Vienna Circle - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Vienna Circle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1 of 13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Circle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Vienna Circle (German: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of philosophers and scientists
drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the
University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Schlick.
1 Overview
2 History of the Vienna Circle
2.1 The First Vienna Circle (19071912)
2.2 The Formative Years (19181924)
2.3 The Non-Public Phase of the Vienna Circle The
Schlick-Circle (19241928)
2.4 The Public Phase Schlick Circle and Verein Ernst
Mach (19281934)
2.5 Disintegration, Emigration, Internationalization
(19341938)
2.6 Overview of the members of the Vienna Circle
2.7 Reception in the United States and the United
Kingdom
3 Topics and Debates
3.1 The Manifesto (1929)
3.2 Unified science
3.3 The Critique of Metaphysics
4 Congresses and publications
5 Institute Vienna Circle
6 Bibliography
6.1 Primary Literature
6.2 Secondary Literature
7 See also
8 External links
9 Notes
Entrance to the Mathematical Seminar

at the University of Vienna,
Boltzmanngasse 5. Meeting place of
the Vienna Circle.
Among the members of the inner circle were Schlick, Hans Hahn, Philipp Frank, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap,
Herbert Feigl, Richard von Mises, Karl Menger, Kurt Gdel, Friedrich Waismann, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft
and Edgar Zilsel. In addition, the Vienna Circle was occasionally visited by Alfred Tarski, Hans Reichenbach,
Carl Gustav Hempel, Willard Van Orman Quine, Ernest Nagel, Alfred Jules Ayer and Frank P. Ramsey.[1]
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper were in close contact to the Vienna Circle, but never participated in the
meetings of the Schlick-Circle.[2][3]
The philosophical position of the Vienna Circle was called Logical Empiricism (German: Logischer
Empirismus), Logical Positivism or Neopositivism. It was influenced by Ernst Mach, David Hilbert, French
08/10/2015 14:45
2 of 13
Conventionalism (Henri Poincar and Pierre Duhem), Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein
and Albert Einstein. The Vienna Circle was pluralistic and committed to the ideals of Enlightenment. It was
unified by the aim of making philosophy scientific with the help of modern logic. Main topics were foundational
debates in the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics, the modernization of empiricism by modern
logic, the search for an empiricist criterion of meaning, the critique of metaphysics and the unification of the
sciences in the unity of science.[4]
The Vienna Circle appeared in public with the publication of various book series Schriften zur
wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), Einheitswissenschaft
(Unified Science) and the journal Erkenntnis and the organization of international conferences in Prague,
Kaliningrad, Paris, Copenhagen, Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, Mass. Its public profile was provided by the
Ernst Mach Society (German: Verein Ernst Mach) through which members of the Vienna Circle sought to
popularize their ideas in the context of programmes for national education in Vienna.
During the era of Austrofascism and after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany most members of the
Vienna Circle were forced to emigrate. The murder of Schlick in 1936 by a former student put an end to the
Vienna Circle in Austria.
The Vienna Circle's influence on 20th-century philosophy, especially philosophy of science and analytic
philosophy is immense up to the present day.
The history and development of the Vienna Circle shows various stages:[5]
The First Vienna Circle (19071912)

The pre-history of the Vienna Circle began with meetings on the philosophy of science and epistemology from
1908[6] on, promoted by Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath.[7]
Hans Hahn, the oldest of the three (18791934), was a mathematician. He received his degree in mathematics in
1902. Afterwards he studied under the direction of Ludwig Boltzmann in Vienna and David Hilbert, Felix Klein
and Hermann Minkowski in Gttingen. In 1905 he received the Habilitation in mathematics. He taught at
Innsbruck (19051906) and Vienna (from 1909).
Otto Neurath (18821945) studied mathematics, political economy, and history in Vienna and Berlin. 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 (18841966), studied physics at Gttingen and Vienna with Ludwig
Boltzmann, David Hilbert and Felix Klein. From 1912, he held the chair of theoretical physics in the German
University in Prague.
Their meetings were held in Viennese coffeehouses from 1907 onward. Frank remembered:
After 1910 there began in Vienna a movement which regarded Mach's positivist philosophy of
science as having great importance for general intellectual life [...] An attempt was made by a
group of young men to retain the most essential points of Mach's positivism, especially his
stand against the misuse of metaphysics in science. [...] To this group belonged the
08/10/2015 14:45
3 of 13
mathematician H. Hahn, the political economist Otto Neurath, and the author of this book [i.e.
Frank], at the time an instructor in theoretical physics in Vienna. [...] We tried to supplement
Mach's ideas by those of the French philosophy of science of Henri Poincar and Pierre
Duhem, and also to connect them with the investigations in logic of such authors as Couturat,
Schrder, Hilbert, etc.
Uebel, Thomas, 2003, p.70.
A number of further authors were discussed in the meetings such as Brentano, Meinong, Helmholtz, Hertz,
Husserl, Freud, Russell, Whitehead, Lenin and Frege.[8]
Presumably the meetings stopped in 1912, when Frank went to Prague, to hold the chair of theoretical physics
left vacant by Albert Einstein. Hahn left Vienna during World War I and returned in 1921.
The Formative Years (19181924)

The formation of the Vienna Circle began with Hahn returning to Vienna in 1921.[9] Together with the
mathematician Kurt Reidemeister he organized seminars on Ludwig Wittgensteins Tractatus logicophilosophicus and on Whitehead and Russells Principia Mathematica.
With the support of Hahn, Moritz Schlick was appointed to the chair of philosophy of the inductive sciences at
the University of Vienna in 1922 the chair formerly held by Ernst Mach and partly by Boltzmann. Schlick had
already published two important works Raum und Zeit in die gegenwrtigen Physik (Space and Time in
contemporary Physics) in 1917 and Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (General Theory of Knowledge) in 1918.
Immediately after Schlicks arrival in Vienna, he organized discussions with the mathematicians around Hahn. In
1924 Schlicks students Friedrich Waismann and Herbert Feigl suggested to their teacher a sort of regular
evening circle. From winter term 1924 on regular meetings were held at the Institute of Mathematics in
Viennas Boltzmanngasse 5 on personal invitation by Schlick. These discussions can be seen as the beginning of
the Vienna Circle.[10]
The Non-Public Phase of the Vienna Circle The Schlick-Circle (19241928)

The group that met from 1924 on was quite diverse and included not only recognized scientists such as Schlick,
Hahn, Kraft, Philipp Frank, Neurath, Olga Hahn-Neurath, and Heinrich Gomperz, but also younger students and
doctoral candidates.[11] In addition, the group invited foreign visitors.
In 1926 Schlick and Hahn arranged to bring Rudolf Carnap to the University of Vienna as a Privatdozent
(private lecturer). Carnaps Logical Structure of the World was intensely discussed in the Circle.
Also Wittgensteins Tractatus logico-philosophicus was read out loud and discussed. From 1927 on personal
meetings were arranged between Wittgenstein and Schlick, Waismann, Carnap and Feigl.[12]
The Public Phase Schlick Circle and Verein Ernst Mach (19281934)
In 1928 the Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society) was founded, with Schlick as its chairman.[13] The aim of
the society was the spreading of a scientific world conception through public lectures that were in large part
held by members of the Vienna Circle.[14]
In 1929 the Vienna Circle made its first public appearance under this name invented by Neurath[15] - with the
08/10/2015 14:45
4 of 13
publication of its manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (The Scientific Conception of
the World. The Vienna Circle also known as Viewing the World Scientifically: The Vienna Circle[16]) The
pamphlet is dedicated to Schlick, and its preface was signed by Hahn, Neurath and Carnap.
The manifesto was presented at the Tagung fr Erkenntnislehre der exakten Wissenschaften (Conference on
the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences) in autumn 1929, organized by the Vienna Circle together with the
Berlin Circle. This conference was the first international appearance of Logical Empiricism and the first of a
number of conferences: Kaliningrad (1930), Prague (1934), Paris (1935), Copenhague (1936), Cambridge, UK
(1938), Cambridge, Mass. (1939), and Chicago (1941).
In 1930 the Vienna Circle and the Berlin Society took over the journal Annalen der Philosophie and made it the
main journal of Logical Empiricism under the title Erkenntnis, ed. by Carnap and Reichenbach. Besides, the
Vienna Circle published a number of book series: Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung
(Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception, ed. by Schlick und Frank, 1928-1937),[17]
Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science, ed. by Neurath, 1933-1939), and later the International Encyclopedia
of Unified Science (ed. by Neurath, Carnap and Charles W. Morris, 1938-1970).
Disintegration, Emigration, Internationalization (19341938)

Since the beginning of the 1930s first signs of disintegration appeared for political and racist reasons: Herbert
Feigl left Austria in 1930. Carnap was appointed to a chair at Prague University in 1931 and left for Chicago in
1935.
1934 marks an important break: Hahn died after surgery, Neurath fled to Holland because of the victory of
Austrofascism in the Austrian Civil War following which the Ernst Mach Society was dissolved for political
reasons by the Schuschnigg regime.
The murder of Moritz Schlick by the former student Hans Nelbck for political and personal reasons in 1936 set
an end to the meetings of the Schlick Circle.[18]
Some members of the circle such as Kraft, Waismann, Zilsel, Menger and Gomperz continued to meet
occasionally. But the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938 meant the definite end of the activities of
the Vienna Circle in Austria.[19]
With the emigration went along the internationalization of Logical Empiricism. Many former members of the
Vienna Circle and der Berlin Circle emigrated to the Anglosphere where they had an immense influence on the
development of philosophy of science. The unity of science movement for the construction of an International
Encyclopedia of Unified Science, promoted mainly by Neurath, Carnap, and Morris, is symptomatic of the
internationalization of Logical Empiricism, organizing numerous international conferences and the publication of
the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science.[20]
Overview of the members of the Vienna Circle

Apart from the central figures of the Schlick Circle the question of membership in the Vienna Circle is in many
cases unsettled. The partition into members and those sympathetic to the Vienna Circle produced in the
manifesto from 1929 is representative only of a specific moment in the development of the Circle.[21] Depending
on the criteria used (regular attendance, philosophical affinities etc.) there are different possible distributions in
inner circle and periphery.
In the following list (in alphabetical order), the inner circle is defined using the criterion of regular attendance.
08/10/2015 14:45
5 of 13
The periphery comprises occasional visitors, foreign visitors and leading intellectual figures who stood in
regular contact with the Circle (such as Wittgenstein and Popper).[22]
Inner Circle: Gustav Bergmann, Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Kurt Gdel, Hans Hahn, Olga
Hahn-Neurath, Bla Juhos, Felix Kaufmann, Victor Kraft, Karl Menger, Richard von Mises, Otto Neurath, Rose
Rand, Josef Schchter, Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann, Edgar Zilsel.
Periphery: Alfred Jules Ayer, Egon Brunswik, Karl Bhler, Josef Frank, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Heinrich
Gomperz, Carl Gustav Hempel, Eino Kaila, Hans Kelsen, Charles W. Morris, Arne Naess, Karl Raimund
Popper, Willard Van Orman Quine, Frank P. Ramsey, Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Reidemeister, Alfred Tarski, Olga
Taussky-Todd, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Reception in the United States and the United Kingdom

The spread of logical positivism in the United States occurred throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In 1929 and in
1932, Schlick was a Visiting Professor at Stanford, while Feigl, who immigrated to the United States in 1930,
became lecturer (1931) and professor (1933) at the University of Iowa. The definite diffusion of logical
positivism in the United States was due to Carl Hempel, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, and
Herbert Feigl, who emigrated and taught in the United States.[23][24][25]
Another link to the United States is Willard Van Orman Quine, who traveled in 1932 and 1933 as a Sheldon
Traveling Fellow to Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw. Moreover, American semiotician and philosopher Charles W.
Morris helped many German and Austrian philosophers emigrate to the United States, including Rudolf Carnap,
in 1936.
In the United Kingdom it was Alfred Jules Ayer who acquainted the British academia with the work of the
Vienna Circle with his book Language, Truth, and Logic (1936). Karl Popper was also important for the
reception and critique of their work, even though he never participated in the meetings of the Vienna Circle.
The Vienna Circle cannot be assigned one single philosophy. First, there existed a plurality of philosophical
positions within the Circle, and second, members often changed their views fundamentally in the course of time
and in reaction to discussions in the Circle. It thus seems more convenient to speak of the philosophies (in the
plural) of the Vienna Circle.[26]
However, some central topics and debates can be identified.
The Manifesto (1929)

It states the scientific world-conception of the Vienna Circle, which is characterized "essentially by two
features.[27] First it is empiricist 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."[28]
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
clarificationthrough the method of logical analysisof problems and assertions.
Logical analysis shows that there are two different kinds of statements; one kind includes statements reducible
08/10/2015 14:45
6 of 13
to simpler statements about the empirically given; the other kind includes statements which cannot be reduced
to statements about experience 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 pseudoproblems which arise from logical mistakes, while others are re-interpreted as empirical statements and thus
become the subject of scientific inquiries.
One source of the logical mistakes that are at the origins of metaphysics is the ambiguity of natural language.
"Ordinary language for instance uses the same part of speech, the substantive, for things ('apple') as well as for
qualities ('hardness'), relations ('friendship'), and processes ('sleep'); therefore it misleads one into a thing-like
conception of functional concepts".[29] 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 from given states of affair".[30] 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 alone, has instead a tautological 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 (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".[31] Metaphysics and theology 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".[31]
Thus the struggle between metaphysics and scientific world-conception is not only a struggle between different
kinds of philosophies, but it is alsoand perhaps primarilya 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".[32] 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 worldconception in "the forms of personal and public life, in education, upbringing, architecture, and the shaping of
economic and social life".[33] 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" is an ironic reference to Schlick.[31]
The manifesto lists Walter Dubislav, Josef Frank, Kurt Grelling, Hasso Hrlen, Eino Kaila, Heinrich Loewy, F. P.
Ramsey, Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Reidemeister, and Edgar Zilsel as people "sympathetic to the Vienna Circle"
and Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein as its "leading representatives".
Unified science
The final goal pursued by the Vienna Circle was unified science, 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. "The endeavour is to link and harmonise the achievements of individual investigators in their
various fields of science".[34] 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), edited by Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn,
Otto Neurath, Joergen Joergensen (after Hahn's death) and Charles W. Morris (from 1938), whose aim was to
present a unified vision of science. After the publication in Europe of seven monographs from 1933 to 1939, the
collection was dismissed, because of the problems arising from the World War II. In 1938 a new series of
publications started in USA. It was the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, an ambitious project
never completed devoted to unified science. Only the first section Foundations of the Unity of Sciences was
08/10/2015 14:45
7 of 13
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 Encyclopedia was in origin the idea of Otto Neurath. It was meant as a manifestation of
the unity of science movement [...] Original plans for the Encyclopedia were ambitious. In
addition to the two introductory volumes, there was to be a section on the methodology of the
sciences, one on the existing state of the unification of sciences, and possibly a section on the
application of the sciences. It was planned that the work in its entirety would comprise about
twenty-six volumes (260 monographs)
Foundations of the Unity of Sciences, vol. 1, The University of Chicago Press, 1969, p. vii.
Thomas Kuhn's well known work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was published in this Encyclopedia
in 1962, as the number two in the second volume.
See also Unity of Science.
The Critique of Metaphysics

The attitude of Vienna Circle towards metaphysics is well expressed by Carnap in the article 'berwindung 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. 1031). A languagesays
Carnapconsists of a vocabulary, i.e., a set of meaningful words, and a 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
areaccording to Carnapequivalent formulation of the same question):
What sentences is S deducible from, and what sentences are deducible from S?
Under what conditions is S supposed to be true, and under what conditions false?
How is S verified?
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'. 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 word '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
08/10/2015 14:45
8 of 13
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. Butsays Carnapmetaphysicians 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 criterionsays Carnapthat 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 languagesays Carnapa 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 meaningless words do not occur, 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
, never as a predicate, has shown that existence is not a predicate, and thus has revealed the logical
as
error from which pseudo-statements such as "cogito, ergo sum" has arisen.
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. In a formal language, "Nothing" only means
, such as "there is nothing
, and thus "Nothing" never occurs as a noun or as a predicate.
which is outside"i.e.,
According to Carnap, although metaphysics has no theoretical content, it does have content: metaphysical
pseudo-statements express the attitude of a person towards life, and this is the role of metaphysics. He compares
it to an art like lyrical poetry; the metaphysician 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".[35]
The Vienna Circle was very active in advertising their new philosophical ideas. Several congresses on
epistemology and philosophy of science were organized, with the help of the Berlin Circle. There were some
preparatory congresses: Prague (1929), Knigsberg (1930), Prague (1934) and then the first congress on
scientific philosophy held in Paris (1935), followed by congresses in Copenhagen (1936), Paris (1937),
Cambridge, England, United Kingdom (1938), Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. (1939). The
08/10/2015 14:45
9 of 13
Knigsberg congress (1930) was very important, for Kurt Gdel announced that he had proven the
completeness of first-order logic and the incompleteness of formal arithmetic. Another very interesting congress
was the one held in Copenhagen (1936), which was dedicated to quantum physics and causality.
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 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 edited by the Vienna Circle.
Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), edited 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 Schchter, 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), edited 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, C. Hull, G. Mannoury, J. Woodger, Zur Enzyklopdie der
Einheitswissenschaft. Vortrge, 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, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris, Encyclopedia
and unified science, 1938, vol.1 n.1
08/10/2015 14:45
10 of 13
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, Linguistic aspects of science, 1939, vol.1 n.4
Ernest Nagel, Principles of the theory of probability, 1939, vol.1 n.6
John Dewey, Theory of valuation, 1939, vol.2 n.4
Giorgio de Santillana and Edgar Zilsel, The development of rationalism and empiricism, 1941, vol.2 n.8
Otto Neurath, Foundations of social sciences, 1944, vol.2 n.1
Joseph H. Woodger, The technique of theory construction, 1949, vol.2 n.5
Philipp Frank, Foundations of physics, 1946, vol.1 n.7
Erwin Finlay-Freundlich, Cosmology, 1951, vol.1 n.8
Joergen Joergensen, The development of logical empiricism, 1951, vol.2 n.9
Egon Brunswik, 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, Science and the structure of ethics, 1961, vol.2 n.3
Thomas S. Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolutions, 1962, vol.2 n.2
Gerhard 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
In 1991 the Institute Vienna Circle was established in Vienna. It is dedicated to the work and influence of the
Vienna Circle. In 2011 it was integrated in the University of Vienna as a subunit of the Faculty of Philosophy
and Education. In 2015 the Institute hosts the first international exhibition on the Vienna Circle
(http://www.univie.ac.at/exhibitionViennaCircle/exhibitionViennaCircle/) in the main building of the University
of Vienna.
Primary Literature
Carnap, Rudolf. "berwindung 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. 1031)
Neurath, Otto and Carnap, Rudolf and Morris, Charles W. Foundations of the Unity of Sciences, vol. 1,
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1969.
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. 321340
Stadler, Friedrich and Uebel, Thomas (eds.): Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis. Hrsg.
vom Verein Ernst Mach (1929). Reprint of the first edition. With translations into English, French,
Spanish and Italian. Vienna: Springer, 2012.
Stltzner, Michael and Uebel, Thomas (eds.). Wiener Kreis. Texte zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung.
Meiner, Hamburg, 2006, ISBN 3-7873-1811-9. (Anthology in German)
Secondary Literature
08/10/2015 14:45
11 of 13
Ayer, Alfred Jules. Language, Truth and Logic. London, Victor Gollancz, 1936.
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.
Dambck, Christian (2013). "Nachwort" (PDF). In Dambck, Christian. Der Wiener Kreis Ausgewhlte
Texte (in German). Stuttgart: Reclam. pp. 227244.
Frank, Philipp: Modern Science and its Philosophy. Cambridge, 1949.
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.
Haller, Rudolf. Neopositivismus. Eine historische Einfhrung in die Philosophie des Wiener Kreises.
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1993, ISBN 3-534-06677-4. (German)
Kraft, Victor. The Vienna Circle: The Origin of Neo-positivism, a Chapter in the History of Recent
Philosophy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1953.
Limbeck, Christoph and Stadler, Friedrich (eds.). The Vienna Circle. Texts and Pictures of an Exhibition.
Mnster-Berlin-London 2015. ISBN 978-3-643-90649-6
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.
Rescher, Nicholas (ed.). The Heritage of Logical Positivism. University Press of America, 1985.
Richardson, Alan. The Scientific World Conception. Logical Positivism, in: T. Baldwin (Hg.), The
Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1870-1945, 2003, 391-400.
Richardson, Alan and Uebel, Thomas (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism.
Cambridge, 2007.
Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.), Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories:
Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 2124 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.
Stadler, Friedrich. The Vienna Circle. Studies in the Origins, Development, and Influence of Logical
Empiricism. New York: Springer, 2001. 2nd Edition: Dordrecht: Springer, 2015.
Stadler, Friedrich (ed.). The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism. Re-evaluation and Future
Perspectives. Dordrecht Boston London, Kluwer, 2003.
08/10/2015 14:45
12 of 13
Uebel, Thomas. Vernunftkritik und Wissenschaft: Otto Neurath und der erste Wiener Kreis. Wien-New
York 2000. (German)
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. 7693.
Logical positivism
Conventionalism
Formalism
Logicism
Analyticsynthetic distinction
Unity of Science
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
Philosophy of Science
Analytic Philosophy
List of Austrian intellectual traditions
Institute Vienna Circle (http://www.univie.ac.at/ivc)

Vienna Circle Foundation Amsterdam (http://viennacirclefoundation.nl)
Thomas Uebel, "Vienna Circle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu
/archives/spr2014/entries/vienna-circle/)
The Vienna Circle Manifesto (1929) (http://gnadav.googlepages.com
/TheScientificConceptionoftheWorldeng.doc)
Mauro Murzi's homepage on Logical positivism (http://www.murzim.net/LP/LP00.html)
1. Cp. the partition into inner circle and periphery in Stadler 2001.
2. From 1926 to 1933 there were occasional meetings of Wittgenstein with Schlick, Waismann, Carnap and Feigl. Cp.
Stadler 2001, chapter on "Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle", 422-441.
3. On Popper and the Vienna Circle, cp. Stadler 2001, 453-473.
4. Cp. Stltzner/Uebel 2006, LII-LXXIX.
5. Cp. the phases in Stadler 2001. See 579-580 for an overview.
6. Wittgenstein's Vienna, New Edition, Elephant Paperback, 1996.
7. Cp. Frank 1949, Stadler 2001, Uebel 2000. The expression goes back to Rudolf Haller, "Der erste Wiener Kreis",
in: Fragen zu Wittgenstein und Aufstze zur sterreichischen Philosophie, Amsterdam 1986.
8. Cp. Stadler 2001, 143-161.
9. Stadler 2001, 195-218.
10. Stadler 2001, 199.
11. Stadler 2001, 199-218.
12. For the recording of these meetings see Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations
Recorded by Friedrich Waismann. Trans. by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness. New York: Barnes & Noble
Books, 1979.
13. Stadler 2001, 219-290.
14. For an overview of the lectures of the Ernst Mach Society 1929-1932 see Stadler 2001, 342-344.
15. Frank 1949, 38.
08/10/2015 14:45
13 of 13
16. Edmunds, D. and Eidenow, J. Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great
Philosophers, 2001, page 151.
17. In 1934 Karl Poppers Logic of Scientific Discovery was published in this series.
18. For documents concerning the murder of Moritz Schlick and the trial against Nelbck see Stadler 2001, 869-909.
19. Only after the war in 1949 arose the Kraft Circle in Vienna, a successor to the Vienna Circle, under the leadership
of Viktor Kraft, a former member of the Vienna Circle. Among the members of this circle was Paul Feyerabend.
20. For a chronology of the emigration of the Vienna Circle see Hans-Joachim Dahms, The Emigration of the Vienna
Circle, in: Friedrich Stadler, Peter Weibel (ed.), The Cultural Exodus from Austria, Vienna 1995.
21. Stltzner and Uebel 2006, XX.
22. Cp. Stadler 2001, 573. This list follows the presentation in Stadler 2001, 571ff., including further
bio-bibliographical information on all the persons listed.
23. E. Nagel, "Nature and Convention" in: The Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1929, in which Nagel discussed
Reichenbach's interpretation of the theory of relativity;
24. S. Hook, "Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy" in: The Journal of Philosophy, 27, 1930, in
which Hook presented a favorable report on logical positivism;
25. A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl, "Logical Positivism: A New Movement in European Philosophy" in: The Journal of
Philosophy, 28, 1931.
26. Cp. Thomas Uebel, "Vienna Circle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/vienna-circle/>.
27. On the historical background of the manifesto see Stadler 2001, 334-339.
28. The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle in Sarkar, Sahotra, 1996, p. 331hereinafter VC
29. VC p. 329
30. VC p. 330
31. VC p. 339
32. VC p. 339
33. VC p. 339340
34. VC p. 328
35. Carnap, 'The Elimination of Metaphysics', in Sarkar, Sahotra, cit.,p. 30
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vienna_Circle&oldid=683313049"

Categories: Vienna Circle Logical positivism Austrian philosophers Science studies Philosophy of science
Epistemology Epistemology of science
This page was last modified on 29 September 2015, at 14:31.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
08/10/2015 14:45

Vienna Circle - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Vienna Circle - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Vienna Circle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Entrance to the Mathematical Seminar