Ernst Mach’ s Vienna is a mixture of essays, primary source material, and editorial comment on the influence of Ernst Mach upon a number post-Machian Viennese thinkers. Beginning with an introduction to Machian epistemology, it proceeds through sections on Adler, Frank, Schrödinger, Neurath, von Hayek, Bergmann, Mayer-Höfer, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Musil and Stumpf, Husserl and Jerusalem, Höfler, and various others. Where the text sticks to historical detail and in the contributions of outside contributors (Henk de Regt on Schrödinger, Michael Stöltzner on Neurath, Henk Vissar on Wittgenstein, and Michio Imai on Musil and Stumpf) it contains sections which should be of great interest to scholars in the History and Philosophy of Science; where the editors themselves attempt to understand the philosophy of the individuals at hand, the text fails. The value of the book, then, lies in its contribution to our understanding of the enormous influence Mach had upon early twentieth century thought; its central failing is that its presentation of Mach himself is misleading and thus parts of the text serve to re-enforce long standing misconceptions about this important thinker.

Turning first to the positive, although numerous previous authors have addressed Mach's influence upon twentieth century thought, they have, for the most part, focused upon one or another aspect of this influence. By bringing together a variety of thinkers from disparate backgrounds, the reader is given a strong sense of the enormous debt owed to Mach. To varying degrees he influenced an entire generation of physicists which included Einstein, Planck, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg, a generation of philosophers which included the Vienna Circle members and Wittgenstein. In psychology, he made major contributions to Gestalt theory and perceptual psychology and was taken seriously by Freud. In addition, outside of the sciences, we find political thinkers like Adler and Lenin, and writers like Musil taking Mach's epistemology seriously, even to the point of devoting entire books to him. In this sense, understanding Mach is essential to any full understanding of our own intellectual history.

The shortcomings of this text are highlighted by the strengths just mentioned. The editors are part of an old school of Mach scholarship which places Mach primarily within a tradition of philosophical phenomenalism and physics-orientated epistemology even though Mach makes it abundantly clear that his approach to what we today call his philosophy of science arose from a peculiar brand of evolutionary psychology. Mach tells us that the major influences on his thought were Gustav Fechner (a founder of experimental psychology and of psycho-physics) and Ewald Hering (an evolutionary physiologist); Mach's main epistemological work, Analysis of Sensations, is clearly an attempt to comprehend the human capacity for understanding by using the twin tools of evolutionary theory and psychology. Mach extends this approach to the point of wanting to naturalize physics, and thus his infamous skepticism as to atomism and physical theories of space and time. For instance, in the Preface to the First Edition of the Analysis of Sensations he writes, “The frequent excursions which I have made into this province have all sprung from the profound conviction that the foundations of science as a whole, and of physics in particular, await their next greatest elucidations from the side of biology, and especially, from the analysis of the sensations.” It is best to view Mach as someone who sought to unify the sciences by placing a certain primacy upon psychology, and his notorious emphasis on the phenomenal “given” is directly in keeping with an important tradition in nineteenth century psychology of which he was a contributing member. The editors ignore this bio-psychological orientation, instead characterizing Mach as a naive phenomenalist with little more depth and less originality than Berkeley. This is mistaken.

This leads us to a further problem with the text. The editors are quite open about the fact that they despise the philosophy they write about; unfortunately, instead of offering a clear presentation of the thinkers they so dislike followed by careful criticism, they offer simplistic and inaccurate accounts and critiques which range from unfair to insulting. For instance in talking about Mach and his precursors, “[…] if the goal of philosophy has become to use reason to defend the irrational or to accept arguments on other grounds than probable truth, then, perhaps it is no more than apologetics and may well deserve the scorn which many practical people direct at it.” (3) For Carnap the editors simply insult: “[Carnap's] oversights were not all unintentional. Many were deliberate.” (175) And, “[Logical Positivists] were naive, but he was worse. He deliberately misled. He cheated. Nor if comments from his colleagues are correct did he fully avoid other character defects.” (181) An innuendo, that Carnap caused his wife to commit suicide, follows this statement. These quotations by no means exhaust the insults. This is unfortunate as their attitude turns a useful book, with valuable contributions from a number of writers, into a polemic.