Ernst Mach was trained as a physicist in Vienna. He entered psychology in 1860, when the appearance of Fechner&s;s two-volume Elemente der Psychophysik had an electrifying effect upon him. As regards philosophy, Mach tells us later in the Analysis of Sensations that, during the 1860s, he was pulled toward a Herbartian "psycho-physical monadology" and toward panpsychist and "idealist" views....
Neutral monism is a position in metaphysics defended by Mach, James, and Russell in the early twentieth century. It holds that minds and physical objects are essentially two different orderings of the same underlying neutral elements of nature. This paper sets out some of the central concepts, theses and the historical background of ideas that inform this doctrine of elements. The discussion...