Boltzmann tried out some of his ideas on Brentano, who had the grace and sometimes the courage to take his philosophical striving seriously. But Boltzmann’s fundamental skepticism was never far from the surface. “Is there any sense at all in breaking one’s head over such things?” he asked Brentano in 1905. “Shouldn’t the irresistible urge to philosophize be compared to the vomiting caused by migraines, in that something is trying to struggle out even though there’s nothing inside?”
Boltzmanns Atom: The Great Debate That Launched A Revolution In Physics
David Lindley