Hans Reichenbach (September 26, 1891 in
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
– April 9, 1953 in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
) was a leading
philosopher of scienceThe philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. The field is defined by an interest in one of a set of "traditional" problems or an interest in central or foundational concerns in science...
, educator and proponent of
logical empiricismLogical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions in epistemology.[See, e.g., : ...]
. Reichenbach is best known for founding the
Berlin CircleThe Berlin Circle was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy.It was created in the late 1920s by Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav and composed of philosophers and scientists such as Carl Gustav Hempel, David Hilbert and Richard von Mises...
, and as the author of
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy.
After completing the secondary school in
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
, he studied civil
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
at the Technische Hochschule in
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, and
physicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
,
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
at various universities, including
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
ErlangenErlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach.Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants....
,
GöttingenGöttingen is a college town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
and
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
.
Hans Reichenbach (September 26, 1891 in
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
– April 9, 1953 in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
) was a leading
philosopher of scienceThe philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. The field is defined by an interest in one of a set of "traditional" problems or an interest in central or foundational concerns in science...
, educator and proponent of
logical empiricismLogical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions in epistemology.[See, e.g., : ...]
. Reichenbach is best known for founding the
Berlin CircleThe Berlin Circle was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy.It was created in the late 1920s by Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav and composed of philosophers and scientists such as Carl Gustav Hempel, David Hilbert and Richard von Mises...
, and as the author of
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy.
Life and work
After completing the secondary school in
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
, he studied civil
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
at the Technische Hochschule in
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, and
physicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
,
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
at various universities, including
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
ErlangenErlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach.Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants....
,
GöttingenGöttingen is a college town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
and
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
. Among his teachers were
Ernst CassirerErnst Cassirer was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the twentieth century, a German Jewish philosopher. Coming out of the Marburg tradition of neo-Kantianism, he developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded in a...
,
David HilbertDavid Hilbert was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry...
,
Max PlanckMax Planck was a German physicist. He is considered to be the founder of the quantum theory, and thus one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Biography:Planck came from a traditional, intellectual family...
,
Max BornMax Born was a German born physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s...
and
Arnold SommerfeldArnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and groomed a large number of students for the new era of theoretical physics...
. Reichenbach was active in youth movements and student organizations, and published articles about the university reform, the freedom of research, and against anti-Semitic infiltrations in student organizations. Reichenbach himself was of Jewish ancestry.
Reichenbach received a degree in
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
from the University of Erlangen in 1915 and his dissertation on the theory of probability, supervised by
Paul HenselPaul Hugo Hensel was a German philosopher, son of the landowner and entrepreneur Sebastian Hensel, brother of the mathematician Kurt Hensel , grandson of the composer Fanny Mendelssohn and the painter Wilhelm Hensel, and a descendant of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.Hensel was born in...
and
Emmy NoetherAmalie Emmy Noether, , was a German-born mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and...
, was published in 1916. Reichenbach served during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
on the Russian front, in the German army radio troops. In 1917 he was removed from active duty, due to an illness, and returned in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
. While working as a physicist and engineer, Reichenbach attended
Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a theoretical physicist. His many contributions to physics include the special and general theories of relativity, the founding of relativistic cosmology, the first post-Newtonian expansion, explaining the perihelion advance of Mercury, prediction of the deflection of...
's lectures on the
theory of relativityThe theory of relativity, or simply relativity, generally refers specifically to two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity...
in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
from 1917 to 1920.
In 1920 Reichenbach began teaching at the Technische Hochschule at
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
as
PrivatdozentPrivate docent is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor.-Becoming:Privatedocentship is conferred to academics who have...
. In the same year, he published his first book on the philosophical implications of the
theory of relativityThe theory of relativity, or simply relativity, generally refers specifically to two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity...
,
The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge, which criticized the
KantianImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg...
notion of synthetic
a prioriThe terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...
. He subsequently published
Axiomatization of the Theory of Relativity (1924),
From Copernicus to Einstein (1927) and
The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928), the last stating the logical positivist view on the theory of relativity.
In 1926, with the help of Albert Einstein, Max Planck and
Max von LaueMax Theodor Felix von Laue was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. He was strongly opposed to National Socialism...
, Reichenbach became assistant professor in the physics department of Berlin University. He gained notice for his methods of teaching, as he was easily approached and his courses were open to discussion and debate. This was highly unusual at the time, although the practice is nowadays a common one.
In 1928, Reichenbach founded the so-called "
Berlin CircleThe Berlin Circle was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy.It was created in the late 1920s by Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav and composed of philosophers and scientists such as Carl Gustav Hempel, David Hilbert and Richard von Mises...
" . Among its members were
Carl Gustav HempelCarl Gustav "Peter" Hempel was a philosopher of science and a major figure in 20th-century logical empiricism...
, Richard von Mises, David Hilbert and
Kurt GrellingKurt Grelling was a logician, philosopher and member of the Berlin Circle.- Life and work :Shortly after his arrival in 1905 at University of Göttingen, Grelling began a collaboration with philosopher Leonard Nelson, with whom he tried to solve Russell's paradox, which had shaken the foundations...
. In 1930 he and
Rudolf CarnapRudolf Carnap was an influential German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a leading member of the Vienna Circle and a prominent advocate of logical positivism.-Life and work:Carnap was born to a west German family that had been humble...
began editing the journal
Erkenntnis ("Knowledge").
When
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
became
Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Reichenbach was immediately dismissed from his appointment at the University of Berlin under the government's so called "Race Laws" due to his Jewish ancestry. He thereupon emigrated to
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
, where he headed the Department of Philosophy at the University of Istanbul. He introduced interdisciplinary seminars and courses on scientific subjects, and in 1935 he published
The Theory of Probability.
In 1938, with the help of
Charles W. MorrisCharles W. Morris was an American semiotician and philosopher.-Background:A son of Charles William and Laura Morris, Charles William Morris was born on 23 May 1901...
, Reichenbach moved to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to take up a professorship at the
University of California, Los AngelesThe University of California, Los Angeles is a research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. It was founded in 1919 and is the second-oldest general-purpose campus in the University of California system...
in its
Philosophy DepartmentThe UCLA Department of Philosophy is a constituent department of the Division of Humanities in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. From the mid-20th century, the department has been a leading and widely respected center for the study of Analytic Philosophy, especially Mathematical Logic,...
. His work on the philosophical foundations of
quantum mechanicsQuantum mechanics is a set of principles describing the physical reality at the atomic level of matter and the subatomic . These descriptions include the simultaneous wave-like and particle-like behavior of both matter and radiation...
was published in 1944, followed by
Elements of Symbolic Logic in 1947, and
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy — his most popular book
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Printonly/Reichenbach.html — in 1951.
Reichenbach helped establish UCLA as a leading philosophy department in the United States in the post-war period.
Hilary PutnamHilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science...
, one of the major names in
Western PhilosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
during the latter half of the 20th century, may have been his most prominent student.
Reichenbach died in Los Angeles on April 9, 1953, while working on problems in the
philosophy of timePhilosophy of space and time is the branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology, epistemology, and character of space and time. While such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception, the philosophy of space and time was both an inspiration for and a...
and on the nature of
scientific lawA scientific law or scientific principle is a concise verbal or mathematical statement of a relation that expresses a fundamental principle of science, like Newton's law of universal gravitation. A scientific law must always apply under the same conditions, and implies a causal relationship...
s. This work resulted in two books published posthumously:
The Direction of Time and
Nomological Statements and Admissible Operations.
Selected publications
- 1916. Der Begriff der Wahrscheinlichkeit für die mathematische Darstellung der Wirklichkeit. Ph.D. dissertation, Erlangen.
- 1920. Relativitätstheorie und Erkenntnis apriori. English translation: 1965. The theory of relativity and a priori knowledge. University of California Press.
- 1922. "Der gegenwärtige Stand der Relativitätsdiskussion." English translation: "The present state of the discussion on relativity" in Reichenbach (1959).
- 1924. Axiomatik der relativistischen Raum-Zeit-Lehre. English translation: 1969. Axiomatization of the theory of relativity. University of California Press.
- 1924. "Die Bewegungslehre bei Newton, Leibniz und Huyghens." English translation: "The theory of motion according to Newton, Leibniz, and Huyghens" in Reichenbach (1959).
- 1927. Von Kopernikus bis Einstein. Der Wandel unseres Weltbildes. English translation: 1942, From Copernicus to Einstein. Alliance Book Co.
- 1928. Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre. English translation: Maria Reichenbach, 1957, The Philosophy of Space and Time. Dover. ISBN 0-486-60443-8
- 1930. Atom und Kosmos. Das physikalische Weltbild der Gegenwart. English translation: 1932, Atom and cosmos: the world of modern physics. G. Allen & Unwin, ltd.
- 1931. "Ziele und Wege der heutigen Naturphilosophie." English translation: "Aims and methods of modern philosophy of nature" in Reichenbach (1959).
- 1935. Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre : eine Untersuchung über die logischen und mathematischen Grundlagen der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung. English translation: 1948, The theory of probability, an inquiry into the logical and mathematical foundations of the calculus of probability. University of California Press.
- 1938. Experience and prediction: an analysis of the foundations and the structure of knowledge. University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
.
- 1942. From Copernicus to Einstein Dover 1980: ISBN 0-486-23940-3
- 1944. Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. University of California Press. Dover 1998: ISBN 0-486-40459-5
- 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. Macmillan Co. Dover 1980: ISBN 0-486-24004-5
- 1948. "Philosophy and physics" in Faculty research lectures, 1946. University of California Press.
- 1949. "The philosophical significance of the theory of relativity" in Schilpp, P. A., ed., Albert Einstein: philosopher-scientist. Evanston : The Library of Living Philosophers.
- 1951. The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. University of California Press
University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
. ISBN 978-0-520-01055-0
- 1954. Nomological statements and admissible operations. North Holland.
- 1956. The Direction of Time. University of California Press. Dover 1971: ISBN 0-486-40926-0
- 1959. Modern philosophy of science: Selected essays by Hans Reichenbach. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Greenwood Press 1981: ISBN 0-313-23274-1
- 1978. Selected writings, 1909-1953: with a selection of biographical and autobiographical sketches (Vienna circle collection). Dordrecht: Reidel. Springer paperback vol 1: ISBN 90-277-0292-6
- 1979. Hans Reichenbach, logical empiricist (Synthese library). Dordrecht : Reidel.
- 1991. Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach. Kluwer. Springer 2003: ISBN 0-7923-1408-5
- 1991. Logic, language, and the structure of scientific theories : proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach centennial, University of Konstanz, 21-24 May 1991. University of Pittsburgh Press.
External links