Les idées directrices de ma théorie scientifique de la connaissance et leur réception par mes contemporains

Translation of the article by Ernst Mach, “Die Leitgedanken meiner naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnislehre und ihre Aufnahme durch die Zeitgenossen” [The guiding ideas of my scientific theory of knowledge and their reception by my contemporaries], published in Scientia, 7 (1910), pp. 225–240. In the first part of the text, Mach presents his economic-biological theory of knowledge, outlining its genesis in the early years of his intellectual training right up to its later development in the writing of his last works. He also points out the possible points of convergence with the doctrines of certain physicists and with those of philosophers to whom he feels particularly close. In the second part of the text, Mach responds to each point brought up by the polemic initiated by Planck and thus gives a more complex picture of his thought that is far from the dogmatism usually associated with positivism.