This paper concerns the issue of whether the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle (Carnap, Neurath, Frank) can be understood as having provided the blueprint for a bipartite metatheory with a formal-logical part (the “logic of science”) supporting and being supported by a naturalistic-empirical part (the “behavioristics of science”). A claim to this effect was recently met by a counterclaim that there was indeed an attempt made to broaden Carnap’s formalist conception of philosophy by the pragmatist Morris, but that (...) this initiative failed and that Carnap showed no interest in it. To defend the original claim this paper provides an analysis of Carnap and Morris on the subject matter of pragmatics in order to show that and how Carnap adopted Morris’s proposals in so far as they agreed with bipartite metatheory conception. (shrink)

Four distinguished authors have been brought together to produce this elegant study of a much-neglected figure. The book is divided into three sections: Neurath's biographical background and the economic and social context of his ideas; his theory of science; and the development of his role in debates on Marxist concepts of history and his own conception of science. Coinciding with the emerging serious interest in logical positivism, this timely publication will redress a current imbalance in the history and philosophy of (...) science. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the “Austro-American” logical empiricism proposed by physicist and philosopher Philipp Frank, particularly his interpretation of Carnap’s Aufbau, which he considered the charter of logical empiricism as a scientific world conception. According to Frank, the Aufbau was to be read as an integration of the ideas of Mach and Poincaré, leading eventually to a pragmatism quite similar to that of the American pragmatist William James. Relying on this peculiar interpretation, Frank intended to bring (...) about a rapprochement between the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle in exile and American pragmatism. In the course of this project, in the last years of his career, Frank outlined a comprehensive, socially engaged philosophy of science that could serve as a “link between science and philosophy”. (shrink)

Ernest Nagel played a key role in bridging the gap between American philosophy and logical empiricism. He introduced European philosophy of science to the American philosophical community but also remained faithful to the naturalism of his teachers. This paper aims to shed new light on Nagel’s intermediating endeavors by reconstructing his philosophical development in the late 1920s and 1930s. This is a decisive period in Nagel’s career because it is the phase in which he first formulated the principles of his (...) naturalism and spent a year in Europe to visit the key centers of logical empiricism. Building on a range of published and unpublished papers, notes, and correspondence—including hundreds of pages of letters to his close friend Sidney Hook—I reconstruct Nagel’s philosophical development, focusing especially on the philosophical influence of John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Reichenbach. (shrink)

In this paper, I will describe how Brentano was able to integrate descriptive philosophy and logical analysis fruitfully by pointing out Brentano’s concept of philosophy as a rigorous science. First I will clarify how Brentano attempted to turn philosophy into a rigorous descriptive science by applying scientific methods to philosophical questions. After spelling out the implications of such a descriptive understanding of philosophy, I will contrast this descriptive view of philosophy with a semantic-analytic understanding of philosophy as proposed by Frege. (...) After having thus set the stage I will argue that the current separation of philosophy into the seemingly antithetical strands of phenomenology and analytic philosophy may be seen as a consequence of how the term ‘rigorous science’ in ‘philosophy as a rigorous science’ is interpreted: Does a rigorous science grasp its object with as much exactitude as possible? Or is a science rigorous when its theories are expressed unambiguously, and their implications are drawn with precision? In the course of this investigation I will also point out how Brentano’s integrative use of descriptive philosophy and analysis can provide a suitable starting point for an equally successful integration of these methods in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This paper rejects as unfounded a recent criticism of research on the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle and the claim that it sported a political philosophy of science. The demand for ‘specific, local periodized claims’ is turned against the critic. It is shown (i) that certain criticisms of Red Vienna’s leading party cannot be transferred to the members of the Circle involved in popular education, nor can criticism of Carnap’s Aufbau be transferred to Neurath’s unified science project; (ii) (...) that neither with regard to Carnap nor to Neurath does the criticism raise points that either engage with the thesis proposed or stand up to closer scrutiny; (iii) that the main thesis attacked is just what I had warned the claim that the Vienna Circle had a political philosophy of science should not be understood as. The question whether theirs is ‘political enough’ today can and should be discussed without distortion of the historical record. (shrink)

A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic had been responsible for introducing the Vienna Circle’s ideas, developed within a Germanophone framework, to an Anglophone readership. Inevitably, this migration from one context to another resulted in the alteration of some of the concepts being transmitted. Such alterations have served to facilitate a number of false impressions of Logical Empiricism from which recent scholarship still tries to recover. In this paper, I will attempt to point to the ways in which LTL has (...) helped to foster the various mistaken stereotypes about Logical Empiricism which were combined into the received view. I will begin by examining Ayer’s all too brief presentation of an Anglocentric lineage for his ideas. This lineage, as we shall see, simply omits the major 19th century Germanophone influences on the rise of analytic philosophy. The Germanophone ideas he presents are selectively introduced into an Anglophone context, and directed towards various concerns that arose within that context. I will focus on the differences between Carnap’s version of the overcoming of metaphysics, and Ayer’s reconfiguration into what he calls the elimination of metaphysics. Having discussed the above, I will very briefly outline the consequences that Ayer’s radicalisation of the Vienna Circle’s doctrines had on the subsequent Anglophone reception of Logical Empiricism. (shrink)

Recent work on Austrian philosophy has revealed, hitherto, unsuspected links between Vienna circle positivism on the one hand, and the thought of Franz Brentano and his circle on the other. the paper explores these links, casting light also on the Polish analytic movement, on the development of gestalt psychology, and on the work of Schlick and Neurath.

This paper considers George A. Reisch’s account of the role of Cold War political forces in shaping the apolitical stance that came to dominate philosophy of science in the late 1940s and 1950s. It argues that at least as early as the 1930s, Logical Empiricists such as Rudolf Carnap already held that philosophy of science could not properly have political aims, and further suggests that political forces alone cannot explain this view’s rise to dominance during the Cold War, since political (...) forces cannot explain why a philosophy of science with liberal democratic, anti-communist aims did not flourish. The paper then argues that if professionalization is understood in the right way, it might point toward an explanation of the apolitical stance of Cold War philosophy of science. (shrink)

In the Foundations of Mathematics, Ramsey attempted to amend Principia Mathematica’s logicism to meet serious objections raised against it. While Ramsey’s paper is well known, some questions concerning Ramsey’s motivations to write it and its reception still remain. This paper considers these questions afresh. First, an account is provided for why Ramsey decided to work on his paper instead of simply accepting Wittgenstein’s account of mathematics as presented in the Tractatus. Secondly, evidence is given supporting that Wittgenstein was not moved (...) by Ramsey’s objection against the Tractarian account of arithmetic, and a suggestion is made to explain why Wittgenstein reconsidered Ramsey’s account in the early thirties on several occasions. Finally, a reading is formulated to understand the basis on which Wittgenstein argues against Ramsey’s definition of identity in his 1927 letter to Ramsey. (shrink)

This paper examines James Conant’s pragmatic theory of science – a theory that has been neglected by most commentators on the history of 20th-century philosophy of science – and it argues that this theory occupied an important place in Conant’s strategic thinking about the Cold War. Conant drew upon his wartime science policy work, the history of science, and Quine’s epistemological holism to argue that there is no strict distinction between science and technology, that there is no such thing as (...) “the scientific method,” and that theories are better interpreted as policies rather than creeds. An important consequence that he drew from these arguments is that science is both a thoroughly value-laden, and an intrinsically social, enterprise. These results led him to develop novel proposals for reorganizing scientific and technological research – proposals that he believed could help to win the Cold War. Interestingly, the Cold War had a different impact upon Conant’s thinking than it did upon many other theorists of science in postwar America. Instead of leading him to “the icy slopes of logic,” it led him to develop a socially- and politically-engaged theory that was explicitly in the service of the American Cold War effort. (shrink)

The "standard account" of Wittgenstein’s relations with the Vienna Circle is that the early Wittgenstein was a principal source and inspiration for the Circle’s positivistic and scientific philosophy, while the later Wittgenstein was deeply opposed to the logical empiricist project of articulating a "scientific conception of the world." However, this telegraphic summary is at best only half-true and at worst deeply misleading. For it prevents us appreciating the fluidity and protean character of their philosophical dialogue. In retrospectively attributing clear-cut positions (...) to Wittgenstein and his interlocutors, it is very easy to read back our current understanding of familiar distinctions into a time when those terms were used in a much more open-ended way. The paper aims to to provide a broader perspective on this debate, starting from the protagonists’ understanding of their respective positions. Too often, the programmatic statements about the nature of their work that are repeated in manifestoes, introductions, and elementary textbooks have occupied center stage in the subsequent secondary literature. Consequently, I focus on a detailed examination of a turning point in their relationship. That turning point is Wittgenstein's charge, in the summer of 1932, that a recently published paper of Carnap's, "Physicalistic Language as the Universal Language of Science", made such extensive and unacknowledged use of Wittgenstein's own ideas that Wittgenstein would, as he put it in a letter to Schlick, "soon be in a situation where my own work shall be considered merely as a reheated version or plagiarism of Carnap’s." While the leading parties in this dispute shared a basic commitment to the primacy of physicalistic language, and the view that all significant languages are translatable, there was a remarkable lack of mutual understanding between them, and deep disagreement about the nature of the doctrines they disputed. Three quarters of a century later, we are so much more conscious of the differences that separated them than the points on which they agreed that it takes an effort of historical reconstruction to appreciate why Wittgenstein once feared that his own work would be regarded as a pale shadow of Carnap’s. (shrink)

The indisputable success of experimental science caused a division in philosophy at the turn of the 21st century. A substantial part of philosophers was inspired by ground-breaking writings of W. V. O. Quine and they followed philosophical naturalism that considers hypothetical-deductive method the most effective or the only way to acquire justified true beliefs. Other philosophers are worried about the hegemony of empirical sciences and warn against excessive ambitions of scientific methodology. Scientism or scientific imperialism is a point of view, (...) according to which there are no boundaries of scientific knowledge. According to its supporters, science can describe and explain what is to be described and explained. In my paper I will introduce some common ways how to define and criticize scientism and scientific imperialism. The aim is to demonstrate that criticism of scientism and scientific imperialism is based on the incorrect understanding of what scientific methodology is, how scientific knowledge emerges from natural cognition and in which ways science differs from its alternatives. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that although data mining (DM) is being touted as a solution to many business problems and is basking in the glory of electronic business environments of today, as practiced currently, it reflects a preoccupation with short-run commercial applications and a neglect of the underlying theoretical issues. Although an argument can be made that theoretical precedence is not a necessary prerequisite for practical application or for commercial success, it can also be argued that an exclusive (...) reliance on data-driven and exploratory components of pattern recognition without a corresponding attention to the causal schemas underlying patterns is destined to limit the potential for DM to evolve into a long-term solution to business problems or into an intellectual discipline in its own right. This paper presents an overview of key features and assumptions in DM and examines some of the key practical, philosophical, and foundational issues in DM. (shrink)

Our main goal in this paper is to present and scrutinize Reichenbach’s own naturalism in our contemporary context, with special attention to competing versions of the concept. By exploring the idea of Reichenbach’s naturalism, we will argue that he defended a liberating, therapeutic form of naturalism, meaning that he took scientific philosophy to be a possible cure for bad old habits and traditional ways of philosophy. For Reichenbach, naturalistic scientific philosophy was a well-established form of liberation. We do not intend (...) to suggest that Reichenbach acted as an inventor of naturalism; nonetheless, invoking the term and the idea of ‘naturalism’ is more than a simple rhetorical strategy for rehabilitating Reichenbach as a forerunner of this field. We think that his ideas can make a valuable contribution to contemporary debates, and that he presents an interesting case among the other scientifically oriented proponents of his time. After presenting a short reconstruction of the meaning of naturalism—or, more appropriately, naturalisms—in order to be able to correctly situate Reichenbach within his own as well as a systematic context, we discuss Reichenbach’s naturalism against the background of his scientific philosophy, his views on the relation of common-sense knowledge to science, and his efforts at popularization. To delve deeper into this topic, we present a case study to show how Reichenbach argued that in both scientific and philosophical discussions, it is necessary to move from the request and value of truth to probability. And, finally, we argue that the liberation of knowledge and nature was a socio-political program for Reichenbach, who talked about his own scientific philosophy as “a crusade.” By emphasizing this aspect of Reichenbach’s naturalism, we may be in a better position to situate him in the history of analytic philosophy in general, and in the yet-to-be-written narrative of the naturalistic movement in particular. (shrink)

In a series of papers published in the sixties and seventies, Jaakko Hintikka, drawing upon Kant’s conception, defines an argument to be analytic whenever it does not introduce new individuals into the discussion and argues that there exists a class of arguments in polyadic first-order logic that are to be synthetic according to this sense. His work has been utterly overlooked in the literature. In this paper, I claim that the value of Hintikka’s contribution has been obscured by his formalisation (...) of the original definition. Therefore, I provide (i) a brief reconstruction of the historical framework of the problem and the revolutionary import of Hintikka’s contribution, (ii) a clarification of the most complicated steps of Hintikka’s elaboration of his insight, (iii) a criticism of several features that play a fundamental role in Hintikka’s formalisation and (iv) a selection from Hintikka’s own material of some valuable suggestions towards a clear and workable formalisation. As for the pars construens, I isolate in the approach of depth-bounded first-order logics (D'Agostino et al. 2021) an alternative formalisation of the notion of syntheticity as the introduction of new individuals in the reasoning, and I show that it is not affected by the same difficulties as Hintikka’s proposal. In so doing, I hope to have contributed to the realisation of the project of rehabilitating Kant’s analytic–synthetic distinction in the context of modern first-order logic with the purpose of showing, against the logical empiricist movement, that logic is not analytic. (shrink)

From popular introductions to biographies and television programmes, philosophy is everywhere. Many people even want to be philosophers, usually in the café or the pub. But what do real philosophers do? What are the big philosophical issues of today? Why do they matter? How did some our best philosophers get into philosophy in the first place? Read New British Philosophy and find out for the first time. Clear, engaging and designed for a general audience, sixteen fascinating interviews with some of (...) the top philosophers from the new generation of the subject's leaders range from music to the mind and feminism to the future of philosophy. Each interview is introduced and conducted by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom of The Philosophers Magazine . This is a unique snapshot of philosophy in Great Britain today and includes interviews with: Ray Monk - Biography; Nigel Warburton - the Public; Aaron Ridley - Music; Jonathan Wolff - Politics; Roger Crisp - Ethics; Rae Langton - Pornography; Miranda Fricker - Knowledge; M.G.F.Martin - Perception; Timothy Williamson - Vagueness; Tim Crane - Mind; Robin Le Poidevin - Metaphysics; Christina Howells - Sartre; Simon Critchley - Phenomenology; Simon Glendinning - Continental; Stephen Mulhall - the Future; Keith Ansell Pearson - the Human. (shrink)

(2013). Becoming a philosopher: What Heidegger learned from Dilthey, 1919–25. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 122-142. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.689753.

Jakob von Uexküll’s problematic is manifested in his paradoxical portraiture of form within the plan of nature: the one a sensual schema and the other a transsensual ideal form. At first sight, Uexküll’s belief in the Platonic and the Reformational notions of the immobile becoming of form seems to be a resignation from the heated debates among his contemporary materialists, vitalists, dynamists, and evolutionists. However, in terms of the Kantian subjective teleology, Uexküll’s appropriation of the ancient philosophy reinstates the invisible, (...) static, but repetitive cycle as his regulating principle in the observation of the activity of animals. This regulating principle distinguishes itself from the rule of resemblance established by the appearances and fossil remains of animals, which is linear, incomplete, and digressive. In the light of Michel Foucault, the transition from the visible to the invisible recoups the study of nature from the living beings (les êtres vivants) to the life itself (la vie), from natural philosophy to biology. My study suggests that we recast Uexküll’s sign theory from his observations on the crux that models and triggers an animal to action in its Umwelt. Bracketing Uexküll’s transcendental configuration of form and image, we still find that schema, in itssensual and functional context, evolves from a reflection of the objects to a summary of their features plus an ignorance of their proper names. Uexküll's erasure of proper names (in different languages) that directs our attention to the presentation in its pure form (Gestalt) not only constitutes an important step in epistemology, but also in a life science that meticulously delves into the genotypes. (shrink)

This essay on the social history of logic instruction considers the programmatic writings of Carnap/Neurath, but especially in the widely read book by Lillian Lieber, Mits, Wits and Logic, where Mits is the man in the street and Wits the woman in the street. In the ‘pre-Toulmin’ days it was seriously argued that the intense study of formal logic would create a more rational frame of mind and have many beneficial effects upon the social and political life. It arose from (...) the conviction that most metaphysical conundrums, religious and political problems and even fanaticism had their root in the irrationality of ordinary discourse, which had to be replaced by the more logical ‘ideal language’ of Principia Mathematica. The enthusiastic promotion of formal logic occurred at a time when it was widely thought that minds could be ‘made over’, ‘reprogrammed’ by proper intervention. This stands in stark contrast to the motivation for teaching informal logic and critical thinking, as it becomes apparent in a 1981 exchange between Ralph Johnson and Gerald Massey in Teaching Philosophy. Most of this essay focuses on Lillian Lieber, an earnest and enthusiastic advocate of the cause of formal logic, and on the reasons for the widespread conviction that, for the sake of peace and social harmony, formal logic should, if possible, be taught to every man, woman and child. (shrink)

Based on texts and personal recollections, the paper discusses the origins and roots of Philipp Frank’s philosophy of science as it was developed in Eastern Europe and later institutionalized in the United States. It takes into account the influence of Abel Rey and V. I. Lenin, considering the idea of the “bankruptcy of science.”.

Some aspects of Wittgenstein’s thought are considered in the light of a remark he makes about the “apocalyptic” view of the world. The influence of Tolstoy on Wittgenstein is discussed and elaborated with reference to the idea of a “form of life” as a locus of order, and also to that of “exceptionality” in an unfolding course of events—the latter setting up a connection with the “apocalyptic” theme. This imaginative backdrop remains discernible in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, which draws upon it (...) to perhaps unexpected effect in achieving a dialectical balance between the motifs of order and breakdown. (shrink)

The verifiability principle was the characteristic claim of a group of thinkers who called themselves the Vienna Circle and who formed the philosophical movement now known as logical positivism. The verifiability principle is an empiricist criterion of meaning which declares that only statements that are verifiable by —i.e., logically deducible from— observational statements are cognitively meaningful. -/- This essay is a short introduction to the philosophical movement of logical positivism and its formulation of the verifiability principle. Its primary aim is (...) to provide students of philosophy with an accessible first overview of this philosophical movement. -/- After pointing out some aspects of the philosophical background of logical positivism (section 1), I will comment on the reasoning that lead these authors to formulate the verifiability principle (section 2), and I will analyse the debate about how to understand observational language and how observational statements (the so-called ‘protocol statements’) are verified (section 3). I will also comment on the two main consequences of accepting the verifiability principle: the conception of philosophy as the task of logical analysis and the project of unified science (section 4), and I will explain the different views on ethical language defended by logical positivists (section 5). I will end this essay by identifying the main problems of the verifiability principle and I will explain the core ideas of Carnap’s confirmability criterion, which attempts to resolve these problems (section 6 and 7). (shrink)

The standard definition of knowledge and the concept of objective knowledge, as they were described in the epistemology sprung from the Vienna Circle, are too restricted in comparison with our natural disposal to admit different beliefs as reliable. The main guilt for this state of arts in epistemology belongs to the so- called, in Wolterstorff’s terms, “doxastic ideal”, namely, the traditional picture of the ideally formed beliefs. Locke’s view of entitlement was the modern expression of this ideal and Hume’s analysis (...) of beliefs about future was its first powerful criticism. If we succeed in rejecting this ideal, then it become possible to extend the epistemological analysis over other sorts of beliefs, religious beliefs included. (shrink)

In the 1930s, Carnap set out to incorporate psychology into the unity of science, by showing that all cognitively meaningful sentences of psychology can be translated into the language of physics. I will argue that Carnap, relying on his notion of protocol languages, defends a physicalistic philosophy of psychology that shows due appreciation to 'introspection' as a strictly subjective, but reliable way to verify sentences about one’s own mind. Second, I will point out that Carnap’s philosophy of psychology not only (...) takes into account overt behaviour, but must comprise neurophysiological processes as well. Last, I will show that Carnap aims to develop a philosophy of psychology that does justice to the ongoing changeability of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract No one doubts the radically transformative power of contemporary technologies and technoscientific practices over the material dimensions of our experience. Yet with the coming of all the exciting changes and the promise of ever better material conditions, what kinds of lives are we implicitly being encouraged to live? One would think that current philosophical studies of technology would make this a central question, and indeed, a few have done so. But many do not. Following the lead of thinkers who (...) have made the so-called “empirical turn,” many demur, usually with some remarks about the question being too abstract and general—too likely to suck us into utopian or dystopian speculations—when what is called for are truly informative and “concrete” studies of what it is like to be with actual technologies. My paper considers the good life question—and the philosophical price one pays for not asking it—in light of Auguste Comte’s theory of the three stages of intellectual development. Comte’s depiction of the third, positive scientific stage is much less dated than one might assume. In fact, it is useful to think of our own era as arriving with a Comtean story attached, that is, a story of life in the “developed” world becoming ever better thanks to modern science and technology. Because this story now seems less deserving of the unqualified optimism Comte had about it, I argue that thinking of our own experience as permeated by Comte’s conception of third-stage life gives us a fresh way to consider our misgivings about this default position without either lapsing into utopian or dystopian speculation, or confining one’s focus to purely postphenomenological or pragmatic studies of technoscientific life as it now “appears.” Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-25 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0047-2 Authors Robert C. Scharff, Department of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824-3574, USA Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433. (shrink)

The thesis investigates how the notion of ‘ontology’ has been used in the field of medical informatics and knowledge representation. Partly to investigate what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent and what requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. The author studies the already existing medical terminologies and ‘ontologies’ to elucidate what theories they are based on. The terminological theories of Eugen Wüster and his legacy in medical informatics are studied. It is noted that terminological theories handling linguistic (...) entities are not suited for describing and representing medical theories, since these are assumed to refer to the real world, which consists of more than linguistics entities. In order to find a metaphysical theory in accordance with the world view that medical theories describe, the author turn to the critical realism of Karl Popper, Roy Bhaskar and Ilkka Niiniluoto. These theories, taken together with the metaphysical theories regarding universals of David M Armstrong and Ingvar Johansson, are used as a basis to find out what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent, and what criteria and requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. Among the requirements presented in the thesis are stability, interoperability and the requirement that a good ‘ontology’ must be in accordance with our best available theories. Finally, it is discussed how these requirements and criteria can come into conflict with one another, and how one should reason when handling these trade-offs. The author emphasises the importance of including the medical expertise in the process of creating ‘ontologies’, in order to produce as useful and relevant ‘ontologies’ as possible. (shrink)