Philosophy of Science Association, The University of Chicago Press Philosophy of Science

Helmholtz's Naturalized Conception of Geometry and His Spatial Theory of Signs
Author(s): David Jalal Hyder

Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 66, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial
Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers (Sep., 1999),
pp. S273-S286
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science
Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188777
Accessed: 18-04-2017 08:52 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/188777?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Philosophy of Science Association, The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy of Science
This content downloaded from 62.204.192.85 on Tue, 18 Apr 2017 08:52:03 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Helmholtz's Naturalized Conception
of Geometry and his Spatial Theory
of Signs
David Jalal Hydertt

Max-Planck-Institut fiur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
I analyze the two main theses of Helmholtz's "The Applicability of the Axioms to the
Physical World," in which he argued that the axioms of Euclidean geometry are not,
as his neo-Kantian opponents had argued, binding on any experience of the external
world. This required two argumentative steps: 1) a new account of the structure of our
representations which was consistent both with the experience of our (for him) Euclid-
ean world and with experience of a non-Euclidean one, and 2) a demonstration of why
geometric propositions are essentially connected to material and temporal aspects of
experience. The effect of Helmholtz's discussion is to throw into relief an intermediate
category of metrological objects objects which are required for the properly theoreti-
cal activity of doing physical science (in this sense, a priori requirements for doing
science), all while being recognizably contingent aspects of experience.
1. Introduction. In 1917, Die Naturwissenschaften published a short re-

view of two lectures of Hermann von Helmholtz on Goethe, in which
the reviewer called particular attention to Helmholtz's views on epis-
temology and their relation to Kant, concluding with the appeal: "Dear
reader! To summarize would be profane. Read them yourself!" The
editors of the 1921 edition of Helmholtz's writings on epistemology
were similarly enthusiastic in recommending his epistemological work,
which, they emphasised, examined the "problems of knowledge in gen-
tAbteilung III, Max-Planck-Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Wilhelmstr. 44, 10117

Berlin, Germany; e-mail: jalalWmpiwg-berlin.mpg.de.
tThis research was conducted in Toronto, G6ttingen, and Berlin, with the support of
the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Max-Planck-Institut fuir Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
I am grateful for comments and advice from Ian Hacking, Lorenz Kruger, Ulrich Ma-
jer, and Alasdair Urquhart.
Philosophy of Science, 66 (Proceedings) pp. S273-S286. 0031-8248/99/66supp-0021$0.00

Copyright 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.
S273
S274 DAVID JALAL HYDER
eral ... from the aspect which concerns the physiology of the senses:"
"May both scholars and students always continue to be able to find a
rich source of intellectual profit and pleasure in their dealings with
Helmholtz the epistemologist!" The author of the review was Albert
Einstein (1917), who had read Helmholtz since his youth, and the ed-
itors of the Epistemological Writings were Paul Hertz and Moritz
Schlick (Helmholtz 1921, 1977). All three were products of an intellec-
tual milieu suffused with Helmholtz's views.
Helmholtz himself described his epistemology as a "physiologische
Erkenntnistheorie." But what was physiological about that theory?
What specific consequences did it have? And what was its attraction
to these physicists and philosophers? In this paper, I will give some
preliminary answers to these questions by examining the last of Helm-
holtz's influential papers on non-Euclidean geometry and explaining
its connection to his earlier work on perception. I do this for two rea-
sons: first, I think that Helmholtz's dual emphasis on the relation be-
tween measurement and theory, and on the empirical presuppositions
for systems of measurement, are still relevant to our work in philoso-
phy of science today; second, the shift in our understanding of geom-
etry that his work inaugurated was motivated by concerns and research
that are quite different from what one might suppose. Specifically,
Helmholtz's claim that various geometries were "intuitively imagina-
ble" was based on the results of Riemann's purely mathematical re-
search. But he interpreted these results from an epistemological stand-
point that viewed geometry as a tool for organising experience a tool
that might have been constructed in radically different ways. On his
understanding, geometry mediated between the physical sciences that
utilized it, and a deep phenomenological space in which experience
played out. This deep structure- Paul Hertz called it a Zeichenraum-
was in effect an extension of Kant's manifold of intuition, in which not
only space and time, but all sensibilia were arranged in spatial struc-
tures or manifolds. Information on external systems gets recorded in
this perceptual manifold as successions of event-points. We single out
groups of physical regularities as a means of mapping out this sign-
space, and thus for translating between high-level language and theory,
and phenomenological events. In doing so, we have no choice but to
select some special set of measuring instruments as a basis for this
system. This view of geometry differs from both the conventionalism
of Poincare, and from the later versions of, e.g., Schlick, Reichenbach,
or Carnap (on which, Friedman 1995/96), resembling most closely the
position of Einstein himself, particularly as expressed in his 1921, 4-5.
2. "The Applicability of the Axioms to the Physical World". The ar-
HELMHOLTZ S NATURALIZED CONCEPTION OF GEOMETRY S275
gument that (some species of) geometry is itself a physical science is

probably the best known aspect of Helmholtz's philosophical work.
What is not so well known, however, is the role of the perceptual theory
that he advanced simultaneously, which proposes that our experience
plays out in a phenomenological manifold, or "space." Helmholtz's
use of the term manifold was not metaphorical:
Riemann calls a system of differences in which the individual ele-

ment (das Einzelne) can be determined by n measurements, an n-
fold manifold, or a manifold of n dimensions. Thus the space that
we know and in which we live is a three-fold extended manifold, a
plane a two-fold, and a line a one-fold one, as is indeed time. The
system of colors also constitutes a three-fold manifold, in that each
color can be represented . . . as the mixture of three elementary
colors, of each of which a definite quantum is to be chosen....
We could just as well describe the domain of simple tones as a
manifold of two dimensions, if we take them to be differentiated
only by pitch and volume.... (Helmholtz 1870, 16-17)
In the philosophical paper I will discuss, Helmholtz used this theory

of perception as the basis for his argument that non-Euclidean geom-
etry was conceivable. On this model, all data of our experience can be
resolved into primitive concatenations of spatial properties with sen-
sible properties, both of which are organized into manifolds. Spatial
and sensible properties are indivorcible aspects of primitive, unanalyz-
able experiences. It is this fusion of the manifolds of sensibilia with the
spatial manifold which underwrote Helmholtz's claim that geometry
was not an a priori science, for on this theory we have no experience
or acquaintance with space that is not connected to sensible properties,
just as we have no concept of number, nor a basis for measurement,
without observing how the field of perception changes.
Helmholtz called the primitive elements in his perceptual manifolds
signs, to distinguish them from representations of large-scale objects
pictures which consist in stable groups of the elements. Every large-
scale object is already the reflection of a temporal regularity, for they
are all aggregates that perdure in time. Only those propositions as-
serting temporal regularities among the events in the field of elementary
perceptions have objective content. As Helmholtz put it in his second
lecture on Goethe: "Only with respect to temporal sequence can sen-
sations be pictures of objects ... . Among the determinations of tem-
poral sequence is number. In these relations they afford more than mere
signs would do" (Helmholtz, 1892, 358). Since the elements of our
experience are signs of external physical systems, and all possible ex-
perience is bounded by such a space of signs, it follows that, if our
language and thought are to connect to the external world at all, then
they do so by describing patterns in that sign-space. From the realistic
standpoint of sense-physiology, these patterns, like the patterns gen-
erated by laboratory instruments, are caused by the action of external
systems on the sense-organs. Like the traces generated by such instru-
ments, they represent temporal regularities in the behavior of such sys-
tems precisely because they are physically caused by those systems. This
representational relationship qualifies them as pictures (Abbildungen).
Applied philosophically, Helmholtz's physiological theory afforded
him a new definition of "conceivable experience" which, to use Rei-
chenbach's words, "pioneered the solution to the problem of intuition
in geometry" (Reichenbach 1928, 78). Something is intuitively imagi-
nable, Helmholtz claimed, when we can imagine completely the sense-
impressions which "the object would cause in us. . . under all thinkable
conditions of observation" (Helmholtz 1883, 644). To understand Rei-
chenbach's enthusiasm, one must recall the difficulty Helmholtz faced:
he had to persuade his neo-Kantian opponents that a non-Euclidean
geometry was imaginable, even though, as both parties assumed, physi-
cal objects exhibited only Euclidean behaviors. It had not sufficed to
show, as Riemann and he had already done, that one could describe
spacelike structures that differed from Euclidean three-space by means
of analytic geometry. For the question remained whether the space of
human experience was, or could at all be conceived as being, such a
structure. So Helmholtz had to provide a more fundamental frame-
work of experience, and show that the world of Euclidean experience
was only one possible manifestation within that framework. This is
what the perceptual manifold provided him, for in it, appearances are
always aggregates of spatial and material properties: colors are always
situated at points in space, just as tactilia are; conversely, points in
space are never experienced in the absence of some sensible quality.
Since geometrical propositions describe changes in the distribution of
material properties in space, the properly spatial part of that manifold
cannot be said to have metrical properties which are independent of
matter and time.
The argument I describe in the following first appeared in "The
Origin and Meaning of the Geometrical Axioms," a paper published
in Mind in 1878, and which was reprinted as the third technical appen-
dix to his better-known lecture, "The Facts in Perception" (1878a),
under the title, "The Applicability of the Axioms to the Physical
World" (1878b). It is the last, and philosophically the most sophisti-
cated of Helmholtz's four papers on geometry, and the only one in
which the term "physical geometry" is employed. Here, he sets out to
prove that a world in which our measuring instruments agreed to a
HELMHOLTZ'S NATURALIZED CONCEPTION OF GEOMETRY S277
pseudo-spherical geometry represents an intuitable (as opposed to

merely conceptual) possibility, and that such a world would have to
have a different causal basis from one in which these instruments ex-
hibited Euclidean properties. These two distinct possibilities are pre-
theoretical: Helmholtz is describing the distinct states of affairs which
would lead us to adopt one or the other geometry prior to any consid-
erations of their utility in physics. These two pre-theoretical worlds can
both be rendered as distinct sets of event-sequences within our visual
and tactile spaces, thus they must represent distinct and conceivable
possibilities of human experience.
Helmholtz begins his argument with the postulate that, as both re-
alists and idealists must concede, if occurrences in our perceptual mani-
fold (i.e., the assemblage of visual, tactile, and auditory spaces) have
causes at all, there must exist two kinds of causes, which are responsible
for the spatial and material aspects of our primitive sensations. He calls
these "topogeneous" and "hylogeneous" moments:
Now we find it to be a fact of consciousness, that we believe our-

selves to perceive objects which are at specific places in space. That
an object should appear at a particular specific place, and not at
another one, will have to depend on the kind of real conditions
evoking the representation. We must infer that in order to effect
the occurrence of the perception of another place for the same
object, other real conditions would have had to be present. Thus
in the real there must exist some or other relationships, or com-
plexes of relationships, which specify at what place in space an
object appears to us. I will call these, to use a brief term for them,
topogeneous moments. Of their nature we know nothing; we know
only that the coming about of spatially different perceptions pre-
supposes a difference in the topogeneous moments.
Besides this there must, in the domain of the real, be other causes
which effect our believing that at the same place we perceive at
different times different material things having different properties.
I will allow myself to give them the name of hylogeneous moments.
(Helmholtz 1878b, 159-160)
In his writings on sense-physiology, Helmholtz had argued that the

spacelike organisation of sensibilia implied the existence of mutually
independent neurological processes (such as color-receptors, or fre-
quency receptors on the winding of the cochlea) whose continuous and
independent variation was the physiological cause of the manifold
structures of sensation. The possible actions of these unknown physi-
ological systems would thus account for the full range of possible sense-
experience. In this philosophical argument, Helmholtz substitutes un-
known "moments" for these neural processes, and tries to show how
the perceptions of complex objects could result from regular correla-
tions among them. Before giving a model of such interactions, I will
explain briefly the essential difference between the two kinds of mo-
ments: topogeneous moments, because they always act in conjunction
with other kinds of moments, unify disparate sensations at particular
points in space. By definition, they are responsible for an object's ap-
pearing at a given location, and not at another. The definition does not
say how we identify an object, nor does it make any mention of time.
In fact, it expresses a necessary connection between identity and loca-
tion: if two things are identical with one another then they are, at any
given time, at the same location. Hylogeneous moments account for
the presence of qualitatively different things at the same place at dif-
ferent times. Here we assume that we do have such a criterion for
identity identical qualities, excluding spatial ones and that two
things not identical with each other must, if they are at the same place,
be there at different times.
Thus space still has a special role to play, since spatial determina-
tions show up in conjunction with all sensation manifolds: I can cor-
relate a spatial location with tactile qualities as well as with visual
ones space is the common sense. Such considerations led Kant, at the
opening of the Transcendental Aesthetic, to claim that space "is not
an empirical concept that can be derived from external experience,"
because only by means of space can we represent objects to ourselves
as being outside of us, individuated and alongside one another. Space
grounds all of these last three aspects of experience for Helmholtz as
well; however, he denied the conclusion that all spatial properties are
consequently prior to experience. In essence, he rejected the second
clause of Kant's contention that "one can never make oneself a rep-
resentation that there is no space, while one can very well think to
oneself that no objects are to be encountered in it" (Kant 1787, B38).
To think of a space empty of qualia is, on Helmholtz's account, possible
only if we prescind from the qualitative part of intuition; however, if
we do so, we prescind also from the possibility of measurement. From
the fact that every quality-manifold is associated with the properly
spatial one, but not conversely, it does not follow that the latter can
be intuited in the absence of the former: I cannot imagine a meter
without imagining a meter-stick, for no point in space is ever experi-
enced in the absence of a sensible quality.
The real correlates of such qualia, the hylogeneous moments, are
unknown, and in actual perceptions, the effects of the hylogeneous mo-
ments are always conjoined with spatial determinations. So the elemen-
tary perceptions "white at [2, 3, 4]", "hard at [2, 3, 4]" may combine to
form the perception that something white and hard is situated at location
[3, 10]. Since the species of sensation are finite, we may associate with
each point in space a finite vector of qualities, so that the state of each
such point at a given time is represented as [x,y,z][A,B,...,Z], where the
first three coordinates are spatial, the following ones coordinates of
various property-manifolds. The causes of the first three coordinates
in a given experience are its topogeneous moments, and those of the
rest its hylogeneous moments. The properties he gives these moments
follow directly from this characterization, if we adopt the simple def-
inition that two entities are identical if they consist of the same vector
(or vectors) of qualia.
Consider first the hylogeneous moments. They account for the vari-
ous material things with diverse qualities appearing at the same place
at different times, that is, for the fact that we, when confining our
attention to the location [x,y,z] observe changes in some of the qualia
[A,...,Z]. Of course "to see another material thing" means nothing
more than to see another set of qualities at that location, for there is
no bearer of these predicates beyond the spatial location itself. The
matter is slightly more complicated when we come to the topogeneous
moments. They account for the fact that a given object appears where
it does: "in order to effect the occurrence of the perception of another
place for the same object, other real conditions would have had to be
present" (Helmholtz 1 878b, 160). In the definition of hylogeneous mo-
ments Helmholtz does not speak of objects, but of material things,
stoffliche Dinge, where the pairing of hyle and Stoff is deliberate. For
it is the changes in the hylogeneous moments associated with a topo-
geneous moment the causes of changes in the qualities appearing at
a given spatial location that allow us to mark the passage of time. If
we associate with the concept "object" the entity responsible for a set
of elementary perceptions, then it is clear that "object" contains "spa-
tially situated" as part of its definition, that a determinate object is
always spatially situated. We suppose the real object corresponding to
[x,y,z][A,B,...,Z] to be the entity responsible for all the elementary per-
ceptions making up this complex perception. However, that there is
one such entity is an unjustified inference, a consequence only of the
perceptions being unified by their simultaneous situation at a single
location in space. The topogeneous moments are indeed responsible
for our perception of this object's being at this location, for anything
located somewhere else must need be a different object.
But if the unique spatial location is part of the definition of the object,
then is the definition not trivial? It says that the topogeneous moments
are responsible for an object's appearing where it does, and I have just
said that the concept "object" includes spatial situation in its definition.
Surely the fact that we see one and the same object in motion overturns
it on the first stroke? If an object's definition includes its location, then
by changing the location we change the definition of the thing. In answer
to the first objection we should recall that the relation of the spatial
coordinates [x,y,z] to the coordinates of the property-manifolds
[A,B,...,Z] is asymmetric: the other coordinates are unified in their all
being associated with the single spatial location-according to Helm-
holtz, "white and hard" is a concept, not an elementary perception like
"4white at [2, 3,4]" or "hard at [2, 3,4]." So to say that the spatial
location is an essential constituent of the object, that real conditions
would have to have been at hand for the same object to appear at a
different place is strained, but not empty. Helmholtz's definition refers
to a single moment in time- the instant in which the observer directs
her attention to a group of elementary representations-and it ex-
presses the following thought: groups of sensibilia which obtain si-
multaneously at different places are not, that is are not experienced, as
being identical. To say that the same object could have appeared at a
different place at this moment means: an object qualitatively identical,
indistinguishable with respect to the consequences of its hylogeneous
moments, but at another location. The value of the definition becomes
clear when we answer the second question, and turn our attention to
descriptions of moving objects, for the perception of a single objectmov-
ing through space can be arrived at only by means of a regular connec-
tion between groups of the topogeneous and hylogeneous moments.
I will illustrate this connection by means of the following diagrams:
1 2
B R
t2 G B
t2 B B
Each row represents two locations 1 and 2 in a finite one-

dimensional space. B, R, and G are three qualities from a single
property-manifold, which we will take, for simplicity's sake, to consist

only of these three qualities. Each pair of cells in a row is associated
with a time tn . We consider initially only the first two, t, and t2. Giving
the property-manifold its own axis yields the following temporal cuts
of our time/matter/space manifold:
t1 1 2 t2 1 2 t2' 1 2
R R R
G G G
B B B
We conside
of an object
in terms of
cess, accord
neous mom
they cause)
tion with g
plified case
ments (the
distinct eff
the topogeneous moments associated with 1 are conjoined to some
hylogeneous moments giving rise to the sensation of B, and together
they give us the perception "B at 1,, or B(1), for short. At t2 the hy-
logeneous moments associated with B are conjoined to the topoge-
neous moments of 2, and yield the perception B(2). But these conjunc-
tions alone need not give rise to the perception that a single object has
moved from 1 to 2. That perception will only result if the perceptions
at 2 and 1 , at times t1 and t2 respectively, are correlated with this process
in such a way that a single quality appears to be displaced, i.e., that B
was not perceptible at 2 at t1 , and is no longer perceptible at 1 at time
t2. If we had t'2 instead of t2, then there would be a perception of
something stretching perhaps, but not of the displacement of a single
thing. Indeed, if the perceptual manifold were to change randomly, like
"4snow~ on a television screen, we would not be able to form coherent
images of any stable objects, let alone see them move in a regular
manner.
The perception of a displacement of a B[lue] object from one loca-
tion to another is thus the consequence of an intricate interaction of
topogeneous and hylogeneous moments. High-level, conscious percep-
tion is only ever of regularities in ever-changing associations of such,
and, as we have seen, it is only such perceptions that qualify as pictures,
and not merely signs. The movement of a B object appears as the
sequence: t,: B(1), R(2); and t2: G(1), B(2); so the hylogeneous mom
associated with the sensation B proceed from t1 to t2 in conjunction
with the group of topogeneous moments (1, 2), and, simultaneously
other hylogeneous moments come to be in conjunction, from t1 to t
with the group (2, 1). Without such regularities in the effects of the two
species of moments, there will be no stable objects to observe. At the
same time, the supposition that distinct effects imply distinct causes-
Helmholtz's causal law, which he adapted from Mill entails that,
whenever two sets of regular behaviors differ, there is a difference in
the constellations of topogeneous and hylogeneous moments which
gave rise to them. So a systematic difference in the behaviors of the
physical objects used as measuring instruments would imply systematic
differences among the real processes standing behind them, that is,
among the causes giving rise to these representations.
Now that we have an understanding of the perceptual theory in-
voked by Helmholtz, we can perhaps make better sense of his account
of physically equivalent processes and their relation to on the one hand
physical, and on the other hand pure intuitive geometry:
When we observe that diverse physical processes can proceed in

congruent spaces in equal periods of time, this means that, in the
domain of the Real, equal aggregates and consequences of specific
hylogeneous moments can come to be and unfold in conjunction
with specific definite groups of different topogeneous moments-
namely those which give us the perceptions of physically equivalent
parts of space. And if experience then teaches us that every con-
junction or every consequence of hylogeneous moments that can
exist or unfold with that one group of topogeneous moments is
also possible in conjunction with every physically equivalent group
of other topogeneous moments well this is in any case a propo-
sition that has a real content, and the topogeneous moments thus
doubtless influence the unfolding (Ablauf) of real processes. (Helm-
holtz 1878b, 160-161)
"Physically equivalent" spatial magnitudes are ones in which the

same processes may "exist and unfold" (bestehen und ablaufen) under
HELMHOLTZ'S NATURALIZED CONCEPTION OF GEOMETRY S283
the same conditions and in equal periods of time. The "most commonly
used process for determining physically equivalent magnitudes," he
goes on, "is the transport of rigid bodies, such as compasses and rulers,
from one location to another." This leaves open the possibility that a
"pure intuition" of these magnitudes might also be possible. But how-
ever the groups of equivalent magnitudes are to be determined, we still
have to establish that they represent physically equivalent ones, if they
are to do any work for us. That is, neither the geometry arrived at with
ruler and compass, nor one intuited directly will necessarily be the one
that best meets the needs of physics. Nonetheless, a purely intuitive
geometry can only be applied to the physical world if physical opera-
tions are brought into play.
Now on Helmholtz's account, the behaviors of rulers and compasses
are also represented as varying aggregates of primitive sensations, which
imply changing connections between groups of hylogeneous and topo-
geneous moments. A statement about a rotation to the effect that, say,
A' B
"The rod A'B may be rotated about B in such a way that, without the
rod AC moving, A' is made to coincide with C" will be a statement
with real content, since, as we have seen, the very identity of the bodies
AC and A'B as well as, of course, their behavior in motion, depends
on regularities in our perceptions regularities in no way implied in
the thin fabric of Helmholtz's definitions. Of course, this proposition
would appear, from the perspective of a "pure intuitive" geometry, as
necessarily true, and, furthermore, as being quite independent of any
facts concerning the actual physical behavior of a rotating rod. But if
geometry involves constructions and measurements, then there is no

saying in advance which of the various possible event-sequences within
our perceptual space will be found to obtain.
The argument as a whole thus has the form of a modus tollens. The
same causes imply the same effects. Both idealists and realists must
assume that appearances have some causal basis. In a Euclidean world,
objects behave differently than they do in a pseudo-spherical one. Since
different behaviors of physical objects correspond to different event-
sequences in the perceptual manifold, they imply different connections
between the topogeneous and hylogeneous moments, the real causes
giving rise to the event-sequences. And since a world in which mea-
suring instruments exhibited pseudo-spherical behaviors can be de-
scribed by means of such sequences, which would differ from those
traced out by such objects in a non-Euclidean one, such a world is
conceivable and distinct. Therefore this possibility is real, in its imply-
ing a real difference among causes.
3. Conclusion. Let me return to two points I made at the outset: Helm-

holtz's reinterpretation of space on the model of his sense-physiological
research, and the special role he accorded to measuring instruments.
The two are essentially connected: viewing space as a sign-system,
which records information about unknown systems underscored the
need to calibrate this sign-system, which meant, in turn, the need for
pre-theoretical objects and conventions by means of which one per-
formed the calibration. Helmholtz had been through this once already,
during his early research on sense-physiology, when he first applied
vector-analysis to the laws of color-mixture (Hyder 2000). This work
on the color-space led to two insights, which recur in this argument,
albeit greatly altered: first, all normal colors were physiological
mixtures, meaning that, although the same light evoked the same col-
ors, one could not infer that similar colors were caused by similar lights;
second, one could not determine the "true" structure of the color-space
by introspective methods alone. This meant that, 1) although colors do
not have any similarity with, or indeed stand in a one-to-one correla-
tion with specific wavelengths of light, nonetheless they do record dif-
ferential information about distinct light sources: we can use them to
draw conclusions about differences among their causes; 2) The color-
space does not have a geometric structure (barring its dimensionality)
that is prior to conventions of measurement. Depending on how we
describe the color-space, we may ascribe it quite different structures,
although these choices will not in any way alter the objective infor-
mation the space records.
Similarly, when talking about geometry proper, Helmholtz observes
that a Euclidean world of bodies and a pseudo-spherical one must have

distinct causal bases these two possibilities are really distinct. We do
not know the noumenal nature of that which causes spatial appear-
ances, but we are entitled to assume that systematic differences in these
appearances point to differences in their causes, even if we adopt a
hard idealist line. Helmholtz did not claim-although he has sometimes
been accused of it that the one or the other geometry could be shown
to represent the true geometry of physical space. Indeed it is clear from
the above discussion that he does not believe that this is a meaningful
question. Instead, he emphasizes the fact that geometry has a distinct
metrological role to play, and that it can only play this role-indeed,
it can only exist if certain contingent possibilities are realized. Let me
conclude by explaining this point.
As we saw, it is a contingent fact for Helmholtz that stable bodies
persist throughout time. Furthermore, there is no necessity that, should
such bodies exist, they will behave in such a way as to make them
suitable for measurement. Still less is it necessary that the results of
such measurements, should they be possible, compel us to adopt a
Euclidean geometry. And even if we do adopt such a geometry, there
remains the question of what it gets used for: do we use it only for
parceling land, or also for establishing laws of motion? There is no
logical requirement that the system devised for the first purpose be best-
suited for the second. Depending on the basis we choose for our phys-
ics, the form of its laws will differ, without this in any way implying
that the set of events or experiences they describe is changed. And this
much is clear: without such a basis, we cannot state physical laws, let
alone apply them to experience, yet the fact that some bodies do pro-
vide us with such a basis is a pre-theoretical and contingent fact. Ge-
ometry is a science which calibrates one structure in which experience
gets represented: the properly spatial part of the perceptual manifold.
To perform this calibration, we require that some bits of experience
exhibit at least enough regularity (and regularity of the right sort), for
us to set up a system of measurement. Those bits of experience are
remarkable, for they seem simultaneously to be a priori postulates, at
the very least for our physics, and yet there is no obvious reason why
they should obtain at all. For it is entirely conceivable, on Helmholtz's
model, that the space of experience not exhibit enough regularity for
us even to begin to measure with rods and compasses. The effect of his
argument is thus to throw an intermediate category of objects into
relief objects which are required for the properly theoretical activity
of doing physical science (in this sense, an a priori requirement for
doing science), all while being recognizably contingent and unex-
plained.
REFERENCES
Einstein, Albert (1917), "Zwei Vortrage uiber Goethe", Die Naturwissenschaften 44: 675.
. (1921), "Geometrie und Erfahrung", Sitzungsberichte der preussichen Akademie der
Wissenschaften V.
Friedman, Michael (1995/96), "Poincare's Conventionalism and the Logical Positivists",
Foundations of Science 2: 299-314.
Helmholtz, Hermann von (1870), "Uber den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der geometrischen
Axiome", in Helmholtz 1896, 1-31.
. (1878a), "Die Tatsachen in der Wahrnehmung", in Helmholtz 1896, 213-247.
. (1878b), "The Applicability of the Axioms to the Physical World", in Helmholtz
1977, 152-163.
. (1883), Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, vol. 2. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosios Barth.
. (1892), "Goethes Vorahnung kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen", in Helm-
holtz 1896, 335-361.
. (1896), Vortrdge und Reden, vol. 2. Braunschweig: Vieweg.
. (1921), Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie. Paul Hertz and Moritz Schlick (eds.). Berlin:
Springer.
. (1977), Epistemological Writings: the Paul HertzlMoritz Schlick Centenary Edition
of 1921. Robert S. Cohen and Yehuda Elkana (eds.), Malcolm F. Lowe (tr.). Dordrecht:
Reidel. (Re-edition of Helmholtz 1921.)
Hyder, David (2000), "The Color-space and Physical Geometry", Science in Context (forth-
coming).
Kant, Immanuel (1787), Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch.
Reichenbach, Hans (1928), Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre. Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de
Gruyter.

Philosophy of Science Association, The University of Chicago Press Philosophy of Science

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Philosophy of Science Association, The University of Chicago Press Philosophy of Science

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Philosophy of Science Association, The University of Chicago Press Philosophy of Science

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Helmholtz's Naturalized Conception of Geometry and His Spatial Theory of Signs

Author(s): David Jalal Hyder

David Jalal Hydertt

1. Introduction. In 1917, Die Naturwissenschaften published a short re-

tAbteilung III, Max-Planck-Institut fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Wilhelmstr. 44, 10117

Philosophy of Science, 66 (Proceedings) pp. S273-S286. 0031-8248/99/66supp-0021$0.00

2. "The Applicability of the Axioms to the Physical World". The ar-

gument that (some species of) geometry is itself a physical science is

Riemann calls a system of differences in which the individual ele-

In the philosophical paper I will discuss, Helmholtz used this theory

pseudo-spherical geometry represents an intuitable (as opposed to

Now we find it to be a fact of consciousness, that we believe our-

In his writings on sense-physiology, Helmholtz had argued that the

Each row represents two locations 1 and 2 in a finite one-

property-manifold, which we will take, for simplicity's sake, to consist

When we observe that diverse physical processes can proceed in

"Physically equivalent" spatial magnitudes are ones in which the

geometry involves constructions and measurements, then there is no

3. Conclusion. Let me return to two points I made at the outset: Helm-

that a Euclidean world of bodies and a pseudo-spherical one must have

You might also like