Boltzmann's philosophy notes for three lectures (Fall 1903)

It is necessary to distinguish between Boltzmann's original lecture notes, his extemporaneous lectures, the fair copy of philosophy lectures 3 to 18 b y an unknown hand which are mostly on mathematics, and the multi-published versions which only include lectures 1 and 2. There is a difference between his real thought in his notes (or "honne'' in Japanese) and what seems to have survived in lectures 1 and 2 for public consumption ("tatamae''). We h ave stuck with honne, but where it is too abbreviated to make initial sense , we have put it in grammatical and intelligible form as what we think he m ost probably intended or believed. It was precisely his linguistic philosop hy and the relativistic and pragmatic way of presenting it which was largel y suppressed or at least toned-down in the fair copy and published versions . Listeners remembered how witty he was when speaking, and the shortened pu blished accounts are also interesting, but his first thoughts, his honne, b efore prudence set in will interest most readers, though alas as happens wi th notes there is also some extraneous material. In translating most of the notes for the first three lectures we have ended where mathematics begins to predominate.