Musil between Mach and Stumpf
pp. 187-209
in: John Blackmore, Shogo Tanaka (eds), Ernst Mach's Vienna 1895–1930, Berlin, Springer, 2001Abstract
Mach appears to have exercised a measurable influence on the Austrian Robert Musil (1880–1942). This seems most conspicuous in Musil's doctoral dissertation on Mach which was titled in its final published form: Beitrag zur Beurteilung der Lehren Machs, Wilmersdorf, 1908. But it is possible that the influence was deeper in parts of the later work which made Musil famous: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, 3 volumes, 1930, 1933, & 1943. This book is an ironic and satirical commentary on the very last years of the Habsburg Monarchy as presented in a clear, unsentimental, and analytic manner, which in a stylistic way could almost be called "scientific".
