The Realistic Empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell: Neutral Monism Reconceived by Erik C. Banks (review)

It is high time to reopen the discussion of one of the most interesting and complex theories in empiricist philosophy, neutral monism, which, with a few exceptions, has been mostly ignored, particularly in scholarship on Bertrand Russell. The book under review is a pleasure to read—competently written, clear, and thorough. The author also manages to keep up the interplay among the philosophies of Ernst Mach, William James, and Russell throughout, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. Banks lives up to the promises in his preface, namely, to provide a historico-philosophical overview of the empiricist tradition, with emphasis on its state in the early twentieth century, as well as to give a glimpse of naturalist philosophical accounts of causality and space, particularly in chapters 5 and 6.

The introduction is an excellent overview of the many faces of the neutral monist program and its roots to be traced as far back as Immanuel Kant. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by the way the author manages to weave into the main narrative Kant’s philosophical program, including, but not limited to, his theory of space. The claim that realistic empiricism is anchored in the ontology of neutral monism is seen to its logical end in contemporary accounts of causality and extension. Banks draws clear lines of demarcation between the goals of realistic empiricism, including epistemological goals, and those of other forms of empiricism such as classical Humean empiricism, or that of the Vienna Circle. Particularly intriguing is the idea, clearly spelled out and supported with textual evidence, that realistic empiricism, just like neutral monism, are “umbrella theories” that, as such, remain general and metascientific while at the same time not purporting to be a first philosophy.

Some of the excellent features of the book include the following. Each chapter begins with a summary of important points from the previous one, which helps to maintain the coherence of the realistic empiricist narrative. The book contains an appendix with a five-page outline of the main features of realistic empiricism—something that should be standard for thematic manuscripts. The diagrams aid with the more technical part of the content spanning from Mach’s theory of elements in physics to Heinrich Günther Grassmann’s algebraic interpretation of point-events.

Chapter 1 deals specifically with Mach’s realistic empiricism. It is the reader’s first encounter with the author’s ability to clearly lay out the philosophical implications of scientific thought that can be dense at times (including the discussion of Mach-specific terms such as ‘islet’). The reader will have an opportunity to witness it again in chapter 6, which is the most abstract and scientifically informed.

Chapters 2 and 3 do not just tell the story of James’s and Russell’s realistic empiricism; they actually do justice to each individual philosopher’s version—which anyone familiar with Russell’s philosophy, in particular, will recognize as no easy task by any measure. It is no secret that there has been a rather persistent lack of scholarly attention to Russell’s later philosophy (after 1921). Thus it is a pleasure to see a serious attempt being made to navigate through what I call the “Russellian jungle,” especially Russell’s transition to the neutral monist epistemological and ontological framework. While the author mentions the “official” story of Russell’s transition resulting from Wittgenstein’s criticism, he offers what he calls an “alternative story” (123). I wholeheartedly agree with Banks’s alternative account and would even propose that more emphasis be put on Russell’s theory of memory, which outlines the shift in his thought very clearly.

The last chapter, chapter 6, is the most challenging for the non-scientist. In it, the author, featuring discussions of the problem of geometrical space in G. W. Leibniz, Kant, J. F. Herbart, Grassmann, and Bernhard Riemann, exposes his own constructivist view of extension. Although the chapter is...