# Wir haben angefangen... (Mauthner)



## Löwenfrau

This period is somewhat eliptic for my understanding:

"Lassen wir uns endlich von der kindlichen Frage nach der größeren oder geringeren Schwierigkeit der Rätsel nicht mehr irre machen. Wir haben angefangen, das ewige Forschen nach den Ursachen als den zureichenden Gründen für eine Verirrung des Menschengeistes zu halten; an die Stelle des uralten Kausalismus sucht sich der Konditionismus zu setzen, welcher nur noch nach den Bedingungen einer beobachteten Erscheinung fragt."  (F. Mauthner)


The argumentative chaining, maybe due to a lack of flavoring particles, is not clear to me. When he says "wir haben angefangen...", does he mean that in his text he has started by the approach of the "ewige Forschen..." as an aberration of human spirit, and when he says "and die Stelle...", he means that now he is making a second step which is to indicate how the Konditionismus is now (in Mauthner's time) trying to substitute the old Kausalismus?


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## bearded

Hallo
M.s Gedankengänge sind immer kompliziert.  Aber ich verstehe _Wir haben angefangen_ als ''Die Wissenschaftler/die Philosophen/die gebildeten Menschen haben angefangen...

We have begun to consider as an aberration of the human spirit the(this) continuous search for the 'causes' as ''the sufficient reasons ''. Instead of the very old (outdated) causalism, now conditionism - which only searches the conditions of an observed phenomenon -  is trying to affirm/impose itself.

Dies ist meine Deutung, aber natürlich sind auch andere Interpretationen möglich, und auch eine bessere Wortwahl/Wortstellung.  Es scheint mir, dass M. eher von kulturellen Strömungen spricht als von seinem eigenen Text.


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## Löwenfrau

Danke für deine Antwort, bearded man.
Deine Deutung scheint mir sehr gut, und auch meine war schon etwa in dieser Richtung, nur dass nicht so sicher und klar. 
Ich frage mich, ob dieses "We have begun to consider ..." nicht umformuliert werden könnte: "Initially, we considered...", oder "From the beginning.."
"We have begun..." klingt mir so, als ob es etwas fehlte.


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Ich frage mich, ob dieses "We have begun to consider ..." nicht umformuliert werden könnte: "Initially, we considered...", oder "From the beginning.."
> "We have begun..." klingt mir so, als ob es etwas fehlte.


That might be possible but then you'd have to reorder the whole sentence.
In the general current-day view, "the beginning" of our society and knowledge was the Classical Antiquity. Everything before that was the dark ages of mankind (with a few notable exceptions).
Mauthner is now talking about the 18th and 19th century, during which the natural sciences made great strides and discoveries and, I guess, to the average person or even academic this might have given the impression that there is no limit to what natural sciences can discover and prove or disprove. 
However, natural sciences do have their own set of rules, so once they realized that many metaphysical concepts cannot be proven or disproven in a scientific, empirical manner some smart scientists just changed the question: instead of looking for the cause they are looking for the conditions, because the latter can be observed and documented, which fits scientific methods well.

In my opinion, natural sciences were doing the same that philosophy has done before: they were overreaching. So, they were encroaching on the field of philosophy and "Geisteswissenschaften" by trying to establish the claim that only "Naturwissenschaften" is fact and truth and everything else is nonsense and a figment of imagination.


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## bearded

Löwenfrau said:


> Danke für deine Antwort, bearded man.
> Deine Deutung scheint mir sehr gut, und auch meine war schon etwa in dieser Richtung, nur dass nicht so sicher und klar.
> Ich frage mich, ob dieses "We have begun to consider ..." nicht umformuliert werden könnte: "Initially, we considered...", oder "From the beginning.."
> "We have begun..." klingt mir so, als ob es etwas fehlte.


I do not agree with ''from the beginning'' because I think that M. is talking about recent developments in culture. What is missing is perhaps the word ''endlich/at last!''.
In this translation, much depends on how you interpret the pronoun ''wir/uns''. You seem to think that it refers to M.himself or his readers, while I think he means 'modern culture'.
P.S. Do you prefer to receive answers in English or German? So far, we have been using both...

EDIT  Manfy seems to agree with my interpretation (natural sciences, culture).


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## Löwenfrau

Yes, both of you are right.

But one of my options (initially) was intended in the same way as yours, just in other words. I just feel that "initially" or "firstly" sound better (more idiomatic) than "we have begun..."
But of course I might be wrong, not being a native.


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## bearded

I think there is a big difference in meaning between  ''At last we have now started to consider...'' (my meaning) and ''initially we considered'' (your meaning).


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## Löwenfrau

Of course! Sorry, it was a lack of attention of mine this time.


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## Löwenfrau

Couldn't it be "we have just started to consider.." ("Wir haben gerade angefangen...") instead of "At last we have now started to consider..."?


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## bearded

Yes, it could be.  But I suggest to drop everything that is not in the text, and simply translate  ''we have begun...''.  If you add nothing, you can be sure you have not misunderstood.  My  ''at last..now'' was just explanatory of the meaning in my interpretation, and not how the translation should be.


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## Löwenfrau

bearded man said:


> Yes, it could be.  But I suggest to drop everything that is not in the text, and simply translate  ''we have begun...''.  If you add nothing, you can be sure you have not misunderstood.  My  ''at last..now'' was just explanatory of the meaning in my interpretation, and not how the translation should be.


Yes, I understand your point, bm. The only thing is that, at least in Portuguese, it feels like something is missing in "We have begun..." But you are probably right, that's better than the risk of a misinterpretation.


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## Löwenfrau

Just one more thing concerning the same passage: "... Bedingungen einer beobachteten Erscheinung" can be understood as "... conditions of observable phenomena", instead of "an observable phenomenon"? I'd say he is thinking in all phenomena (or all life phenomena) in general...


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## manfy

I agree with bm's statements. The lack of flavoring particles in the original statement does not allow us to make a conclusion whether Mauthner agrees or disagrees with this situation, so the translation should avoid such particles, too. 


Löwenfrau said:


> Yes, I understand your point, bm. The only thing is that, at least in Portuguese, it feels like something is missing in "We have begun..." But you are probably right, that's better than the risk of a misinterpretation.


A crude simplification of that sentence in my own words "We have begun to stop looking for the cause [of any given phenomenon] and replaced it with conditionalism."

In any case, I think, Mauthner's sentence is an overstatement and is actually not true - it might have appeared to Mauthner in those days as if scientists had stopped searching for the cause, but they never did.
Research methods of natural sciences force us to provide repeatable, verifyable measurements - i.e. the conditions - under which certain phenomena take place. Subsequently, however, we use these conditions and their changes in order to extrapolate the beginning and the cause of that phenomenon. 
Some examples, where the actual cause can never be researched (in a scientific way): The Big Bang Theory, Black Holes, various phenomena in quantum physics. For these phenomena, scientists can only research the effects, i.e. conditions and the change thereof, and then they can make logical and mathematical conclusions about the cause and the origin.
But going as far as calling this "Conditionalism" is - in my own words - philosophical mumbo jumbo. I don't think this term really survived into this day.



Löwenfrau said:


> Just one more thing concerning the same passage: "... Bedingungen einer beobachteten Erscheinung" can be understood as "... conditions of observable phenomena", instead of "an observable phenomenon"? I'd say he is thinking in all phenomena (or all life phenomena) in general...


Yes, possibly - but then he did use singular!
This sentence "... Bedingungen einer beobachteten Erscheinung" carries a connotation of "... Bedingungen *irgend*einer... ", i.e. ""... conditions of a/any given observable phenomenon".


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## bearded

I am glad that manfy and I share the same basic opinion about M.s text, at least in this passage.
I have a perplexity, though, as concerns the word 'observable':  beobachtet is a phenomenon that has already been observed, observable is a phenomenon that can/could be observed. After a phenomenon has been observed, the search for the conditions, under which it was produced, can be started. One cannot investigate conditions (or even less the causes, for that matter) of 'possible' phenomena. I would suggest to translate ''...of any phenomenon that has been observed''.
Another word, which needs to be thought over in my opinion, is Konditionismus (it sounds a bit odd in German).  Maybe ''conditionalism'' - as suggested by manfy - is more idiomatic than conditionism in English.  One should choose between being more idiomatic and retaining the text oddity.


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## berndf

manfy said:


> In any case, I think, Mauthner's sentence is an overstatement and is actually not true - it might have appeared to Mauthner in those days as if scientists had stopped searching for the cause, but they never did.
> Research methods of natural sciences force us to provide repeatable, verifyable measurements - i.e. the conditions - under which certain phenomena take place. Subsequently, however, we use these conditions and their changes in order to extrapolate the beginning and the cause of that phenomenon.


You have to be careful not to blend in your own epistemological ideas into this or the way the discussion it conducted today. Today we indeed do not tend to think any more that scientific methodology reduces the aim of "understanding" nature to merely "describing" it or, if we do, we don't think any more that the difference matters. Late 20th century discussions within science where this seriously mattered was probably the behaviourism controversy in psychology or the question of whether we are allowed to ask the question "what was there before the big bang" in cosmology. 100-120 years ago, the controversy was conducted with more fundamentalist positions on both sides and I think we should respect this context.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy: 





> Yes, possibly - but then he did use singular!
> This sentence "... Bedingungen einer beobachteten Erscheinung" carries a connotation of "... Bedingungen*irgend*einer... ", i.e. ""... conditions of a/any given observable phenomenon".



I see, manfy, but don't you agree that "irgendeiner Erscheinung" comes to the same as "Erscheinungen" (plural undetermined)?


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## Löwenfrau

bearded man said:


> I am glad that manfy and I share the same basic opinion about M.s text, at least in this passage.
> I have a perplexity, though, as concerns the word 'observable':  beobachtet is a phenomenon that has already been observed, observable is a phenomenon that can/could be observed. After a phenomenon has been observed, the search for the conditions, under which it was produced, can be started. One cannot investigate conditions (or even less the causes, for that matter) of 'possible' phenomena. I would suggest to translate ''...of any phenomenon that has been observed''.
> Another word, which needs to be thought over in my opinion, is Konditionismus (it sounds a bit odd in German).  Maybe ''conditionalism'' - as suggested by manfy - is more idiomatic than conditionism in English.  One should choose between being more idiomatic and retaining the text oddity.



I noticed that, bm. It's just that I thought that, once a phenomenon is (1) observed, it turns to be (2) observable for investigations and experiments, and, actually, when scientists seek the conditions of this phenomenon, they are on phase (2). The question is: would the reader _read_ it in this sense, or in the sense of possible phenomena, as you said?


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## manfy

berndf said:


> You have to be careful not to blend in your own epistemological ideas into this or the way the discussion it conducted today. [...]



Good point. I may have looked at it down my nose a bit, from my own current-day point of view.



Löwenfrau said:


> I see, manfy, but don't you agree that "irgendeiner Erscheinung" comes to the same as "Erscheinungen" (plural undetermined)?


Come to think of it, I do. In German, singular sounds better, but the sentence does convey "any one event" and in some languages that can be expressed better in plural.



Löwenfrau said:


> I noticed that, bm. It's just that I thought that, once a phenomenon is (1) observed, it turns to be (2) observable for investigations and experiments, and, actually, when scientists seek the conditions of this phenomenon, they are on phase (2). The question is: would the reader _read_ it in this sense, or in the sense of possible phenomena, as you said?


I've been thinking about that too and I agree with you, Löwenfrau. An observed phenomenon is automatically observable. But in German I'd very rarely use "eine *beobachtbare* Erscheinung". It's not wrong in any way, but it's odd. 
In English, on the other hand, I'd clearly prefer "observable" for the same sentence.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> Another word, which needs to be thought over in my opinion, is Konditionismus (it sounds a bit odd in German).  Maybe ''conditionalism'' - as suggested by manfy - is more idiomatic than conditionism in English.  One should choose between being more idiomatic and retaining the text oddity.


_Conditionalism _is to my knowledge the right translation of Verworm's _term Konditionismus_. But your reasoning gives me a bit of a head ache: you cannot choose translations of philosophical terms based on how odd or nice they sound or how idiomatic they are in ordinary language.


manfy said:


> But going as far as calling this "Conditionalism"  is - in my own words - philosophical mumbo jumbo. I don't think this  term really survived into this day.


The causalsm-conditionalism debate in early 20th century physiology is the precursor of the later 20th century behaviourism debate. It effectively did survive.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> I've been thinking about that too and I agree with you, Löwenfrau. An observed phenomenon is automatically observable. But in German I'd very rarely use "eine *beobachtbare* Erscheinung". It's not wrong in any way, but it's odd.
> In English, on the other hand, I'd clearly prefer "observable" for the same sentence.



Exactly: "observable" sounds better than "observed" in Portuguese too.


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## Löwenfrau

berndf said:


> _Conditionalism _is to my knowledge the right translation of Verworm's _term Konditionismus_. But your reasoning gives me a bit of a head ache: you cannot choose translations of philosophical terms based on how odd or nice they sound or how idiomatic they are in ordinary language.
> The causalsm-conditionalism debate in early 20th century physiology is the precursor of the later 20th century behaviourism debate. It effectively did survive.



Frankly, I don't see any change of meaning whatsoever between "conditionism" and "conditionalism"... Here I tend to disagree with you: one might choose what sounds better. Unless you convince me that there is any difference between them.


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Frankly, I don't see any change of meaning whatsoever between "conditionism" and "conditionalism"... Here I tend to disagree with you: one might choose what sounds better. Unless you convince me that there is any difference between them.


For me, as an outsider to academic philosophy, it hasn't much difference in meaning either.
However, since it seems to be an established term, there's a good chance that a specific Portuguese translation exists already. And if so, you'd have to use that term, be it nice sounding or not.
You will run across it again since Mauthner has an own chapter on it. So, you might have to browse through some Portuguese philosophy textbooks.


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## Löwenfrau

Thanks for pointing that out, manfy, I will do that.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> _Conditionalism _is to my knowledge the right translation of Verworm's _term Konditionismus_. But your reasoning gives me a bit of a head ache: you cannot choose translations of philosophical terms based on how odd or nice they sound or how idiomatic they are in ordinary Language
> .


 Does _Konditionalismus_ not exist in German?  As for translation of terms based on how nice they sound, please read #20 in which 'observable' is accepted instead of 'observed' (for me, a not fully accurate choice) just based on sound. Did you get no headache there?


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## manfy

bearded man said:


> [...] As for translation of terms based on how nice they sound, please read #20 in which 'observable' is accepted instead of 'observed' (for me, a not fully accurate choice) just based on sound.


Apologies! My phrasing was misleading. 
The reason why I'd use 'observable' in English is not only that it sounds better, but it also does not change the meaning of the whole sentence (as per my interpretation!!).
 In some other context, where the focus is on observability itself, it might be different! And in such a case, I'd also use *beobachtbar* or *Beobachtbarkeit* in the German sentence. But in the OP this doesn't seem to be the case.


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## bearded

Hello manfy
Why did Mauthner write 'beobachtet' and not 'beobachtbar'? Please take a possible phenomenon that has not yet occurred, like an expected sun eclipse. As long as it has not happened, you cannot observe its conditions or causes. It is an observable phenomenon.
But according to M., conditionalism/conditionism searches the conditions of phenomena that have been observed/beobachtet, i.e. have already happened.
In your #18, you wrote that ''an observed phenomenon is automatically observable'', but what counts here to the effect of translation (in my opinion) is that an observable phenomenon is *not* automatically observed. That is why I do not regard the translation 'observable' as accurate.


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## Löwenfrau

bm, manfy has already answered that in #18:


> I've been thinking about that too and I agree with you, Löwenfrau. An observed phenomenon is automatically observable. But in German I'd very rarely use "eine *beobachtbare Erscheinung". **It's not wrong in any way, but it's odd.
> In English, on the other hand, I'd clearly prefer "observable" for the same sentence.*



It is not a common word in German, that's why he thinks Mauthner didn't use it.


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## bearded

LF, what would be wrong in Portuguese with _cada fenòmeno observado _(or similar)?
I don't think you have read the final part of my #26 carefully, in which *I replied* to manfy's *#*​18.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> Does _Konditionalismus_ not exist in German?


Yes it does. In my perception, the term _Konditionismus_ and _Konditionalismus _are used interchangeably in German epistemology. _Konditionalismus _is also a term in protestant theology but that is something completely different.

In epistemology, _Konditionismus_/_Konditionalismus_ is the school of thought that replaces the search for a *single cause *of an event by a bundle of *several conditions *that are collectively but not individually sufficient for the event to occur. This methodological idea was mainly discussed in biology and psychology where the classical methodological regulative idea one cause-one effect was deemed insufficient. The discussion seems essentially obsolete today through the introduction of _muti-causal_ explanation into the theory of causality.



bearded man said:


> As for translation of terms based on how nice they sound, please read #20 in which 'observable' is accepted instead of 'observed' (for me, a not fully accurate choice) just based on sound. Did you get no headache there?


Yes it does. I agree with your remarks in #26. An _observable _is something that is available to observation, i.e. can be observed, *if* it exists. This does not mean it has indeed been observed. Non-observation (if a theory that predicts it is false) of an observable is as important as its observation (which can be the case because the theory is true but also for lots of other reasons), if not more.


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## Löwenfrau

bearded man said:


> LF, what would be wrong in Portuguese with _cada fenòmeno observado _(or similar)?
> I don't think you have read the final part of my #26 carefully, in which *I replied* to manfy's *#*​18.




I understood that, bm. Still, my argument (and I thought manfy's too) is that, when you are talking about an investigation, and you say "observable" instead of "observed", it is implied that the phenomenon has already been observed, because no scientist goes to observe something that never happened. A scientist only observes something of which (or whose?) existence he had in the past at least a strong clue. So, observable, in this context, would hardly be understood by readers as an "only possible phenomenon", but rather as a "phenomenon which, having happened in the past, is now aimed at in further observations", so, it is observable not because it is only possible, but because has already been observed.
I think that this is a very strong argument, and when you combine it with the fact that "observed" does not sound very idiomatic in Portuguese, I don't see a strong reason to choose it.
But, I also agree with you that "cada fenômeno observado" does not sound bad, it's just that an author writing in Portuguese would hardly make that choice instead of "fenômenos observáveis".

EDIT: But we could say "cada fenômeno que tenha sido observado" ("any/ each phenomenon that has been observed"), though.


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## berndf

Löwenfrau said:


> Still, my argument (and I thought manfy's too) is that, when you are talking about an investigation, and you say "observable" instead of "observed", it is implied that the phenomenon has already been observed, because no scientist goes to observe something that never happened.


On the contrary. Scientific theories are usually formulated in terms of objects or phenomena that cannot be directly observed. You can't "observe" a beta-decay of a neutron or the fusion of two hydrogen atoms or the bending of a light ray in a gravitational field. An important part of the skill of a scientist is to derive _observable predictions_ from such a theory. Only those observable predictions render a scientific theory empirically testable. Scientists do indeed actively search for such predictions *after *they have formulated their theories which are often motivated by purely theoretical considerations. The arch-paradigm for this which you can find in any freshman's text book on epistemology is Eddington's measurements of the apparent positions of stars having been in close conjunction to the sun during the solar eclipse of May 29th 1919 that confirmed the predictions of General Relativity.


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## Löwenfrau

> An important part of the skill of a scientist is to derive _observable predictions from such a theory. Only those observable predictions render a scientific theory empirically testable._



I was thinking in this.
But, as you said, this one of the scientists task, given that theories come first. Well, you convinced me.


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## manfy

bearded man said:


> Hello manfy
> Why did Mauthner write 'beobachtet' and not 'beobachtbar'? Please take a possible phenomenon that has not yet occurred, like an expected sun eclipse. As long as it has not happened, you cannot observe its conditions or causes. It is an observable phenomenon.


Your full statement is perfectly accurate! And also with berndf's statements I have to agree to the letter.
Nevertheless, looking at Mauthner's sentence including extended context, I don't think that he is going down that road.

If observability were the main discussion point, I'd use "beobachtete" and "beobachtbare" in the same sentence or context and I'd find a way to ensure that the reader/listener is clearly aware of the distinction. BUT if this observability is "only" factually important, but without being in the center of the point I'm trying to make then I'd definitely use the more common word "beobachtet", simply to avoid distraction from and obfuscation of my main point - and that's how I read Mauthner's sentence here.

EDIT: LF, I just noticed that you've been convinced by Bernd and I don't wanna unconvince you  In any case, a more literal translation is often a safer bet.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> LF, I just noticed that you've been convinced by Bernd and I don't wanna unconvince you  In any case, a more literal translation is often a safer bet.



Well, actually, you did unconvinced me a little . But, as you said, a more literal translation can be less risky.


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