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Vienna Circle



 
 
The Vienna Circle (in German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
: der Wiener Kreis) was a group of philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick

Moritz Schlick was a Germany philosopher and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle....
 when he was called to the Vienna
Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
 University in 1922, organized in a philosophical association, of which Schlick was chairman, named the Ernst Mach Society (Verein Ernst Mach) in honour of Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach was an Austrians physicist and philosopher and is the namesake for the Mach number and the optical illusion known as Mach bands....
. Among its members were Gustav Bergmann
Gustav Bergmann

Gustav Bergmann was a ontologist born in Vienna, Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna and attended meetings of the Vienna Circle during his time in Europe....
, Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap

Rudolf Carnap was an influential Germany-born philosophy 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....
, Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl

Herbert Feigl was an Austrian philosopher and a member of the Vienna Circle.The son of a weaver, Feigl was born in Liberec, Bohemia, and matriculated at the University of Vienna in 1922....
, Philipp Frank
Philipp Frank

Philipp Frank was a physicist, mathematician and also an influential philosopher during the first half of the 20th century. He was a logical positivism, and a member of the Vienna Circle....
, Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel

Kurt G?del was an Austrian-United States logician, mathematician and philosopher. One of the most significant logicians of all time, G?del made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when many, such as Bertrand Russell, A....
, Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn

Hans Hahn was an Austrian mathematician who made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory....
, Victor Kraft
Victor Kraft

Victor Kraft was an Austrian philosopher, best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle....
, Karl Menger
Karl Menger

Karl Menger was a mathematician of great scope and depth. He was the son of the famous economist Carl Menger. He is credited with Menger's theorem....
, Marcel Natkin, Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosophy of science, sociology, and political economy. Before he was forced to flee his native country for Great Britain in the wake of the Nazism occupation, Neurath was one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle....
, Olga Hahn-Neurath
Olga Hahn-Neurath

Olga Hahn-Neurath was an Austrian mathematician and philosopher. She is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle. Sister of the mathematician Hans Hahn....
, Theodor Radakovic, Rose Rand
Rose Rand

Rose Rand A logician and a Philosopher. A member of the Vienna Circle.Rand was born in Lemberg . After her family moved to Austria she studied at the Polish Gymnasium in Vienna....
 and Friedrich Waismann
Friedrich Waismann

Friedrich Waismann was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle and one of the key theorists in logical positivism....
.






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The Vienna Circle (in German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
: der Wiener Kreis) was a group of philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick

Moritz Schlick was a Germany philosopher and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle....
 when he was called to the Vienna
Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
 University in 1922, organized in a philosophical association, of which Schlick was chairman, named the Ernst Mach Society (Verein Ernst Mach) in honour of Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach was an Austrians physicist and philosopher and is the namesake for the Mach number and the optical illusion known as Mach bands....
. Among its members were Gustav Bergmann
Gustav Bergmann

Gustav Bergmann was a ontologist born in Vienna, Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna and attended meetings of the Vienna Circle during his time in Europe....
, Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap

Rudolf Carnap was an influential Germany-born philosophy 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....
, Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl

Herbert Feigl was an Austrian philosopher and a member of the Vienna Circle.The son of a weaver, Feigl was born in Liberec, Bohemia, and matriculated at the University of Vienna in 1922....
, Philipp Frank
Philipp Frank

Philipp Frank was a physicist, mathematician and also an influential philosopher during the first half of the 20th century. He was a logical positivism, and a member of the Vienna Circle....
, Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel

Kurt G?del was an Austrian-United States logician, mathematician and philosopher. One of the most significant logicians of all time, G?del made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when many, such as Bertrand Russell, A....
, Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn

Hans Hahn was an Austrian mathematician who made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory....
, Victor Kraft
Victor Kraft

Victor Kraft was an Austrian philosopher, best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle....
, Karl Menger
Karl Menger

Karl Menger was a mathematician of great scope and depth. He was the son of the famous economist Carl Menger. He is credited with Menger's theorem....
, Marcel Natkin, Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosophy of science, sociology, and political economy. Before he was forced to flee his native country for Great Britain in the wake of the Nazism occupation, Neurath was one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle....
, Olga Hahn-Neurath
Olga Hahn-Neurath

Olga Hahn-Neurath was an Austrian mathematician and philosopher. She is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle. Sister of the mathematician Hans Hahn....
, Theodor Radakovic, Rose Rand
Rose Rand

Rose Rand A logician and a Philosopher. A member of the Vienna Circle.Rand was born in Lemberg . After her family moved to Austria she studied at the Polish Gymnasium in Vienna....
 and Friedrich Waismann
Friedrich Waismann

Friedrich Waismann was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle and one of the key theorists in logical positivism....
. With the exception of Gödel, members of the Vienna Circle had a common attitude towards philosophy, characterized by two main belief
Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true....
s:
  • first, experience
    Experience

    Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
     is the only source of knowledge
    Knowledge

    Knowledge is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation....
    ;
  • second, logical analysis performed with the help of symbolic logic is the preferred method for solving philosophical problems.


History of the Vienna Circle

The prehistory of the Vienna Circle began with meetings on the philosophy of science
Philosophy of science

The 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....
 and epistemology
Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
 from 1908 on, promoted by Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath.

Hans Hahn, the oldest of the three (1879–1934), was a mathematician. He received his degree in mathematics
Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
 in 1902. Afterwards he studied under the direction of Ludwig Boltzmann
Ludwig Boltzmann

Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist famous for his founding contributions in the fields of statistical mechanics and statistical thermodynamics....
 in Vienna and David Hilbert
David Hilbert

David Hilbert was a Germany mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries....
, Felix Klein
Felix Klein

Felix Christian Klein was a Germany mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory....
 and Hermann Minkowski
Hermann Minkowski

Hermann Minkowski was a Germans mathematician of Jewish and Poles descent, who created and developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity....
 in Göttingen
Göttingen

G?ttingen is a college town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the Capital of the district of G?ttingen . The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686....
. In 1905 he received the Habilitation
Habilitation

Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a person can achieve by their own pursuit in certain European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate , the habilitation requires the candidate to write a postdoctoral thesis based on independent scholarly accomplishments, reviewed by and defended before an academic c...
 in mathematics. He taught at Innsbruck
Innsbruck

Innsbruck is the Capital of the federal state of Tyrol in western Austria. It is located in the Inn River Valley at the junction with the Wipptal , which provides access to the Brenner Pass, some 30 km south of Innsbruck....
 (1905–1906) and Vienna
Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
 (from 1909).

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) studied sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
, economics
Economics

File:Ballard Farmers' Market - vegetables.jpgEconomics is the Social sciences that studies the Production theory basics, Distribution , and Consumption of Good and Service ....
 and philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 in Vienna and Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
. From 1907 to 1914 he taught in Vienna at the Neuen Wiener Handelsakademie (Viennese Commercial Academy). Neurath married Olga, Hahn’s sister, in 1911.

Philipp Frank, the youngest of the group (1884–1966), studied physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
 at Göttingen and Vienna with Ludwig Boltzmann, David Hilbert and Felix Klein
Felix Klein

Felix Christian Klein was a Germany mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory....
. From 1912, he held the chair of theoretical physics
Theoretical physics

Theoretical physics employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics in an attempt to explain experimental data taken of the natural world....
 in the German University in Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
.

Their meetings were held in Viennese coffeehouses from 1907 onward. Frank remembered:

Presumably the meetings stopped in 1912, when Frank went to Prague, where he held the chair of theoretical physics left vacant by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a Germany-born theoretical physics. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass?energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2....
. Hahn left Vienna during World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
 and returned in 1921. The following year Hahn, with the collaboration of Frank, arranged to bring into the group Moritz Schlick, who held the chair of philosophy of the inductive sciences at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna

The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. Having opened in 1365, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe....
. Schlick had already published his two main works Raum und Zeit in die gegenwärtigen Physik (Space and Time in contemporary Physics) in 1917 and Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (General Theory of Knowledge) in 1918. A central work for the newly founded discussion group was the Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein during his lifetime....
), published by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-United Kingdom philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
 in 1921 (in 1922 in German-English version).

Under the direction of Schlick, a new regular series of meetings began. In 1926 Schlick and Hahn arranged to bring in Rudolf Carnap at the University of Vienna. In 1928 the Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society) was founded, with Schlick as chairman. In 1929 the Vienna Circle manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle) was published. The pamphlet is dedicated to Schlick, and its preface was signed by Hahn, Neurath and Carnap. In the appendix is a list of the members of the Vienna Circle.

The Vienna Circle was dispersed when the Nazi
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
 party came to power in Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
; many of its members emigrated to USA, where they taught in several universities. Schlick remained in Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
, but in 1936 he was killed by a Nazi sympathizer student in the University of Vienna.

The Vienna Circle manifesto

It states the scientific world-conception of the Vienna Circle, which is characterized “essentially by two features. First it is empiricist
Empiricism

In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views about how we know "things," part of the branch of philosophy called epistemology, or "theory of knowledge"....
 and positivist
: there is knowledge only from experience […] Second, the scientific world-conception is marked by the application of a certain method, namely logical analysis
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
.” (The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle in Sarkar, Sahotra, 1996, p. 331—hereinafter VC).

Logical analysis is the method of clarification of philosophical problems; it makes an extensive use of symbolic logic and distinguishes the Vienna Circle empiricism from earlier versions. The task of philosophy lies in the clarification—through the method of logical analysis—of problems and assertions.

Logical analysis shows that there are two different kinds of statement
Proposition

This article is about the term proposition in logic and philosophy; for other uses see PropositionIn logic and philosophy, proposition refers to either the "content" or Meaning of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence....
s; one kind includes statements reducible to simpler statements about the empirically given; the other kind includes statements which cannot be reduced to statements about experience
Experience

Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
 and thus they are devoid of meaning. Metaphysical statements belong to this second kind and therefore they are meaningless. Hence many philosophical problems are rejected as pseudo-problems which arise from logical mistakes, while others are re-interpreted as empirical statements and thus becomes the subject of scientific inquiries.

One source of the logical mistakes that are at the origins of metaphysics is the ambiguity of natural language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
. “Ordinary language for instance uses the same part of speech, the substantive, for thing
Object (philosophy)

In philosophy, an object is a thing, an entity, or a being. This may be taken in several senses.In its weakest sense, the word object is the most all-purpose of nouns, and can replace a noun in any sentence at all....
s (‘apple’) as well as for qualities
Quality

Quality may refer to:Concepts:* Quality * Quality , an attribute or a property* Quality , which has separate meanings in thermodynamics and harmonics...
 (‘hardness’), relation
Relation

Relation may refer to:*Relation, a person to whom one is related, i.e. a family member *Relation , a generalization of arithmetic relations, such as "=" and "<", that occur in statements, such as "5 < 6" and "2 + 2 = 4"....
s (‘friendship’), and processes (‘sleep’); therefore it misleads one into a thing-like conception of functional concept
Concept

A concept is a cognition unit of meaning— an abstraction idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics....
s” (VC p. 329). Another source of mistakes is “the notion that thinking can either lead to knowledge out of its own resources without using any empirical material, or at least arrive at new contents by an inference
Inference

Inference is the act or process of deriving a logical consequence from premises.Inference is studied within several different fields.* Human inference is traditionally studied within the field of cognitive psychology....
 from given states of affair” (VC p. 330). The latter notion is typical in Kantian philosophy
Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German Philosophy from the Kingdom of Prussia city of K?nigsberg . He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Age of Enlightenment....
, according to which there are synthetic statements a priori
A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments....
 that expand knowledge without using the experience
Experience

Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
. Synthetic knowledge a priori is rejected by the Vienna Circle. Mathematics, which at a first sight seems an example of necessarily valid synthetic knowledge derived from pure reason
Reason

Reason may refer to Mind#Mental faculties that consciously create explanations in order to judge, decide, solve problems, generalize, and give examples, among other activities....
 alone, has instead a tautological
Tautology (logic)

In propositional logic, a tautology is a propositional formula that is true under any possible Valuation of its propositional variables. For example, the propositional formula is a tautology, because the statement is true for any valuation of A....
 character, that is its statements are analytical statements, thus very different from Kantian synthetic statements. The only two kinds of statements accepted by the Vienna Circle are synthetic statements a posteriori
A Posteriori

A Posteriori is the title of the musical project Enigma 's sixth studio album, released in September 2006. In December 2006, the album was nominated in the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album category in the Grammy Awards of 2007....
 (i.e. scientific statements) and analytic statements a priori (i.e. logical and mathematical statements).

However, the persistence of metaphysics is connected not only with logical mistakes but also with “social and economical struggles” (VC p. 339). Metaphysics and theology
Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
 are allied to traditional social forms, while the group of people who “faces modern times, rejects these views and takes its stand on the ground of empirical sciences” (VC p. 339). Thus the struggle between metaphysics and scientific world-conception
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
 is not only a struggle between different kinds of philosophies, but it is also—and perhaps primarily—a struggle between different political, social and economical attitudes. Of course, as the manifesto itself acknowledged, “not every adherent of the scientific world-conception will be a fighter” (VC p. 339). Many historians of the Vienna Circle see in the latter sentence an implicit reference to a contrast between the so called ‘left wing’ of the Vienna Circle, mainly represented by Neurath and Carnap, and Moritz Schlick. The aim of the left wing was to facilitate the penetration of the scientific world-conception in “the forms of personal and public life, in education
Education

File:Inukshuk Monterrey 1.jpgEducation can be seen as a product or a process and considered in a broad sense or a technical sense. According to philosophy of education George F....
, upbringing, architecture
Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
, and the shaping of economic and social life” (VC p. 339–340). In contrast, Schlick was primarily interested in the theoretical study of science and philosophy. Perhaps the sentence “Some, glad of solitude, will lead a withdrawn existence on the icy slopes of logic” (VC p. 339) is an ironic reference to Schlick.

The manifesto lists Walter Dubislav
Walter Dubislav

Walter Dubislav was a German logician and philosopher of science . After studying mathematics and philosophy, he attained a doctorate in 1922 with "Contributions to the theories of definition and proof within mathematical logic" ....
, Josef Frank, Kurt Grelling
Kurt Grelling

Kurt Grelling was a logician, philosopher and member of the Berlin Circle ....
, Hasso Härlen, Eino Kaila
Eino Kaila

Eino Sakari Kaila was a Finland philosopher, critic and teacher. He worked in numerous fields including psychology , physics and theater, and attempted to find unifying principles behind various branches of human and natural sciences....
, Heinrich Loewy, F. P. Ramsey, Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach

Hans Reichenbach was a leading Philosophy of science, educator and proponent of logical positivism. Reichenbach is best known for founding the Berlin Circle , and as the author of The Rise of Scientific Philosophy....
, Kurt Reidemeister
Kurt Reidemeister

Kurt Werner Friedrich Reidemeister was a mathematician born in Braunschweig , Germany.He received his doctorate in 1921 with a thesis in algebraic number theory at the University of Hamburg under the supervision of Erich Hecke....
, and Edgar Zilsel
Edgar Zilsel

Edgar Zilsel was an Austrian historian and Philosophy of Science....
 as "Those sympathetic to the Vienna Circle" and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a Germany-born theoretical physics. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass?energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2....
, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, Order of Merit , Fellow of the Royal Society , was a British people philosopher, mathematical logic, mathematician, historian, advocate for social reform, and pacifism....
 and Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-United Kingdom philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
 as "Leading representatives of the scientific world-conception".

Unified science

The final goal pursued by the Vienna Circle was unified science
Unified Science

"Unified Science" can refer to any of three related strands in contemporary thought.* Belief in the unity of science was a central tenet of logical positivism....
, that is the construction of a "constitutive system" in which every legitimate statement is reduced to the concepts of lower level which refer directly to the given experience
Experience

Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
. "The endeavour is to link and harmonise the achievements of individual investigators in their various fields of science" (VC p. 328). From this aim follows the search for clarity, neatness, and for a symbolic language that eliminates the problems arising from the ambiguity of natural language. The Vienna Circle published a collection, called Einheitswissenschaft (Unified science), edit by Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Joergen Joergensen (after Hahn's death) and Charles W. Morris
Charles W. Morris

Charles W. Morris was an American Semiotics and Philosophy....
 (from 1938), whose aim was to present an unified vision of science. After the publication in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 of seven monographs from 1933 to 1939, the collection was dismissed, because of the problems arising from the World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. In 1938 a new series of publications started in USA. It was the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science

The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science was produced, as an output of the Vienna Circle to address the "growing concern throughout the world for the logic, the history, and the sociology of science..."...
, an ambitious project never completed devoted to unified science. Only the first section Foundations of the Unity of Sciences was published; it contains two volumes for a total of twenty monographs published from 1938 to 1969. As remembered by Rudolf Carnap and Charles Morris in the Preface to the 1969 edition of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science:

The well known Thomas Kuhn’s work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was published in this Encyclopedia in 1962, as the number two in the second volume.

The elimination of metaphysics

The attitude of Vienna Circle towards metaphysics is well expressed by Carnap in the article 'Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache' in Erkenntnis, vol. 2, 1932 (English translation 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language' in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., Logical empiricism at its peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath, New York : Garland Pub., 1996, pp. 10–31). A language—says Carnap—consists of a vocabulary
Vocabulary

A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and learning....
, i.e. a set of meaningful words, and a syntax
Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing Sentence s in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the Irish syntax"....
, i.e. a set of rules governing the formation of sentences from the words of the vocabulary. Pseudo-statements, i.e. sequences of words that at first sight resemble statements but in reality have no meaning, are formed in two ways: either meaningless words occur in them, or they are formed in an invalid syntactical way. According to Carnap, pseudo-statements of both kinds occur in metaphysics.

A word W has a meaning if two conditions are satisfied. First, the mode of the occurrence of W in its elementary sentence form (i.e. the simplest sentence form in which W is capable of occurring) must be fixed. Secondly, if W occurs in an elementary sentence S, it is necessary to give an answer to the following questions (that are—according to Carnap—equivalent formulation of the same question):
  1. What sentence
    Sentence (linguistics)

    In linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words, bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it, often preceded and followed in speech by pauses, having one of a small number of characteristic intonation patterns, and typically expressing an independent statement, question, request, command, et...
    s is S deducible from, and what sentences are deducible from S?
  2. Under what conditions is S supposed to be true, and under what conditions false?
  3. How is S verified?
  4. What is the meaning of S?
(Carnap, 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language' in Sarkar, Sahotra, cit., pp. 12)

An example offered by Carnap concerns the word 'arthropod
Arthropod

Arthropods are animals belonging to the Scientific classification Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others....
'. The sentence form "the thing x is an arthropod" is an elementary sentence form that is derivable from "x is an animal", "x has a segmented body" and "x has jointed legs". Conversely, these sentences are derivable from "the thing x is an arthropod". Thus the meaning of the words 'arthropod' is determined.

According to Carnap, many words of metaphysics do not fulfill these requirements and thus they are meaningless. As an example, Carnap considers the word 'principle'. This word has a definite meaning, if the sentence "x is the principle of y" is supposed to be equivalent to the sentence "y exists by virtue of x" or "y arises out of x". The latter sentence is perfectly clear: y arises out of x when x is invariably followed by y, and the invariable association between x and y is empirically verifiable. But—says Carnap—metaphysicians are not satisfied with this interpretation of the meaning of 'principle'. They assert that no empirical relation between x and y can completely explain the meaning of "x is the principle of y", because there is something that cannot be grasped by means of the experience, something for which no empirical criterion can be specified. It is the lacking of any empirical criterion—says Carnap—that deprives of meaning the word 'principle' when it occurs in metaphysics. Therefore, metaphysical pseudo-statements such as "water is the principle of the world" or "the spirit is the principle of the world" are void of meaning because a meaningless word occurs in them.

However, there are pseudo-statements in which occur only meaningful words; these pseudo-statements are formed in a counter-syntactical way. An example is the word sequence "Caesar is a prime number"; every word has a definite meaning, but the sequence has no meaning. The problem is that "prime number" is a predicate of numbers, not a predicate of human beings. In the example the nonsense is evident; however, in natural language the rules of grammar do not prohibit the formation of analogous meaningless word sequences that are not so easily detectable. In the grammar of natural languages, every sequence of the kind "x is y", where x is a noun and y is a predicate, is acceptable. In fact, in the grammar there is no distinction between predicate which can be affirmed of human beings and predicate which can be affirmed of numbers. So "Caesar is a general" and "Caesar is a prime number" are both well-formed, in contrast for example with "Caesar is and", which is ill-formed. In a logically constructed language—says Carnap—a distinction between the various kinds of predicate is specified, and pseudo-statements as "Caesar is a prime number" are ill-formed. Now, and this is the main point of Carnap's argument, metaphysical statements in which do not occur meaningless words, are indeed meaningless because they are formed in a way which is admissible in natural languages, but not in logically constructed languages. Carnap attempts to indicate the most frequent sources of errors from which metaphysical pseudo-statements can arise. One source of mistakes is the ambiguity of the verb 'to be', which is sometimes used as a copula ("I am hungry") and sometimes to designate existence ("I am"). The latter statement incorrectly suggests a predicative form, and thus it suggests that existence is a predicate. Only modern logic, with the introduction of an explicit sign to designate existence (the sign ), which occurs only in statements such as , never as a predicate, has showed that existence is not a predicate, and thus has revealed the logical error from which pseudo-statements such as "cogito, ergo sum" has aroused.

Another source of mistakes is type confusions, in which a predicate of a kind is used as a predicate of another kind. For example the pseudo-statements "we know the Nothing" is analogous to "we know the rain", but while the latter is well-formed, the former is ill-formed, at least in a logically constructed language, because 'Nothing' is incorrectly used as a noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
. In a formal language, 'Nothing' only means , such as "there is nothing which is outside", i.e. , and thus 'Nothing' never occurs as a noun or as a predicate.

What is the role of metaphysics? According to Carnap, although metaphysics has no theoretical content, it has content indeed: metaphysical pseudo-statements express the attitude of a person towards life. Metaphysics is an art like lyrical poetry. The metaphysician, instead of using the medium of art, works with the medium of the theoretical; he confuses art with science, attitude towards life with knowledge, and thus produces an unsatisfactory and inadequate work. "Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability" (Carnap, 'The Elimination of Metaphysics', in Sarkar, Sahotra, cit.,p. 30).

Congresses and publications

The Vienna Circle was very active in advertising their new philosophical ideas. Several congresses on epistemology
Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
 and philosophy of science were organized, with the help of the Berlin Circle. There were some preparatory congresses: Prague (1929), Königsberg
Königsberg

K?nigsberg was after World War II in 1946 renamed Kaliningrad by the Soviet Union.The city was the Capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945....
 (1930), Prague (1934) and then the first congress on scientific philosophy held in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 (1935), followed by congresses in Copenhagen
Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,153,615 . Copenhagen is situated on the Islands of Zealand and Amager....
 (1936), Paris (1937), Cambridge, UK (1938), Cambridge, Mass
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England....
. (1939). The Königsberg congress (1930) was very important, for Kurt Gödel announced that he has proved the completeness
Gödel's completeness theorem

G?del's completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic Provability logic in first-order logic....
 of first-order logic
First-order logic

First-order logic is a formal deductive system used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. It goes by many names, including: first-order predicate calculus , the lower predicate calculus, the language of first-order logic or predicate logic....
 and the incompleteness of formal arithmetic
Arithmetic

Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations....
. Another very interesting congress was the one held in Copenhagen (1936), which was dedicated to quantum physics and causality
Causality

Causality denotes a necessary relationship between one event and another event which is the direct consequence of the first.While this informal understanding suffices in everyday use, the Philosophy analysis of how best to characterize causality extends over millennia....
.

Between 1928 and 1937, the Vienna Circle published ten books in a collection named Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), edited by Schlick and Frank. Karl Raimund Popper’s book Logik der Forschung was published in this collection. Seven works were published in another collection, called Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science). In 1930 Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach

Hans Reichenbach was a leading Philosophy of science, educator and proponent of logical positivism. Reichenbach is best known for founding the Berlin Circle , and as the author of The Rise of Scientific Philosophy....
 undertook the editorship of the journal Erkenntnis, which was published between 1930 and 1940 (from 1939 the editors were Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap and Charles Morris).

The following is the list of works published in the two collections edit by the Vienna Circle.

Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), edit by Schlick and Frank:
  • Richard von Mises, Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit, 1928 (Probability, Statistics, and Truth, New York : Macmillan company, 1939)
  • Rudolf Carnap, Abriss der Logistik, 1929
  • Moritz Schlick, Fragen der Ethik, 1930 (Problems of Ethics, New York : Prentice-Hall, 1939)
  • Otto Neurath, Empirische Soziologie, 1931
  • Philipp Frank, Das Kausalgesetz und seine Grenzen, 1932 (The Law of Causality and its Limits, Dordrecth ; Boston : Kluwer, 1997)
  • Otto Kant, Zur Biologie der Ethik, 1932
  • Rudolf Carnap, Logische Syntax der Sprache, 1934 (The Logical Syntax of Language, New York : Humanities, 1937)
  • Karl Raimund Popper, Logik der Forschung, 1934 (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York : Basic Books, 1959)
  • Josef Schächeter, Prolegomena zu einer kritischen Grammatik, 1935 (Prolegomena to a Critical Grammar, Dordrecth ; Boston : D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1973)
  • Victor Kraft, Die Grundlagen einer wissenschaftliche Wertlehre, 1937 (Foundations for a Scientific Analysis of Value, Dordrecth ; Boston : D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1981)


Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science), edit by Carnap, Frank, Hahn, Neurath, Joergensen (after Hahn's death), Morris (from 1938):
  • Hans Hahn, Logik, Mathematik und Naturerkennen, 1933
  • Otto Neurath, Einheitswissenschaft und Psychologie, 1933
  • Rudolf Carnap, Die Aufgabe der Wissenschaftlogik, 1934
  • Philipp Frank, Das Ende der mechanistischen Physik, 1935
  • Otto Neurath, Was bedeutet rationale Wirtschaftsbetrachtung, 1935
  • Otto Neurath, E. Brunswik
    Egon Brunswik

    Egon Brunswik was a psychologist who made contributions to functionalism and the history of psychology....
    , C. Hull, G. Mannoury, J. Woodger, Zur Enzyklopädie der Einheitswissenschaft. Vorträge, 1938
  • Richard von Mises, Ernst Mach und die empiristische Wissenschaftauffassung, 1939


These works are translated in Unified Science: The Vienna Circle Monograph Series Originally Edited by Otto Neurath, Kluwer, 1987.

Monographs, arranged in chronological order, published in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science:
  • Otto Neurath, Niels Bohr, John Dewey
    John Dewey

    John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and school reform whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world....
    , Bertrand Russell
    Bertrand Russell

    Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, Order of Merit , Fellow of the Royal Society , was a British people philosopher, mathematical logic, mathematician, historian, advocate for social reform, and pacifism....
    , Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris, Encyclopedia and unified science, 1938, vol.1 n.1
  • Charles Morris, Foundations of the theory of signs, 1938, vol.1 n.2
  • Victor Lenzen, Procedures of empirical sciences, 1938, vol.1 n.5
  • Rudolf Carnap, Foundations of logic and mathematics, 1939, vol.1 n.3
  • Leonard Bloomfield
    Leonard Bloomfield

    Leonard Bloomfield was an United States linguistics, whose influence dominated the development of structuralism#Structuralism in linguistics in America between the 1930s and the 1950s....
    , Linguistic aspects of science, 1939, vol.1 n.4
  • Ernest Nagel
    Ernest Nagel

    Ernest Nagel was among the most important philosophy of science of his time.Nagel was born in the New Town, Prague suburb of Prague and emigrated to the United States at the age of 10 with his family....
    , Principles of the theory of probability, 1939, vol.1 n.6
  • John Dewey
    John Dewey

    John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and school reform whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world....
    , Theory of valuation, 1939, vol.2 n.4
  • Giorgio de Santillana
    Giorgio de Santillana

    Giorgio Diaz de Santillana was an Italian-American science philosopher and science historian, and professor at MIT....
     and Edgar Zilsel
    Edgar Zilsel

    Edgar Zilsel was an Austrian historian and Philosophy of Science....
    , The development of rationalism and empiricism, 1941, vol.2 n.8
  • Otto Neurath, Foundations of social sciences, 1944, vol.2 n.1
  • Joseph Henri Woodger, The technique of theory construction, 1949, vol.2 n.5
  • Philipp Frank, Foundations of physics, 1946, vol.1 n.7
  • Erwin Frinlay-Freundlich, Cosmology, 1951, vol.1 n.8
  • Joergen Joergensen, The development of logical empiricism, 1951, vol.2 n.9
  • Egon Brunswik
    Egon Brunswik

    Egon Brunswik was a psychologist who made contributions to functionalism and the history of psychology....
    , The conceptual framework of psychology, 1952, vol.1 n.10
  • Carl Hempel, Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science, 1952, vol.2 n.7
  • Felix Mainx, Foundations of biology, 1955, vol.1 n.9
  • Abraham Edel
    Abraham Edel

    Abraham Edel was a North American philosopher and ethics He was the younger brother of North American literary critic and biographer Leon Edel, the uncle of composer Joel Mandelbaum....
    , Science and the structure of ethics, 1961, vol.2 n.3
  • Thomas Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolutions, 1962, vol.2 n.2
  • Gherard Tintner, Methodology of mathematical economics and econometrics, 1968, vol.2 n.6
  • Herbert Feigl and Charles Morris, Bibliography and index, 1969, vol.2 n.10


Quoted works

  • Foundations of the Unity of Sciences, vol. 1, Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1969
  • Uebel, Thomas, "On the Austrian Roots of Logical Empiricism" in Logical Empiricism - Historical and contemporary Perspectives, ed. Paolo Parrini, Wesley C. Salmon, Merrilee H. Salmon, Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003, pp. 76–93
  • Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis, 1929. English translation The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: from 1900 to the Vienna Circle, New York : Garland Publishing, 1996, pp. 321–340
  • Rudolf Carnap, "Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache" in Erkenntnis, vol. 2, 1932 (English translation "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language" in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., Logical empiricism at its peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath, New York : Garland Pub., 1996, pp. 10–31)


Reception in the U.S.

The spread of logical positivism
Logical positivism

Logical 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., : in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
 in the USA occurred throughout the 1920s–1930s. In 1929 and in 1932 Schlick was a Visiting Professor at Stanford, while Feigl, who immigrated to the USA in 1930, became lecturer (1931) and professor (1933) at the University of Iowa. The definite diffusion of logical positivism in the U.S. was due to Carl Hempel, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl, who emigrated and taught in the U.S.

Another link to the U.S. is Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine , was an American analytic philosophy and logician. From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was affiliated in some way with Harvard University, first as a student, then as a professor of philosophy and a teacher of mathematics, and finally as an emeritus elder statesman who published or revised seven books in...
 who traveled in 1932–1933 as Sheldon Traveling Fellow to Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw
Warsaw

Warsaw is the Capital and World's largest cities of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains....
.

Reception in the UK


Alfred Jules Ayer acquainted the British acedeme with the work of the Vienna Circle. Also Karl Popper
Karl Popper

Knight Bachelor Karl Raimund Popper Order of the Companions of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics....
 was important for the reception and critique of their work, even though he never participated in the meetings of the Vienna Circle.

See also

  • Logical positivism
    Logical positivism

    Logical 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., : in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • List of Austrian intellectual traditions
    List of Austrian intellectual traditions

    This is an incomplete list of topics relating to the intellectual traditions of Austria.*German culture*Vienna School*German philosophy*Austrian School of Economics...


Bibliography

  • Ayer, Alfred Jules. Logical Positivism. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1959.
  • Barone, Francesco. Il neopositivismo logico. Roma Bari: Laterza, 1986.
  • Bergmann, Gustav. The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. New York: Longmans Green, 1954.
  • Cirera, Ramon. Carnap and the Vienna Circle: Empiricism and Logical Syntax. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994.
  • Friedman, Michael, Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • Gadol, Eugene T. Rationality and Science: A Memorial Volume for Moritz Schlick in Celebration of the Centennial of his Birth. Wien: Springer, 1982.
  • Geymonat, Ludovico. La nuova filosofia della natura in Germania. Torino, 1934.
  • Giere, Ronald N. and Richardson, Alan W. Origins of Logical Empiricism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
  • Kraft, Victor. The Vienna Circle: The Origin of Neo-positivism, a Chapter in the History of Recent Philosophy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1953.
  • McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann. Trans. by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1979.
  • Parrini, Paolo; Salmon, Wesley C.; Salmon, Merrilee H. (ed.) Logical Empiricism - Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.
  • Reisch, George. How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science : To the Icy Slopes of Logic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  • Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.), Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994.
  • Sarkar, Sahotra. The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.
  • Sarkar, Sahotra. Logical Empiricism at its Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
  • Sarkar, Sahotra. Logical Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach, Feigl, and Nagel. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
  • Sarkar, Sahotra. Decline and Obsolescence of Logical Empiricism: Carnap vs. Quine and the Critics. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
  • Sarkar, Sahotra. The Legacy of the Vienna Circle: Modern Reappraisals. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
  • Spohn, Wolfgang (ed.), Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.


External links