Abstract
In 1929 Moritz Schlick and those scholars he had brought together came to realize that they had given rise to something entirely new, so the text of the Vienna Circle Manifesto has it. What was novel was the conception of the world, henceforth scientific. Or as we may put it otherwise: a discipline had been established, the philosophy of science, that is a reflection on science no longer subordinate to traditional theory of knowledge and metaphysics. The text goes on to explain why such a conception arose geographically where it did: “That Vienna was specially suitable ground for [the development of the spirit of a scientific conception of the world] is historically understandable” 1. The Vienna Circle Manifesto proceeds to enumerate the multifarious intellectual movements that were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century in the city of Vienna. Is it irrelevant or untimely to emphasize this cosmopolitan spirit? I believe, on the contrary, that cosmopolitanism provides both a lesson about philosophical creativity and a key for understanding the vitality of Viennese philosophy: the achievements of the Vienna Circle were the result of an exceptional open-mindedness on the part of its members.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Hans Hahn/Otto Neurath/Rudolf Carnap, “The Scientific Conception of the World: the Vienna Circle”, known as the Vienna Circle Manifesto,in Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973, pp. 299–318), p. 301. Only the preface is signed. Actually, the document seems to have been prepared by Neurath, revised by Hahn and Catnap, and augmented with observations by other members of the Circle. See editor’s note p. 318.
Édouard Le Roy, “Un positivisme nouveau”, in Revue de métaphysique et de morale,9, 1901, pp.138–153.
On conventionalism with respect to Mach and Austrian positivism before the Vienna Circle, see Anastasios Brenner, “Les voies du positivisme en France et en Autriche: Poincaré, Duhem et Mach”, in Philosophia Scientiae, 3, 1998, pp. 31–42, and Rudolf Haller, “The First Vienna Circle”, in Thomas Uebel (Ed.), Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991, pp. 95–108.
Henri Poincaré, “Les géométries non euclidiennes” (in Revue générale des sciences,2, 1891, pp. 769–774), p. 773; La science ei l’hypothèse (Paris: Flammarion, 1968), p. 75. Translation mine.
Poincaré, Science et méthode (Paris: Flammarion, 1916), p. 127. Translation mine.
Poincaré, “Les géométries non euclidiennes”, pp. 771–772; La science et l’hypothèse,p. 70; cf. Science et méthode,p. 132. Translation mine.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (in Collected works, vols 7 and 8, London: Routledge, 1996 ) p. 144.
Poincaré, La science et l’hypothèse,p. 101. Translation mine.
Mill, op. cit.,p. 144. My emphasis.
Rudolf Catnap, The Logical Structure of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), § 103; cf. § 107. The logical positivists were also impressed by Einstein’s “Geometry and Experience”. But one must note that Einstein himself refers back to Poincaré.
Pierre Duhem, La théorie physique, son objet et sa structure (Paris: Vrin, 1981), p. 328; The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 216. On the origins of Duhem’s holism, see Brenner, “Holism a Century Ago: the Elaboration of Duhem’s Thesis”, in Synthese, 83, 1990, pp. 325–335.
Hahn/Neurath/Camap, op. cit.,p. 325.
Duhem, op. cit.,p. 149; English trans., p. 101.
Duhem, op. cit.,p. 24; English trans., p. 19.
Hahn/Neurath/Camap, op. cit.,p. 311.
Duhem, op. cit.,p. 199; English trans., p. 333.
Le Roy, op. cit.,p. 139. Translation mine. Concerning the relations between Poincaré, Duhem, Le Roy and Milhaud, see Brenner, Duhem: science, réalité et apparence (Paris: Vrin, 1990), chap. 1.
Gaston Milhaud, Le positivisme et le progrès de l’esprit (Paris: Alcan, 1902), p. 140. Translation mine.
Philipp Frank, Einstein: His Life and Times (London: Macmillan, 1948), p. 80. Cf. Frank, Modern Science and its Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), “Introduction: Historical Background”.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brenner, A. (2002). The French Connection: Conventionalism and the Vienna Circle. In: Heidelberger, M., Stadler, F. (eds) History of Philosophy of Science. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook [2001], vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1785-4_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1785-4_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5976-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1785-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive