VIENNA CIRCLE INSTITUTE YEARBOOK [2002] 10

THE VIENNA CIRCLE AND LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

VIENNA CIRCLE INSTITUTE YEARBOOK [2002]

VIENNA CIRCLE INSTITUTE YEARBOOK [2002]

10

Institut ‘Wiener Kreis’

Society for the Advancement of the Scientific World Conception

Series-Editor: Friedrich Stadler

University of Vienna, Austria and Director, Institut ‘Wiener Kreis’

Advisory Editorial Board:

Rudolf Haller, University of Graz, Austria, Coordinator Nancy Cartwright, London School of Economics, UK Robert S. Cohen, Boston University, USA

Wilhelm K. Essler, University of Frankfurt/M., Germany Kurt Rudolf Fischer, University of Vienna, Austria

Michael Friedman, University of Indiana, Bloomington, USA Peter Galison, Harvard University, USA

Adolf Grünbaum, University of Pittsburgh, USA Rainer Hegselmann, University of Bayreuth, Germany Michael Heidelberger, University of Tübingen, Germany Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University, USA

Gerald Holton, Harvard University, USA Don Howard, University of Notre Dame, USA Allan S. Janik, University of Innsbruck, Austria Richard Jeffrey, Princeton University, USA Andreas Kamlah, University of Osnabrück, Germany Eckehart Köhler, University of Vienna, Austria Anne J. Kox, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Saul A. Kripke, Princeton University, USA

Elisabeth Leinfellner, University of Vienna, Austria Werner Leinfellner, Technical University of Vienna, Austria James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, USA Brian McGuinness, University of Siena, Italy Kevin Mulligan, Université de Genève, Switzerland Elisabeth Nemeth, University of Vienna, Austria Julian Nida-Rümelin, University of Göttingen, Germany Helga Nowotny, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Erhard Oeser, University of Vienna, Austria

Joëlle Proust, École Polytechnique CREA Paris, France Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia, CDN Peter Schuster, University of Vienna, Austria Jan Šebestik, CNRS Paris, France Karl Sigmund, University of Vienna, Austria Hans Sluga, University of California at Berkeley, USA Elliott Sober, University of Wisconsin, USA Antonia Soulez, Université de Paris 8, France Wolfgang Spohn, University of Konstanz, Germany Christian Thiel, University of Erlangen, Germany Walter Thirring, University of Vienna, Austria Thomas E. Uebel, University of Manchester, UK Georg Winckler, University of Vienna, Austria Ruth Wodak, University of Vienna, Austria

Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Anton Zeilinger, University of Vienna, Austria

Honorary Consulting Editors:

Kurt E. Baier Francesco Barone † C.G. Hempel † Stephan Körner † Henk Mulder † Arne Naess Paul Neurath †

Willard Van Orman Quine † Marx W. Wartofsky †

Review Editor:

Michael Stöltzner, University of Bielefeld, Germany

Editorial Work/Layout/Production:

Hartwig Jobst Robert Kaller Camilla R. Nielsen Erich Papp Christopher Roth

Editorial Address:

Institut ‘Wiener Kreis’

Museumstrasse 5/2/19, A–1070 Wien, Austria Tel.: +431/5261005 (international)

or 01/5261005 (national) Fax.: +431/5248859 (international)

or 01/5248859 (national) email: ivc.zuef@univie.ac.at homepage: http://ivc.philo.at

THE VIENNA CIRCLE

AND LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

RE-EVALUATION AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Edited by

FRIEDRICH STADLER

University of Vienna, and Institute Vienna Circle, Austria

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

eBook ISBN: 0-306-48214-2 Print ISBN: 1-4020-1269-1

©2003 _{Kluwer Academic Publishers}

New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow

Print ©2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers

All rights reserved

No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher

Created in the United States of America

E

DITORIAL

On the occasion of its anniversary, the Institut Wiener Kreis/Vienna Circle Institute, together with the Zentrum für überfakultäre Forschung/Center for In-terdisciplinary Research of the University of Vienna, organized an international symposium on “The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism. Re-Evaluation and Future Perspectives of Research and Historiography”. This event was hosted by

the Department of Contemporary History at the Campus of the University of

Vienna, in Vienna July 12 – 14, 2001.

The Institute Vienna Circle (IVC) was founded in 1991 as a non-profit soci-ety. It has been supported ever since by the Austrian Ministry of Science and Re-search and the City of Vienna. The institute is a member of the International

Union of the History and Philosophy of Science – Division of Logic,

Methodol-ogy and Philosophy of Science, and has been working together with the

Univer-sity of Vienna since 1997 on the basis of a co-operation agreement.

Since the very outset, the IVC has worked together closely with similar institutes and societies in Austria and abroad, focusing on the promotion, culti-vation and dissemination of a scientific philosophy and history and philosophy of science in the tradition and spirit of the Vienna Circle/Logical Empiricism. The Institute’s research activities also include the documentation, application and development of its results. IVC adheres to a pluralist and (post-)enlightened con-ception of science and philosophy of science that is committed to the democrati-zation of knowledge and science and the critique of all forms of irrationalism, dogmatism, and fundamentalism. To this end, the IVC regularly organizes con-ferences and lectures in Austria and abroad, edits three book series (in English and German), and maintains a library and archives with materials by, and on, members of the Vienna Circle and associated philosophers as well as scientists. (cf. survey at the IVC’s Website: http://ivc.philo.at).

As regards the most recent activities, one should draw attention to the Vienna

International Summer University – Scientific World Conceptions, which has

EDITORIAL

VI

International History of Philosophy of Science Conference” (HOPOS 2000) are to be found here in the Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 9/2001.

This Yearbook presents the contributions of invited lecturers as well as a selection of contributed papers of the aforementioned anniversary jubilee conference. It also features work from international research and historiography on Logical Empiricism and its influence, in addition to its further development by renowned scholars and a younger generation of philosophers. We have di-vided this yearbook papers into thematic chapters that focus on the origins, his-tory and historiography, with such leading figures as Schlick and Reichenbach along with other members of this influential movement. The yearbook also ad-dresses more topical issues such as the unity and plurality of science, contexts of science, epistemology and ethics, and some (long neglected) women of Logical Empiricism. The reception of the Vienna Circle/Logical Empiricism in the So-viet Union and Russia is dealt with in a special concluding report section.

As usual, the volume also has a review section on recent publications dealing with scientific philosophy and philosophy of science.

In this regard it is important to note that the selected papers on Rudolf Carnap have been published separately in the volume of the IVC series “Vienna Circle Institute Library” established this year. This volume, Language, Truth,

and Knowledge, edited by Thomas Bonk, is to appear at the same time as this

Yearbook published by Kluwer. Several other invited papers will be part of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism, ed. by Alan Richardson and Thomas Uebel.

Last not least let me thank to all who helped make the anniversary conference possible and contributed to the publication of the proceedings in these two vol-umes: my colleagues Elisabeth Nemeth and Eckehart Koehler as members of the Program Committee, the members of the Local Organizing Committee with

Margit (Mischa) Kurka, Daria Mascha, Robert Kaller from the IVC and

Marianne Ertl from the Department of Contemporary History. Here I would like

to express my sincere gratitude to our financial supporters: the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the City of Vienna (Division of Culture) and

the Bank Austria. Finally, I would like to thank our review editor Michael

Stöltzner, and Camilla Nielsen, Christopher Roth and Hartwig Jobst, who,

together with members of the Advisory Editorial Board, were involved in the production of this Yearbook.

Vienna, October 2002 Friedrich Stadler

CARSTENKLEIN: Coordination and Convention in Hans Reichenbach’s

Philosophy of Space 109

III.HANSREICHENBACH

DAGMARBORCHERS: “Let’s Talk about Flourishing!” – Moritz Schlick

and the Non-cognitive Foundation of Virtue Ethics HANSJÜRGENWENDEL: Between Meaning and Demarcation

MASSIMOFERRARI: An Unknown Side of Moritz Schlick’s Intellectual

Biography: the Reviews for the “Vierteljahrschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie” (1911-1916)

49

63 79

95

HUBERTSCHLEICHERT:Moritz Schlick’s Idea of Non-territorial States II. MORITZSCHLICK

DAVIDJALALHYDER: Kantian Metaphysics and Hertzian Mechanics ANITAVONDUHN:Bolzano’s Account of Justification

PAOLOPARRINI:On the Formation of Logical Empiricism

ARNENAESS:Pluralism of Tenable World Views I. ORIGINS ANDHISTORY

FRIEDRICHSTADLER:What is the Vienna Circle?

Some Methodological and Historiographical Answers

A. THE VIENNA CIRCLE AND LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

XI

VIII

ROBERTRYNASIEWICZ: Reichenbach’s of Simultaneity

in Historical and Philosophical Perspective 121

133

151 163

171

189 IV. OTHERPROPONENTS AND PERIPHERY

JUHAMANNINEN: Towards a Physicalistic Attitude

WOLFGANGHUEMER: Logical Empiricism and Phenomenology: Felix Kaufmann

ARTURKOTERSKI: Béla von Juhos and the Concept of “Konstatierungen”

PAOLOMANCOSU / MATHIEUMARION: Wittgenstein’s Constructivization

of Euler’s Proof of the Infinity of Primes

GRACIELADEPIERRIS: Quine’s Historical Argument for Epistemology

Naturalized

V. UNITY ANDPLURALITY

ELLIOTTSOBER: Two Uses of Unification

CHRISTOPHERHITCHCOCK: Unity and Plurality in the Concept of

Causation

DIEDERICKRAVEN: Edgar Zilsel’s Research Programme: Unity of Science

as an Empirical Problem

VI. CONTEXTS OFSCIENCE

GREGORSCHIEMANN: Criticizing a Difference of Contexts –

On Reichenbach’s Distinction between “Context of Discovery” and “Context of Justification”

GIORAHON: Contextualizing an Epistemological Issue:

the Case of Error in Experiment

237

253

JUTTASCHICKORE: The Contexts of Scientific Justification. Some Reflections on the Relation Between Epistemological

Contextualism and Philosophy of Science 265

205

217

B. GENERAL PART

REPORT

–

DOCUMENTATION

OLESSIANAZAROVA: Logical Positivism in Russia 381

VII. EPISTEMOLOGY

IX

DANIELCOHNITZ: Modal Skepticism. Philosophical Thought Experiments

and Modal Epistemology 281

297

F.O. ENGLER: Structure and Heuristic: in Praise of Structural Realism

in the Case of Niels Bohr

VIII. ETHICS

UWECZANIERA: The Neutrality of Meta-Ethics Revisited – How to Draw

on Einstein and the Vienna Circle in Developing an Adequate Account

of Morals 313

IX. WOMEN OFLOGICALEMPIRICISM

DAGMAR BORCHERS: No Woman, no Try? – Else Frenkel-Brunswik and

the Project of Integrating Psychoanalysis into the Unity of Science

MICHAELBEANEY: Susan Stebbing on Cambridge and Vienna Analysis

NIKOLAY MILKOV: Susan Stebbing’s Criticism of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

ADELHEIDHAMACHER-HERMES: Rose Rand: a Woman in Logic

X

REVIEWS

Ernst Mach’s Vienna 1895-1930 or Phenomenalism as Philosophy of Science. Edited by John Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki and Setsuko Tanaka. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht 2001.

(Erik Banks) 389

Herbert Hochberg, The Positivist and the Ontologist. Bergmann, Carnap and Logical Realism, Rodopi: Amsterdam/Atlanta 2001.

(Erwin Tegtmeier)

Liliana Albertazzi / Dale Jacquette / Roberto Poli (eds.), The School of Alexius Meinong (= Western philosophy series 57), Aldershot et al.: Ashgate, 2001.

(Maria Reicher)

M. Ferrari / I.-O. Stamatescu (eds.), Symbol and Physical Knowledge. On the Conceptual Structure of Physics, Springer: Berlin 2002. (Thomas Mormann)

Uwe Czaniera, Gibt es moralisches Wissen? Die Kognitivismusdebatte in der analytischen Moralphilosophie, Mentis: Paderborn 2001. (Gabriele Mras)

397

401

406

ACTIVITIES OF THEINSTITUTEVIENNACIRCLE

Activities 2002

Preview 2003

411

414

OBITUARY

Eugene T. Gadol (1920-2000)

(Friedrich St adler) 417

419

Index of Names

FR I E D R I C H STADLER

W

HAT

I

S THE

V

IENNA

C

IRCLE

?

S

OME

M

ETHODOLOGICAL AND

H

ISTORIOGRAPHICAL

A

NSWERS

“What is the Vienna Circle?” is a question which is neither rhetorical nor trivial. It is perhaps an attempt to ‘square the circle’ – which is, meanwhile, mathemati-cally possible, as Karl Menger described as early as 1934.1

This question might be also a problem of how the whole relates logically to the parts or the parts to the whole, which was already addressed by mereology (whole-part theory) according to Stanislaw (1916).2

Of course, we are all familiar with the irritating fact that one and the same phenomenon can be described consistently by more than one theory (underdeter-mination of a theory by observation).

A popular way for beginners to proceed is to check the lexical entries on a concept that might merit further discussion. But is this enough? If we look at the current definitions of the Vienna Circle, we quickly recognize the difficulty of providing a representative description of the circle and of Logical Empiricism in its entirety. Even the autobiographical accounts given since the classical period of the Schlick Circle show a remarkable variance – depending on focus and un-derlying motivations.

The locus classicus is – and remains – the manifesto of 1929 entitled

Scien-tific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle, published by the Ernst Mach

Society and co-authored by Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath.3

A second milestone in the diffusion of Vienna Circle ideas, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, was the article written by Herbert Feigl and Albert Blum-berg: “Logical Positivism – A New Movement in European Philosophy” (1931) in the Journal of Philosophy. Here, both authors underscored the (anti-Kantian) synthesis of rationalism and empiricism.4

FRIEDRICHSTADLER

XII

If one also takes into account that the manifesto represents only one (“left”) wing of the Vienna Circle at the end of the twenties (one simply need recall the negative stance of Schlick under Wittgenstein’s influence), then it becomes abundantly clear that there existed only a limited consensus.

Is it possible, even so, to find a sort of basic agreement here – one that unites the members of the Vienna Circle – both the central figures and those on the periphery?5

A simple theoretical framework can be found in the following description: a basic scientific orientation grounded in logical and linguistic analysis, an ex-planatory and epistemological monism in terms of methodology and research subjects, and finally a sort of fallibilistic epistemology with interdisciplinarity featuring as a program that opposes any sort of foundationalist “system”.

First, let me point out that until the end of the Vienna Circle’s existence the tensions between scientific philosophy on the one hand, and empirical science (dualism of philosophy and science) on the other, went unresolved. These differ-ences were most pronounced in the discussions between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath.6

We can conclude that neither the autobiographical accounts of contemporar-ies nor the historical accounts originating shortly after 1945 were able to provide an adequate picture of the Vienna Circle. Moreover, we can only recognize a partial, albeit broad, overlap with Logical Empiricism in general when we take into account the related movements of the Berlin Circle around Hans Reichen-bach or the Warsaw Group around Alfred Tarski.7

Here I think that a historical reconstruction is indeed called for, even if it ul-timately proves insufficient. Such a reconstruction was already briefly sketched by Gustav Bergmann in his letter to Neurath in 1938:8

Seen in this way, the important scientific movements which until now had their common center of radiation in Vienna – psychoanalysis, the philosophy of the Vienna Circle, and Kelsen’s legal and political philosophy, really belonged together and they determined the specific intellectual atmosphere of the Austria that vanished, just as did, in the artistic sphere, the authors Broch, Canetti and Musil.

The importance of the Vienna Circle as a cultural phenomenon within the con-text of New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) is illustrated by contemporary fig-ures and their more or less positive reactions to its program, e.g. the writers Hilde Spiel, Jean Améry, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Musil.9

XIII WHAT IS THE VIENNACIRCLE?

As even recent entries on “Vienna Circle” and “Logical Empiricism” present overlapping and incomplete descriptions11_{, my first suggestion is to attempt a}

historical and genetic reconstruction within the socio-cultural context, together with a description of individuals and theoretical positions from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective. This means dealing with the multi-facetted phe-nomenon of the Vienna Circle “from a historical point of view”, which can only be described here in very general terms:12

The new historiography on Logical Empiricism sets in with the rediscovery of Ernst Mach (1838-1916) as a precursor of Gestalt theory, evolutionary epis-temology, (possibly radical) constructivism and the modern historically oriented philosophy of science. But already in Mach’s reception of the Vienna Circle one can see not only a certain pluralism of views but also a polarization of the vari-ous positions (Mach’s influence on Carnap’s Aufbau / Logical Construction, the critical distancing to “psychologism” in the manifesto, the alternative to the prin-ciple of economy in Karl Menger, etc.)13 Nevertheless, this research program, which was interpreted differently by the Vienna Circle, actually represented a sort of prototype for Logical Empiricism in the interwar years – irrespective of whether one backs the bold claim as to the existence of a “typical Austrian phi-losophy” (as opposed to German idealism). Accordingly, Richard von Mises described Mach’s impact as follows: “In the transformation from the formal to the material mode of language, Mach’s elements correspond to the protocol sentences.” 14

This, of course, can easily be read as being a building stone of the “neutral monism” as represented by Bertrand Russell. In this context, a number of differ-ent studies can be seen as focusing on the impact of neo-Kantianism, Russell and Mach on Carnap’s Aufbau philosophy.15

It is thus not so surprising that, already prior to World War 1, the proto-circle of the later Vienna Circle (the “first Vienna Circle”) began to take shape both organizationally and philosophically. Within a discussion circle (inter alia, with Ph. Frank, Hahn, Neurath, R. v. Mises) at a coffeehouse, traditional “academic philosophy” grew more scientific. The “First Vienna Circle” met regularly as of 1907 to discuss the synthesis of empiricism and symbolic logic as modeled after Mach, Boltzmann and the French conventionalists (Pierre Duhem and Henri Poincaré). This was also regarded as an indirect answer to W.I. Lenin’s polemi-cal remarks against Mach in his book (Materialism and Empirio-criticism. 1909) which remained very influential up to the Velvet Revolution of 1989/90.16

FRIEDRICHSTADLER

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I.

Focusing on the center of the Vienna Circle we recognize the following devel-opment : with the conflict-laden appointment of the physicist and philosopher Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) to Mach’s chair for natural philosophy of “induc-tivist sciences” in Vienna in 1922 the heyday of scientific philosophizing in the post World War 1- period was prolonged. Even though Schlick felt committed to an epistemological realism in his main oeuvre General Theory of Knowledge

(1918/1925), he began his inaugural lecture with a programmatic allusion to Mach under the sway of the Viennese tradition up to Wittgenstein: “Almost all philosophy is natural philosophy.” 17

Several years thereafter, the intellectual foundations for the formation of the Vienna Circle had been laid: the work of Frege, Russell / Whitehead and Witt-genstein’s Tractatus, together with Duhem’s and Poincaré’s holistic theory of science, paved the way for the emergence of a unique, innovative scientific cul-ture that has remained a subject of international scholarship to this very day and that addresses issues that still have a bearing on modern philosophy of science.

In the phase during which the so-called Schlick Circle on Boltzmanngasse became a veritable institution, there was already a pluralism of positions that emerged in the field of tension between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1918/22) and Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau der Welt / Logical Construction of the World(1928). But in spite of all discrepancies between Carnap’s ‘rational reconstruction’ and the philosophy of ideal language (Wittgenstein), all those involved came to identify with a philosophical reform movement as opposed to academic “tradi-tional philosophy” (Schulphilosophie according to Philipp Frank).

Even the prevailing epistemological options – critical realism (or constructive realism) in Schlick, Feigl, Kraft and later Popper, on the one hand, and phe-nomenalism / physicalism in Carnap, Neurath, Kaufmann, on the other – could not prevent a reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism.

As early as the twenties, a diversity of positions and methods had emerged (a theoretical pluralism which has usually been ignored in the corresponding histo-riography). The mathematician Karl Menger, who had spent time in Holland, formulated his principle of tolerance regarding the selection of logics and scien-tific languages (a principle which was only later ascribed to Carnap). He founded an additional platform, namely his influential Mathematisches Kolloquium

(“Mathematical Colloquium”), operating in parallel to the Schlick Circle on Boltzmanngasse.18 Long before Quine, he criticized the principle of economy, verificationism and the analytic / synthetic dualism which had become well-known in uncritical historical accounts as the standard model of Logical Empiri-cism – an interpretation which was reinforced by Quine’s influential “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”.19 _{The contacts that were initiated with the Polish}

XV WHAT IS THE VIENNACIRCLE?

resulted in a further provocation of the “Wittgenstein group” in the Circle (Schlick, Waismann). But undoubtedly the greatest challenge for the early Vienna Circle was the Tractatus which experienced an uneven and fragmentary reception (as had the manifesto in 1929).20

In sum we can say that, for this formative and non-public phase of the Vienna Circle, certain important components justify the use of the prefix “neo”. A con-ventionalist understanding of scientific theory, the philosophy of ideal language, and the Hilbert program and theory of relativity (especially Einstein’s 1921 pub-lished Geometrie und Erfahrung / Geometry and Experience), as well, became the building blocks for the “turning point in philosophy” proclaimed with great optimism in the first volume ofErkenntnis (Schlick 1930).21

Schlick, Waismann and other members of the Vienna Circle saw knowledge as the correlation of empirical facts with a system of symbols based on formal logic. Such a theoretical innovation was also an intellectual revolution under the sway of modernism, as Carnap formulated so eloquently in his preface to The Logical Construction.22

This radical program, in turn, left an indelible mark on avant-garde art (con-structivism associated with Gerd Arntz, the artist of Neurath’s pictorial lan-guage), literature as well as architecture (Werkbund and Bauhaus) centering around Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Engelmann, Adolf Loos, and Josef Frank, as well as in the context of Neurath’s efforts within the Congrés International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM).23 _{Clarity and precision as both ends in}

them-selves and features of scientific philosophy bridged both Wittgenstein’s cultural pessimism and the socio-culturally enlightened impetus of the Vienna Circle.

With this convergence of various elements of philosophy of science, the dynamics of theory was accelerated in the phase in which the Vienna Circle made public appearances and expanded its international contacts. The latter de-velopment was accompanied by the disintegration and uprooting of Logical Empiricism in the German-speaking world. In this sense, the phenomenon of the Vienna Circle is a prototypical case study on intellectual emigration.24

The gradual liberalization of verificationism and – as Wittgenstein’s influ-ence diminished – the transition from phenomenalism to physicalism (with Carnap and Neurath) was in full swing as already reflected in the publication and internal reception of the 1929 manifesto. The increasingly international orienta-tion of the Vienna Circle had been evident since the late twenties in the contacts with Hans Reichenbach’s Berlin Group, the Warsaw logicians around Alfred Tarski, and the American neo-pragmatist and semiotic movement (Bridgman, Tolman and most notably, Charles Morris).25 _{By the beginning of the thirties, a}

research program had emerged with empiricist, physicalist and phenomenalist variants. (e.g., in Felix Kaufmann, the “phenomenologist” of the Vienna Circle, who had been influenced by Husserl, Kelsen and Carnap).26

Metho-FRIEDRICHSTADLER

XVI

denstreit) – all reflect the seminal methodological debates that were taking place in mathematics / logic (logicism, formalism, Platonism / intuitionism) and in the natural sciences and humanities.27 _{Undoubtedly, the strongest variant had}

emerged by 1934 from the Unity of Science movement spearheaded by Neurath, Carnap and later Morris. Their efforts culminated in six well-attended interna-tional congresses and the (uncompleted) publication project of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science.28 _{This theoretical dynamics and process of}

dif-ferentiation can be illustrated in light of several of the few surviving authentic Vienna Circle documents.29

To all appearances, we are confronted here with two diametrically opposed trends. While the international influence of the Vienna Circle was steadily growing, the group had been systematically marginalized in Austria and Ger-many starting in the early thirties. The murder of Moritz Schlick and the dis-graceful, for the most part anti-semitic, reactions to this, brutally ushered in the process which I have elsewhere described as the “demise of scientific reason”.30

This took place parallel to the general trend at universities, which at the time were increasingly coming under the influence of an growing anti-democratic and racist discourse dominated by clerical-fascist and national socialist forces. This development led to the “Anschluss” which culminated in systematic dismissals, banishment and annihilation.

II.

Thus far we have focused mainly on the core of the Vienna Circle – the so-called Schlick Circle – which we can describe as being a matter of applied complexity theory, so to avoid the usual clichés of “positivism” and “neopositivism”. The vitality and productivity of this group that transcended the boundaries of both disciplines and countries was, however, a product of the openness of the logico-empiricist program and the osmosis with the peripheral circles within the socio-cultural setting. By way of illustration, I would like to mention just the three most important networks that have been neglected in the pertinent literature or have recurrently prompted highly divergent interpretations:31

Karl Menger’s “Mathematical Colloquium” (“Gödel’s universe”)

The Wittgenstein group, including primarily Ludwig Wittgenstein, Moritz Schlick, and Friedrich Waismann

The Heinrich Gomperz-Circle, including Karl Popper and Edgar Zilsel, inter alia

WHAT IS THEVIENNACIRCLE? XVII

Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien” (Museum of Society and Economics in Vienna, 1925-1934) played an important role with its pictorial statistics (“Wiener Methode der Bildstatistik”) which were developed in exile as the “Isotype” movement as part of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science project.33

The intellectually fertile ground for all these activities was the remarkably strong participation of Vienna Circle members in the Viennese Adult Education insti-tutions.34

These external perspectives have no bearing on the various interpretations of the transition from Wittgenstein 1 to Wittgenstein 1½ to the late Wittgenstein of

Philosophical Investigations where, apart from the anti-Enlightenment thrust,

there are remarkable convergences with Neurath’s position in the Encyclopedia

of Unified Science. Here I would like to mention the language game conception

with its reference to habit, the so-called “scholar’s behavioristics” and “pseudo-rationalism”, all of which are part of the model of an empirical “orchestration of the sciences”.35 _{Since the first Vienna Circle, this fallibilistic concept represented}

for Neurath a basic motive of his critique of every type of unambiguous verifica-tion or falsificaverifica-tion, as well as of a hierarchical system of sciences with their ultimate foundation. With such a relativistic motive Neurath formulated on a number of different occasions as the well-known “boat metaphor”, which was thus mainly directed at the difficult, but successful newcomer Karl Popper. It was also formulated in a more dramatic way to counter the “semantic turn” of his friend Carnap who stood under the influence of Tarski and Wittgenstein. It was here that the absolutely unbridgeable rifts between philosophical relativism and absolutism became manifest.36

Here it should be mentioned that this controversy of philosophical relativism vs. absolutism continued even after the forced emigration of the Vienna Circle to the U.S, in Philipp Frank’s “Institute for the Unity of Science”; it was this dis-pute, by the way, that was reformulated with the so-called “Science Wars” in the late 1990s.37

I would also like to make some similar claims with regard to the perhaps more complex and emotion-laden relationship between Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle, since it continues to inform the current debates. This perspective has long been perpetuated in an uncritical way, most notably in Popper’s own accounts, in his teaching and in his research.38 _{Against this historical}

back-ground, the relationship between Karl Popper (1902-1994) and the Vienna Circle becomes easier to understand. In his widely-read autobiography Popper pre-sented – and subsequently criticized – the “Popper legend” in the chapter with the not so modest title: “Logical Positivism is dead: Who killed Logical Positivism?” 39

As already mentioned, the Vienna Circle did not represent a static, homoge-neous “school” of philosophy, with one dominant figure, one main work and ba-sic dogmas. The reception and appraisal of Popper’s ideas by different members thus very varied considerably: from positive reactions to the Logic of Scientific

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XVIII

criticism in Neurath. In his above cited review essay of 1935 Neurath had mainly taken issue with the false search for a privileged system of statements as the paradigm of empirical sciences.40 _{Popper found this decisive criticism rather}

“flattering”, although he did not, however, respond to Neurath’s counter-inter-pretation.41 _{Neurath had given preference to his meta-theoretical holism and an}

epistemological relativism as an alternative to the philosophical absolutism that even Popper himself conceded – and this in spite of the fact that, within the Vienna Circle, there were some like Viktor Kraft, Karl Menger, Kurt Gödel and Herbert Feigl who expressed their allegiance to variants of a metaphysical (con-structive) realism and intuitionism. Even Schlick, who – apparently for personal reasons – did not invite Popper to his circle on Boltzmanngasse, paid tribute to Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery by including it in the series “Schriften zur Wissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung”, which he and Frank edited.42

Thus the meaning criterion of verification, too, became increasingly liberal. From the mid-thirties on it hardly played a role anymore in the Encyclopedia of Unified Science. It had originally been intended more as a pragmatic concept of metaphysics (with Ockham’s razor as an antidote) during Vienna’s inter-war years. (Apart from that period, the history of verificationism was more represen-tative of the status of normal science).43

In the publications and protocols, the Vienna Circle inductivist and hy-pothetico-deductive methodologies seemed to co-exist. No strict distinction was made between context of justification and context of discovery, which allows us to draw the following conclusions – which are also of general import for the interpretation of Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism:

The history of the development of Logical Empiricist theories since the turn of the century does not allow any clear canonization of a philosophical school in the strict sense, since what we are dealing with is a dynamic between center and periphery. The varying receptions of Wittgenstein, Tarski and Popper have influ-enced the development of various philosophies of science inspired by rational re-construction, on the one hand, and by encyclopedic models on the other.

Thus, if I were a police commissioner, I would give the following answer to Popper’s rhetorical question: if it’s really true that the patient died, then there is more than one perpetrator, especially from within the circle, both disciples and critics alike. But this, of course, is a completely different story which should be told in another context.

III.

WHAT IS THEVIENNACIRCLE? XIX

THE VIENNA CIRCLE / LOGICAL EMPIRICISM ELEMENTS OF A RE-EVALUATION

1. Methods

a) Intradisciplinary: “Scientific Philosophy”

b) Interdisciplinary: “Scientific Conception of the World” – “Wissenschaftslogik” – Philosophy of Science – “Wissenschaftstheorie”

c) Transdisciplinary: “Encyclopedia of Unified Science” Foundations of the Unity of Science

d) Philosophy, Science and Art: Werkbund and Bauhaus

External Characteristic: “Coffeehouse Science” (Local and Global Networking) – Science as Culture

2. Scientific Communication

a) International: Urban Cultures of Science (Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, Budapest, Lvov, Copenhagen, Paris, Cambridge /Oxford, London ...)

b) Multi-ethnic: mainly enlightened Jewish and many Ethnics/Nationalities c) Multi-lingual: Communication /Publication in German, English, French, Italian,

Polish, Turkish

Characteristic: “Cultural Exodus” with Disintegration (from the German speaking World) – Internationalization (into the Anglo-Saxon World)

3. (Self-)Organization

a) Academic Field: Universities /Academy of Science

b) Extra-academic Context: Adult Education and Viennese Cultural Movement of “Spätaufklärung”: Popularisation of “Scientific World Conception”

Institutions: ‘Ernst Mach’-Society, Adult Educational Institutions (“Volks-hochschulen”), Pictorial Statistics /Isotype with the Social and Economic Museum (Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien)

c) Formal /Informal: Conferences, Lectures /Lecture Series, Seminars, Discussion Groups resp. Books /Book Series, Journals, Working Papers

Characteristic: Philosophy of Science as a sort of “Social Epistemology”

4. Sociology of Science and Knowledge

a) Men and Women: Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Olga Hahn-Neurath, Marie Jahoda, Marie Reidemeister-Neurath, Olga Taussky-Todd, Rose Rand, Hilde Geiringer-Mises, Susan Stebbing, Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum . . .

b) Several Generations and Professions: Professors (Distingushed Chairs /Associate/ Assistant), Students and Visiting Scholars from Abroad

Characteristic: “Republic of Scholars” (Neurath)

Result

FRIEDRICHSTADLER

XX

In addition to the well-known insights that still inform today’s history and phi-losophy of science (e.g., the explanation and validation of scientific theories; foundations and methods of science between induction and deduction; unity and plurality of science, and so on), I would like to emphasize other topical features of the Vienna Circle which meriting further study. Generally, we see the realiza-tion of a common fallibilistic epistemology that points to the hypothetical status of scientific knowledge which is only gradually integrated in everyday experi-ence and language (e.g., common sense). Therefore, the usage of symbolic logic did not contradict a scientific philosophy which is at the same time “a study in human understanding” (Richard von Mises 1951). And I am not reluctant to go back to the classical roots of the Vienna Circle by deliberately using the term ”methodological relativism”.44

First of all, it is a way of philosophizing based on a language-critical attitude and a great amount of problem-oriented, open-ended discussion. This is some-thing experienced personally by Arne Naess, who – as the last living member of the Schlick circle – focuses in this volume on the Vienna Circle’s “thought style” which, in (not only) his opinion, leads to an inherent “pluralism of tenable worldviews”.

Secondly, the use of unambiguous language, together with exact methods is certainly a main legacy of the Schlick Circle and those associated with it: it is only given this formal approach that content and positions can be criticized and refuted – a characteristic which most current modern and postmodern philoso-phies lack.

At least the challenge of factual research, and in particular the – admittedly, non-linear – advancement of science (the humanities and natural science) is an essential reason why the tension between science and philosophy (empiricism and rationalism) cannot be resolved definitively. However, the reconciliation of research in different fields of science facilitates permanent reflection and re-evaluation of the complex concept called “scientific philosophy”.

This reconciliation began in the classical period with its international and in-terdisciplinary networking, without aiming at one more philosophical dogmatic tradition (which is, by the way, normally characterized by an authoritative head, some leading textbooks and a hierarchical organization covering a limited num-ber of academic fields.)

WHAT IS THEVIENNACIRCLE? XXI NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Karl Menger, “Ist die Quadratur des Kreises lösbar?” (“Is it Possible to Square the Circle?”), in:

Alte Probleme – Neue Lösungen in den exakten Wissenschaften. Fünf Wiener Vorträge, Zweiter Zyklus. Leipzig & Wien 1934, 1-28.

Barry Smith, Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology. Munich: Philosophia 1982. Peter Simons, Parts. A Study in Ontology. Oxford University Press 1987.

An abridged reprint in English translation in: Otto Neurath. Empiricism and Sociology. Ed. by Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen. Dordrecht: Reidel 1973, 299-318.

Albert Blumberg /Herbert Feigl, “Logical Positivism”, in: Journal of Philosophy 28, 1931, 281-296.

Members of the inner circle: Gustav Bergmann, Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Kurt Goedel, Hans Hahn, Olga Hahn-Neurath, Béla Juhos, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft, Karl Menger, Richard von Mises, Otto Neurath, Rose Rand, Josef Schächter, Moritz Schlick, Olga Taussky-Todd, Friedrich Waismann, Edgar Zilsel. Members of the periphery are: Alfred Jules Ayer, Egon Brunswik, Karl Bühler, Josef Frank, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Heinrich Gomperz, Carl Gustav Hempel, Eino Kaila, Hans Kelsen, Charles W. Morris, Arne Naess, Karl R. Popper, Willard Van Orman Quine, Frank P. Ramsey, Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Reidemeister, Alfred Tarski, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Regarding the relation of Schlick and Neurath cf.: Rudolf Haller (Ed.), Schlick und Neurath. Ein Symposium. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1982.

As to the network with Berlin, Warsaw and Prague: Rudolf Haller / Friedrich Stadler (Eds.),

Wien – Berlin – Prag. Der Aufstieg der wissenschaftlichen Philosophie. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1993; Lutz Danneberg /Andreas Kamlah /Lothar Schäfer (Hrsg.), Hans Reichenbach und die Berliner Gruppe. Braunschweig-Wiesbaden: Vieweg 1994. Klemens Szaniawski (Ed.),

The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1989; Francesco Coniglione, Roberto Poli, Jan Wolenski (Eds.), Polish Scientific Philosophy. The Lvov-Warsaw School. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi 1993; Katarzyna Kijania-Placek and Jan Wolenski (Eds.), The Lvov-Warsaw School and Contemporary Philosophy. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1998; Jan Wolenski, Essay in the History of Logic and Logical Philosophy.

Cracow: Jagiellonian University Press 1999.

Gustav Bergmann, “Memories of the Vienna Circle. Letter to Otto Neurath (1938)”, in: Friedrich Stadler (Ed.), Scientific Philosophy. Origins and Developments. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1993, 207.

Cf. Volker Thurm-Nemeth (Hrsg.), Konstruktion zwischen Werkbund und Bauhaus. Wissen-schaft – Architektur – Wiener Kreis. Wien: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky 1998; Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (Hrsg.), Fiction in Science - Science in Fiction . Zum Gespräch zwischen Literatur und Wissenschaft. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1998.

To mention only two examples. Ronald Giere and Alan Richardson (Eds.), Origins of Logical Empiricism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1996; Gary Hardcastle /Alan Richard-son (Eds.), Logical Empiricism in North America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2003.

Cf. Michael Friedman, “Logical Positivism”, and Friedrich Stadler, ”Vienna Circle”, both in:

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London-New York 2000.

As general reference cf.: Friedrich Stadler, The Vienna Circle. Studies in the Origins, Develop-ment, and Influence of Logical Empiricism. Wien-New York: Springer 2001.

Cf. Karl Menger, “A Counterpart of Ockham’s Razor”, and ”Geometry and Positivism. A Posi-tivistic Microgeometry”, in: Karl Menger, Selected Papers in Logic and Foundations, Didac-tics, Economics. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Reidel 1979, 105-135, 225-234.

Uni-FRIEDRICHSTADLER XXII 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

versity Press 1999; Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways. Carnap, Cassirer, and Heideg-ger. Chicago and La Salle, Ill.: Open Court 2000; Alan W. Richardson, Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Cambridge University Press 1998.

Thomas Uebel, Vernunftkritik und Wissenschaft: Otto Neurath und der Erste Wiener Kreis.

Wien-New York: Springer 2000.

Cited in: Stadler, The Vienna Circle, op.cit., 196.

Karl Menger, Ergebnisse eines Mathematischen Kolloquiums. Ed. by E. Dierker and K. Sigmund. Wien-New York: Springer 1998; Karl Menger, Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle and the Mathematical Colloquium. Ed. by Louise Golland, Brian McGuinness and Abe Sklar. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1994.

First Publication: Willard Van Orman Quine, ”Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in: Philosophical Review 60, 1951,20-43.

Jan Wolenski and Eckehart Köhler (Eds.), Alfred Tarski and the Vienna Circle. Austro-Polish Connections in Logical Empiricism. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1999.

Moritz Schlick, “The Turning Point in Philosophy” (1930), in: Schlick, Philosophical Papers.

Ed by H.Mulder and Barbara F.B. van der Velde-Schlick. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Reidel 1979, 154-160.

Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1967. Translated by Rolf George.

Cf.: Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler (Eds.), Encyclopedia and Utopia. The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882-1945). Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1996.

Cf. Friedrich Stadler, “Transfer and Transformation of Logical Empiricism”, in: Giere/ Richardson (Eds.), op.cit, and “The Wiener Kreis in Great Britain: Emigration and Interaction in the Philosophy of Science”, in: Edward Timms / Jon Hughes (Eds.), Intellectual Migration and Cultural Transformation. Wien-New York: Springer 2002.

Cf. Gerald Holton, “From the Vienna Circle to the Harvard Square”, in: Stadler, Scientific Philosophy op.cit., 47-73.

Friedrich Stadler (Hrsg.), Phänomenologie und Logischer Empirismus. Zentenarium Felix Kauf-mann. Wien-New York: Springer 1997; Clemens Jabloner / Friedrich Stadler (Eds.), Logischer Empirismus und Reine Rechtslehre. Beziehungen zwischen dem Wiener Kreis und der Hans Kelsen-Schule. Wien-New York: Springer 2001.

Cf. The Foundational Debate. Complexity and Constructivity in Mathematics and Physics. Ed. by Werner DePauli-Schimanovich, Eckehart Köhler and Friedrich Stadler. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1995.

Otto Neurath / Rudolf Carnap / Charles Morris (Eds.), Foundations of the Unity of Science. Towards an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. 2 Volumes. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London 1970f.

Cf. the protocols of the Schlick Circle and the theses of the Vienna Circle as reported by Rose Rand in: Stadler, The Vienna Circle, op.cit., ch. 7.1.

Friedrich Stadler/Peter Weibel (Eds.), The Cultural Exodus from Austria / Vertreibung der Ver-nunft. Wien-New York: Springer 1995.

A reconstruction in detail in: Stadler, The Vienna Circle, op.cit., chapters 8-10.

Stadler, ibid., ch. 7.2, and John Blackmore (Ed.), Ernst Mach – A Deeper Look. Documents and Perspectives. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 1992: John Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki, Setsuko Tanaka (Eds.), Ernst Mach’s Vienna 1895-1930 or Phenomenalism as Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer 2001.

Nemeth /Stadler (eds.), Encyclopedia and Utopia, op.cit., section III.

The following members lectured and instructed courses in several institutions (“Volks-hochschulen”): Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft, Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann, and Edgar Zilsel.

WHAT IS THEVIENNACIRCLE? XXIII

36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

Vienna Circle Institute Museumstraße 5/2/19 A-1070 Vienna Austria

Friedrich.Stadler@univie.ac.at

Otto Neurath, “Pseudorationalism of Falsification”, in: ibid., 121-131. From an Popperian point of view cf.: Malachi H. Hacohen, Karl Popper – The Formative Years. 1902-1945. Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna. Cambridge University Press 2000.

Cf. Friedrich Stadler, “Challenging the Dogma of the Ahistorical Philosophy of Science: The Case of Relativism”, in: Jutta Schickore / Friedrich Steinle (Eds.), Revisiting Discovery and Justification. Berlin: Max Plack Institute for the History of Science 2002. (Preprint 211). Regarding a contextual reconstruction of Heinrich Gomperz, Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle: Stadler, The Vienna Circle, op.cit, ch. 10, and Martin Seiler / Friedrich Stadler (Hrsg.),

Heinrich Gomperz, Karl Popper und die österreichische Philosophie. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi 1994.

In: The Philosophy of Karl Popper. Ed. by P.A. Schilpp. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court 1974, 3-181. By the way, popper never replied to this decisive criticism, cf. Stadler, The Vienna Circle,

op.cit., Interview with Sir Karl Popper (1991), 474-497.

Ibid., 487.

Letter Schlick to Frank, June 9, 1933. Vienna Circle Archives, Haarlem, Holland.

ARNENAESS

P

LURALISM OF

T

ENABLE

W

ORLD

V

IEWS

I shall try to outline a philosophical point which I think might be acceptable from a combined logical and empirical point of view. From the world view (

wissen-schaftliche Weltauffassung) to the manifoldness (Mannigfaltigkeit) of tenable world views.

In the following, I consider humans as not insignificant parts of the world. Different views about humanity therefore imply different world views. A second premise I assume increases the manifold of which I speak. By “scientific” I do not here mean something like “implied by science” but a weaker contention: “compatible with science”.

What about religious views if a weaker contention is adopted? The formi-dable development of Christian theology since Søren Kierkegaard has reduced earlier tendencies to assume that there must be a conflict between Christian and scientific general views. The number of what were called Christian dogmas is reduced. Here I shall only suggest that this development – plus the considerable increase in the number of people who favor a sort of Buddhism – increases com-patibility. But I find it premature to take up the many implied relevant questions. The only remark I tentatively make is that those questions suggest a possible scientific acceptability of certain world views which have a strong religious flavour.

Logical empiricists, as I understood their Weltauffassung, suggested a view of the world derivable from scientific knowledge. Because scientific knowledge – apart from mathematics and logic – was clearly considered hypothetical, the status of a definite articulation of such a view would, by necessity, be rather hypothetical.

One way to delimit the use of the term “science” is by assuming that it only comprises the natural sciences. In what follows, I include a large part of the humanities. Historical research is scientific in the fairly large sense to which I subscribe. A world view that clearly negates results of historical research is not a world view compatible with science. Historiography, the streamlined accounts of enormously complicated happenings, need not be compatible with scientific method. Two mutually incompatible accounts of a revolution may both be excellent, but not part of a science.

Suppose somebody asks you: “What is your world view?”, suggesting that he or she would write an article or a book describing (and criticising?) it. It is fairly clear that what would be considered an adequate answer would have to take into consideration that person’s value priorities. We should demand of a descripton of

3

F. Stadler (ed.), The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism: Re-evaluation and Future Perspectives,

3–7.

4 ARNE NAESS

a world view actually held by a human being that it take into account his or her value priorities. The logical empiricists took this seriously. Especially when political issues were being discussed, they outlined value priority views which were simply “dangerous”. That is, the increasingly powerful national socialist movement made public assertions of opposite views likely to result in repressive attacks, sometimes even in incarceration in a concentration camp.

The pertinent answer to the formidable question “What is your world view?” will assume different forms: if you and your family are politically repressed, or if you are engaged in a dangerous fight against oppressors, your world will be narrower. If you live in a peaceful country like Norway, and you are without severe political or personal problems, perhaps only then are you likely to take very broad questions such as those of cosmology seriously. Incidentally, de-scriptions of what is going on in the cosmos by professional cosmologists tend to be talk about vast, unimaginable explosions within vast areas of time. This may not give rise to dark or pessimistic, tenable world views.

The formidable power of the Catholic Church in Vienna was felt in everyday life. Traffic came to a halt when some religious procession required considerable space in the streets. I remember such an occasion in which traffic came to a complete standstill because a ‘relic’, a piece of bone that might possibly have belonged to Christ, was triumphantly paraded through the city. At least one of the logical empiricists, Otto Neurath, had respect for and perhaps was jealous of, the power of the Church. He admired certain trends within the philosophical tra-ditions of Catholicism. He insisted that especially Thomas Aquinas, but also other theologians developed their ideas on a remarkably high logical level. For certain axioms, they derived conclusions in a logically safe way. It was not by chance that Otto Neurath again and again warned against what he called exces-sive respect for mathematics and logic: “Logic? Leave it to the Catholic experts!”. He himself had great competence in logic and the history of logic, but having been active in politics – not without serious consequences (prison) – he warned against trying to formulate logical empiricist political views on a high logical level. These views were, as could be expected in the 1930s, mostly socialist and sometimes Marxist.

PLURALISM OF TENABLEWORLDVIEWS 5

consistent research attitude. (After all, there are innumerable questions we pose which are not even very thinly covered by painstaking research.) There is not much vitally relevant science to point to. Propaganda for more such research, and a more consistent research attitude, are both essential. The metaphysics of Spinoza includes a definition of freedom and of free choice. Very roughly, a decision is free according to him when taken under no external pressure whatsoever. But “God” (Deus) is defined in such a way that it does not invite research. If we start with the last part of the Ethics, and not the formidable first part, we are open for research and redefinition of terms. This, in turn, facilitates an intense research attitude in relation to metaphysical texts in general. From the last – the fifth – part, we may proceed to the broad, fourth part. Every point there has a practical, a life import. In short, it is possible to maintain a research atti-tude, even when interpreting and applying the “dense” metaphysics of Spinoza. When I was staying in Carnap’s home in California, this was one of the themes of our daily discussion.

On entering the Schlick seminar in Vienna in 1934, I presented myself as a kind of Spinozist. Spinoza enjoyed, of course, a high standing among the semi-nar members, but philosophy the way Spinoza practised it was of course fully, totally, decisively a matter of the past. So it was considered touching and in a way, admirable, to be a kind of Spinozist, but philosophically it was centuries too late.

What I am driving at is a complete acceptance of the kind of metaphysical formulations of a philosopher like Spinoza. That is, acceptance of their meaning-fulness. But as for the kind of understandable contemporary articulations which would today be nearest to the meaning of his formulations is an open question. Different sets of answers would play a role in outlining different Spinozist world views. They would present examples of “scientifically” acceptable, mutually more or less incompatible world views.

Studying Immanuel Kant’s texts, we may arrive at similar, or at least analo-gous, conclusions. Considering the great number of mutually incompatible nine-teenth century and later Kant interpretations, we might point to the possibility of a variety of modern Kantian world views.

6 ARNENAESS

What I am suggesting is the acceptance of the existence of a variety of different world views, all compatible with science. But it should also be added that the research centering on this diversity reveals the very serious difficulty of finding a vocabulary or a terminology that, at least not entirely superficially, de-scribes the cognitive content of each of the different world views. The deeper the differences, the more difficult it is to find a terminology that makes a survey possible.

Why is the richness of world views today perhaps more important for the future of humanity than ever before? Because, as I see it, vast globalization is inevitable. What by many people is believed to be – on the whole – a great advantage, might turn into a calamity in my view. War becomes more unlikely because war within a closed system of globalised economic liberalism will rightly be seen as a threat to that very economic system. But the likelihood of people and societies with a pronounced tendency to maintain clearly different world views decreases. The intensity of human interaction crossing all borders may foster a certain level of Gleichschaltung, a tendency for a decrease in the diversity of world views realised and acted upon at any definite time.

In the 1930s there was in Europe a decrease in the diversity of world views because of the intense focus on (Soviet) communism versus anti-communism, and Nazism versus anti-Nazism. Today, other factors tend to limit diversity. The globalization of technology and perhaps the intensification of interaction through e-mail and chatting on the Internet?

PLURALISM OF TENABLEWORLDVIEWS 7

doomsday prophets. Much of what they say is of some interest. It is only their radical negative predictions that need not be taken very seriously.

Could the study of the remarkable influence of logical empiricism in the thirties help to instigate a comparable movement today? We talk about a global “green” movement. Within that movement a diversity of world views is power-fully presented. One is that of favoring “a rich life with simple means”. It presumes that people have fairly clear value priorities. Instead of mathematics and formal logic being studied with special intensity, there would be studies of “life quality”, how one feels about oneself and the world. Comparative studies of what makes people feel well, of course, including the study of feeling well in the

economically poor countries, are relevant. Logical empiricism was acutely

con-troversial from the first moment. To the extent that such a reception is inevitable, it is highly suspicious if a movement does not at least start as a controversial phenomenon. The green movement called “deep ecology” was for many years highly controversial. But at a fairly recent international congress in Melbourne, Australia, it appeared to be fairly, if not totally, uncontroversial. At the same conference, the following question became more pertinent: “But what can be done to change politics in a green direction?” That question refers to problems not directly attacked by the deep ecology movement as such. Logical empiricists certainly were fully aware of the necessity of being politically active. Are they comparably healthy movements today? I don’t think there are any, but it is important for many of us to try to influence movements we wish well to reach the high level of creative dialogue and sober mutual respect in spite of differ-ences of opinion which characterized the logical empirical movement.

Centre for Development and Environment University of Oslo, Box 1116 Blindern N-0317 Oslo

Norway

PAOLOPARRINI

O

N THE

F

ORMATION OF

L

OGICAL

E

MPIRICISM

1. THE STATUS QUAESTIONIS

During the discussion between D. Howard and T. Oberdan at the 1991 Confer-ence, organized in Konstanz for the centenary of Carnap’s and Reichenbach’s birth, the following question was posed: is it possible to see Schlick’s Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre as an anticipation of the theses that later characterized the Vienna Circle (which was formed around Schlick himself) and that were formu-lated by its members taking into consideration also Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s ideas?1

This question refers to the existence of a first Vienna Circle and the nature of the relationship between this first group and the ‘real’ Vienna Circle. T. Uebel has re-examined this second question in a paper recently presented at the Floren-tine conference on Logical Empiricism (1999). Looking at it from an interesting perspective, he aims at singling out the characteristics of Logical Empiricism as a distinctive school of philosophical thought. More precisely, he asks himself whether it was simply another version of neo-Kantian philosophy and, if not, what other elements were present. In order to provide an answer, he discusses again the relationship between the Austrian and German-Kantian components underlying the movement and links his paper to the recent debate on the distinc-tion between analytic and continental philosophy.

According to Uebel, “it was the co-operation of the members” of the “early circle of philosophically minded Austrian scientists – the mathematician Hans Hahn, the physicist Philipp Frank and the economist Otto Neurath – with the scientifically trained German philosophers Moritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap that accounted for the distinctive force of Viennese Logical Empiricism”. This can be clearly seen – he states – when we look at the positions taken by Schlick in the Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (19181_{, 1925}2_{). Uebel explicitly says, though,}

that in his reconstruction he does not take into consideration the Berlin strand of Logical Empiricism2_.

I intend here to discuss this very same set of questions showing how the analysis of the evolution of the ideas of the main member of the Berlin Circle – H. Reichenbach – and thus of the more German branch of the neo-empiricist movement, can bring to light some interesting elements. Important indications can be found in the philosophy of geometry he developed in Philosophie der

9

F. Stadler (ed.). The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism: Re-evaluation and Future Perspectives,

9–20.

10 PAOLO PARRINI

Raum-Zeit-Lehre (1928). More precisely, I will try to show that the analysis of the debate on Kantism that divided Reichenbach and Schlick in the early 1920s at the time of their discussion on the theory of relativity, and the analysis of Reichenbach’s subsequent change of perspective on the nature of “coordinative principles” are enlightening on two relevant points that are closely related to Howard’s, Oberdan’s and Uebel’s above-mentioned interpretations: (i) the rela-tionship between Kantism and Conventionalism within Logical Empiricism; (ii) the role played by typically neo-empiricistic ideas such as the verification prin-ciple and the thesis of the tautological nature of logic – ideas which are more of an ‘analytic’ than of a ‘continental’ nature – regarding the possibility of using French Conventionalism in a strictly empiricistic sense and not in a neo-Kantian one.

My final goal is to show that we cannot understand Logical Empiricism’s development if, as traditional interpretations did, we focus our attention only on the positions developed under the influence of Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s ideas, thereby ignoring the Kantian and Conventionalist heritage of the move-ment. On the other hand, in order to show the importance of these components, we must not overlook the ‘other half of the apple’: the conceptual reorganisation brought about by a reconsideration of some old problems in light of the new theoretical approach linked to the coming to the fore of some theses (verification principle and linguistic theory of the a priori) which are the consequence of the impact of Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s ideas interpreted from an empiricistic perspective.

2. SCHLICK’SCRITICISM OF IMMANENCEPHILOSOPHIESAND

REICHENBACH’SCONCEPTION OF THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE

To illustrate my point, I will first focus on the criticism Schlick made in the first edition of Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918) against immanence philosophies, in particular Schuppe’s immanentism, on the basis of his conception of knowl-edge intended as coordination.

In criticizing Schuppe’s immanentism, Schlick says that it is “quite clear that thought, in the sense relevant to knowledge, signifies nothing but the designation

of objects. But that an object is not produced by our giving it a designation – indeed, it is independent of it and can exist without our correlating some sign or representation with it – is all contained in the very concept of designation. The above fallacy would never have been committed if the two meanings of the word ‘thought’ had been kept apart by assigning different terms to them”3_.

charac-ON THE FORMATION OF LOGICALEMPIRICISM 11

terized as transcendent objects and even called by the Kantian expression “Dinge an sich” (things-in-themselves).

In Reichenbach’s conception, which differs from Schlick’s, the equation of the process of ‘knowing’ to a process of unique coordination could be used to explain why the object of knowledge, constituting some sort of non-metaphysical ‘transcendence’, remains nevertheless ‘immanent’ with respect to the presuppo-sitions of the cognitive process. In his 1920 essay Relativitätstheorie und Er-kenntnis Apriori, Reichenbach used the characterization of knowledge elaborated by Schlick partly to reject and partly to accept Kant’s conception of the a priori.

Here the coordinative conventions mentioned by Schlick are treated as “con-stitutive principles”. They are introduced and characterized in contrast to par-ticular laws by calling into question their constitutive value with respect to the objects of knowledge: in “contrast to particular laws” (or “axioms of connection” [Verknüpfungsaxiome]), these constitutive principles (or “coordinating princi-ples”, “axioms of coordination” [Zuordnungsaxiome]), “do not say what is known in the individual case, but how knowledge is obtained; they define the knowable, [...] they show the order rules according to which knowledge is obtained and indicate the conditions the logical satisfaction of which leads to knowledge.”

For Reichenbach, in the process of knowing, one of the two sides of knowl-edge – ‘the real’ – “is defined by coordination with the equations”. The object of knowledge thus constitutes itself in a way which is immanent with respect to the coordination principles. Its transcendence is due to the fact (devoid of any meta-physical connotations) that it is susceptible to a potentially unlimited number of empirical determinations4_.

In Schlick’s conception of knowledge, the elements of one of the ends of the cognitive connection (concepts and judgments) are coordinated with the ele-ments of the other end (objects and facts) by means of the introduction of suit-able connections of a definitional and conventional nature. It is by means of these kinds of connections (usual, concrete, implicit and coordinative conven-tions) that we make the association between the apparatus of symbols and the entities (objects and facts) that concepts and judgements have to designate.

What remains valid in Reichenbach is Schlick’s idea of knowledge as coor-dination or designation, and truth as unique coorcoor-dination or designation. The elements of the two ends of the coordination, though, are not conceived as pre-existing to the coordination itself: coordination connections have a function in the constitution of the objects of knowledge.

12 PAOLOPARRINI

3. THE DISAGREEMENTBETWEENSCHLICK AND REICHENBACH ONKANTIANPHILOSOPHY AND CONVENTIONALISM

This divergence of opinions on the object of knowledge refers back to their well-known disagreement regarding the way in which they rejected Kantian synthetic a priori judgements.

Reichenbach distinguished between two different meanings of the concept of a priori: 1) a priori in the sense of“‘necessarily true’ or ‘true for all times’”, and thus of absolutely independent of experience; 2) a priori, in the sense of“‘ con-stituting the concept of object’”, that is, the principle that forms the object of sci-entific knowledge, more specifically of physics. The theory of relativity shows the indefensibility of the first notion of a priori, but not of the second5_.

On the contrary, since the years of the first edition of Allgemeine

Erkenntnis-lehre, Schlick did not seem willing to concede anything to Kantianism. On this

point he criticizes both Cassirer and Reichenbach, and maintains that the essen-tial characteristic of the Kantian synthetic a priori is the connection, in the very same concept, between the apodeictic certainty and the constitutive value. Con-sequently, he does not make a distinction between the two meanings of Kantian synthetic a priori, thereby avoiding its adoption in any of its two senses. The more general and abstract component of scientific knowledge should be assimi-lated not in Kantian constitutive principles (even if devoid of any apodeictic validity) but to very general hypotheses or to conventions as defined by Poincaré6_{. And if we ask ourselves what ‘convention’ in Poincaré’s sense}

means, the only sensible answer we can give is that we must be talking about conventions of a linguistic-definitional nature – conventions the task of which consists in establishing scientific language regarding the formulation of both scientific facts and laws. Poincaré explicitly states this thesis in his pages on geometry and in his polemic against Eduard Le Roy’s radical conventionalism (“nominalism”).7

ONTHE FORMATION OF LOGICALEMPIRICISM 13

The terms of their disagreement were thus as profound and strong as the terms of their agreement. Despite this, in the early 1920s both authors gradually developed a more similar perspective that aimed especially at defending – in contrast to Kant and Cassirer’s neo-Kantianism – ‘the contingent nature of the cognitive synthesis’, in other words, the idea – related to the thesis of the inde-pendence of perception of reason – that the very same possibility of coordinating concepts to experiences and obtaining a unique coordination (truth) depends on experience. This possibility has been proven by now, but we cannot demonstrate a priori its necessity8_{. All this is indicated by the numerous letters they}

ex-changed on this topic between September and December 1920, as well as by the conclusive comment on their discussion made by Reichenbach in “Der gegen-wätige Stand der Relativitätsdiskussion”.9

4. THE ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY AND CONGRUENCE IN“PHILOSOPHIE DER RAUM-ZEIT-LEHRE”

I think that the disagreement between Schlick and Reichenbach was not of an ex-clusively terminological nature. It was more related to the question of whether it is possible to understand the cognitive process by taking recourse to only two components, experience and linguistic conventions (including coordinative c