Exact Thinking in Demented Times
Exact Thinking in Demented Times

Author: Karl Sigmund

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2017-12-05

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 0465096964

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A dazzling group biography of the early twentieth-century thinkers who transformed the way the world thought about math and science Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came together in post-World War I Vienna to present the latest theories in mathematics, science, and philosophy and to build a strong foundation for scientific investigation. Composed of such luminaries as Kurt Gö and Rudolf Carnap, and stimulated by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle left an indelible mark on science. Exact Thinking in Demented Times tells the often outrageous, sometimes tragic, and never boring stories of the men who transformed scientific thought. A revealing work of history, this landmark book pays tribute to those who dared to reinvent knowledge from the ground up.

The Murder of Professor Schlick
The Murder of Professor Schlick

Author: David Edmonds

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-03-29

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0691211965

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"On June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick's, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck argued in court that his onetime teacher had promoted a treacherous Jewish philosophy. Weaving an enthralling narrative set against the backdrop of rising extremism in Hitler's Europe, David Edmonds traces the rise and fall of the Vienna Circle--associated with billiant thinkers like Otto Neurath, Kurt Gödel, Rudolf Carnap, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Karl Popper--and of a philosophical movement movement that sought to do away with metaphysics and pseudoscience in a city darkened by and unreason."--

The Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle

Author: Friedrich Stadler

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-08

Total Pages: 702

ISBN-13: 3319165615

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This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Wien-New York: 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an accessible introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy” in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluß" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria. The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature.

Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle and the Mathematical Colloquium
Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle and the Mathematical Colloquium

Author: Karl Menger

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 9401111022

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Karl Menger was born in Vienna on January 13, 1902, the only child of two gifted parents. His mother Hermione, nee Andermann (1870-1922), in addition to her musical abilities, wrote and published short stories and novelettes, while his father Carl (1840-1921) was the noted Austrian economist, one of the founders of marginal utility theory. A highly cultured man, and a liberal rationalist in the nine teenth century sense, the elder Menger had witnessed the defeat and humiliation of the old Austrian empire by Bismarck's Prussia, and the subsequent establishment under Prussian leadership of a militaristic, mystically nationalistic, state-capitalist German empire - in effect, the first modern "military-industrial complex. " These events helped frame in him a set of attitudes that he later transmitted to his son, and which included an appreciation of cultural attainments and tolerance and respect for cultural differences, com bined with a deep suspicion of rabid nationalism, particularly the German variety. Also a fascination with structure, whether artistic, scientific, philosophical, or theological, but a rejection of any aura of mysticism or mumbo-jumbo accompanying such structure. Thus the son remarked at least once that the archangels' chant that begins the Prolog im Himmel in Goethe's Faust was perhaps the most viii INTRODUCTION beautiful thing in the German language "but of course it doesn't mean anything.

The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism
The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism

Author: F. Stadler

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-06-09

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 0306482142

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This work is for scholars, researchers and students in history and philosophy of science focusing on Logical Empiricism and analytic philosophy (of science). It provides historical and systematic research and deals with the influence and impact of the Vienna Circle/Logical Empiricism on today's philosophy of science. It also explores the intellectual context of this scientific philosophy and focuses on main figures and peripheral adherents.

The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism
The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism

Author: Alan Richardson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-09-03

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1139826433

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If there is a movement or school that epitomizes analytic philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century, it is logical empiricism. Logical empiricists created a scientifically and technically informed philosophy of science, established mathematical logic as a topic in and tool for philosophy, and initiated the project of formal semantics. Accounts of analytic philosophy written in the middle of the twentieth century gave logical empiricism a central place in the project. The second wave of interpretative accounts was constructed to show how philosophy should progress, or had progressed, beyond logical empiricism. The essays survey the formative stages of logical empiricism in central Europe and its acculturation in North America, discussing its main topics, and achievements and failures, in different areas of philosophy of science, and assessing its influence on philosophy, past, present, and future.

The Voices of Wittgenstein
The Voices of Wittgenstein

Author: Friedrich Waismann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-10-04

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13: 1134934688

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This brings for the first time over one hundred short essays in philosophical logic and the philosophy of mind. It is an invaluable introduction to Wittgenstein's 'later philosophy'.

Empiricism at the Crossroads
Empiricism at the Crossroads

Author: Thomas Uebel

Publisher: Open Court

Published: 2015-11-02

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 0812699297

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Rather than a monolithic movement of naïve empiricists, the Vienna Circle represented a discussion forum for what were sometimes compatible, sometimes conflicting philosophical approaches to empirical evidence. The Circle’s protocol-sentence debate — here reconstructed and analyzed — provides an exceptional vantage point from which to survey the various options and choices of the participants. Author Thomas Uebel mines the diaries, letters, and notes of the group’s leading philosophers to show how their ideas emerged from real-world arguments, personal relationships, and historical settings.

Empiricism and Sociology
Empiricism and Sociology

Author: M. Neurath

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 9401025258

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On the last day of his life, Otto Neurath had given help to a Chinese philosopher who was writing about Schlick. Only an hour before his death he said to me: "Nobody will do such a thing for me." My answer then was: "Never mind, you have Bilston, isn't that better?" There were con sultations in new housing schemes, an exhibition, and hopes for a fruitful relationship of longer duration. I did not dream at that time that I would one day work on a book like this. The idea came from Horace M. Kallen, of the New School for Social Research, New York, years later; to encourage me he sent me his selection from William James' writings. Later I met Robert S. Cohen. Carnap had sent him to me with the message: "If you want to find out what my political views were in the twenties and thirties, read Otto Neurath's books and articles of that time; his views were also mine." In this way Robert Cohen became ac quainted with Otto Neurath. Even more: he became interested; and when I asked him, would he help me as an editor of an Otto N eurath volume, he agreed at once. In previous years I had already asked a number of Otto Neurath's friends to write down for me what they especially remembered about him.