do so.
One interesting conceptual detail is the use of the word “genesis”, which we remember is Mach’s epistemology based on Darwin’s evolution concept. One should keep in mind, that in genesis processes, early developments “in nascendi” of new revolutionary functions can have an over-proportional influence (i.e. according to current biological research (for example Gould 2002), the development of DNA eradicated the previous forms of inter-generational memory transmission so that now we still do not know how life was initially formed, or the development of more flexible breast cages because of breast-feeding in mammals might have helped them to become the dominant type of species when the dinosaurs became extinct).
The second chapter of Laurikainen’s (1989) first book on Pauli is devoted to Mach’s influence on Pauli. Unfortunately, Laurikainen does not seem to know Mach very well, so in the later part of the book, he keeps attributing ideas from Mach in Pauli’s work either to Pauli himself, or to Schopenhauer.
Operationalism is a concept Percy W. Bridgman developed on the basis of a Machian epistemology (see Holton 1992).
In an e-mail (19/10/07) to one of the authors, Kurki-Suonio wrote “I find so many points of contact with my own thinking that I now understand well why you think I’m Machian. I was not aware of the close relation of Mach’s ideas to Darwin and I was very much surprised to note that what I am discussing in my chapter 3 [1994] brings me very close to similar or parallel ways of thought.”
See Mach (1923).
On the importance of meanings and especially their intuitive dimensions for Kurki-Suonio, see for example Kurki-Suonio (1994 or 2006).
Hämäläinen (1998); italics are used for highlighting the concepts of perception, which are central for our analysis and experimentality.
Cygnaeus became the intellectual father of the Sloyd movement, which systematically introduced woodworking as an integral (haptic/enactive) part of school education. It is interesting to note that Mach concluded an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker, maybe indirectly due to the wide international influence of the Sloyd system. Mach’s monism consequently made no principal difference between theory and practical experience (Mach 1923). Theory is only the result of thought-doing (Denktun) such as performing thought experiments. As neurologists have recently shown that we actually activate muscles when we see a movement or even just think about it (see for example Gallese 2005 for a brief introduction), the idea seems to be surprisingly modern and an integral part of phenomenologically oriented active learning.
In Manninen (2006): Tengström explicitly ignored Hegel’s critique of the teachings of the sovereignty of the people (Lehre der Volkssouveränität), the characterization of the people as a “chaotic image” (wüste Vorstellung), "shapeless lump" (formlose Masse) [] in relation to the orderly nation [C.R. Popper criticizes Hegel because of the "Hegelian horde" (Hegelsche Horde)]. Tengström []: The acknowledgement of the other as a person is the result of a long development process of humanity (Manninen 2006, p. 64).
See also Watzlawick (1976).
See for example the national core curriculum for basic education (2004, downloadable at the website of the Finnish national board of education, http://www.oph.fi/english/). Even for grade 9 the starting point is always the phenomena and the concept of “phenomenon” is used several dozens of times, especially in the section for physics and chemistry. First comes observation of phenomena, then the description/interpretation, then the modelling. In the national core curriculum for the upper secondary school (2003 from the same source), the phenomenon is still very central for science education, but the “structure of nature” or “basic concepts” are often mentioned beforehand. On the contrary in Germany, for instance the core curriculum of the Land (education is state responsibility in Germany) of Rhineland Palatine (downloadable at http://lehrplaene.bildung-rp.de/) states that “physics education helps in observing appearances of nature, the environment and technology in experiments from a physical point of view”, while chemistry starts with “insights into substances” (in other states, one can find stronger and less strong examples of this omission of phenomenology; it would probably be interesting to relate the PISA results to the numbers of mentioning, and centrality of, the concept of “phenomenon” in core curricula of different states).
Even one of his last works published posthumously focuses on this question (Kaila 1962).
Special thanks for this to our Finnish discussion partners (see also acknowledgements).
“Was bleibt”, i.e. “what remains”. This question was similarly asked in the US (see Matthews 1994) with similarly alarming results.
Inert ideas, as Whitehead (1929) used to call them.
Primarily is used here in terms of time, i.e. which one should start with in learning. If a type of education is not phenomenological, it is—as Piaget empirically found—even further away from the daily experience of children. So the expected effect on the PISA outcome would show even stronger.
See OECD for example (1999, 2003, 2006a, b).
One can find other Machian similarities in PISA, but this one aspect will suffice here.
Details of this can be found in all the PISA Studies.
This can be considered a normal reaction in terms of unlearning routines. Concepts that have been used many times without a direct negative feedback become intuitively engrained through this Humean learning process. The older a person gets, relearning such fundamental concepts can literally pull the carpet from under their intellectual feet, which is a very distressful (thereby often depressing; see for example Sapolosky 2003) experience. A strong reaction of fearing or ignoring (“impossible”) therefore psychologically provides the safest mental option (see for example Mach 1923, p. 531 according to whom this reaction is also the origin of the belief in ghosts).
In defence of Kaila it has to be stated that in the later works of Kaila (1962, Sect. 1) the haptical aspect of perception is often mentioned, but strangely omitted in the question of how physics is understood. A deaf and blind person can understand physics (Kaila 1962, Sect. 7), but could such a person do so without hapts (tactile experience, especially with the hands) and enacts (active motoric experience)? Kaila isomorphically derives hapts from colour perception. But from an evolutionary point of view, hapts must be much older and must therefore be genetically previous. His argument seems like putting the cart before the horse and remains inconclusive (see also Mach 1923).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our Finnish discussion partners, especially Kaarle Kurki-Suonio, Juha Manninen, Maija Rukarjavi-Saarela, Marja Montonen, Ismo Koponen, Veli-Matti Vesterinen, Raimo Koponen, Ansu Saarela and Ari Hämäläinen for the lively exchange of ideas and their instructive introduction to Finnish culture.
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Siemsen, H., Siemsen, K.H. Resettling the Thoughts of Ernst Mach and the Vienna Circle in Europe: The Cases of Finland and Germany. Sci & Educ 18, 299–323 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-008-9154-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-008-9154-6