3.1 Verificationism and the Critique of Metaphysics
3.2 The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction and the Relative A Priori
3.3 Reductionism and Foundationalism: Two Criticisms Partly Rebutted
3.4 Scientific Theories, Theoretical Terms and the Problem of Realism
3.5 Carnap’s Later Meaning Criterion and the Problem of Ramseyfication
3.6 The Status of the Criterion of Significance and the Point of the Project of Explication
3.7 The Vienna Circle and History
4. Concluding Remarks
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[size=30]1. Introductory Remarks
While it is in the nature of philosophical movements and their leading doctrines to court controversy, the Vienna Circle and its philosophies did so more than most. To begin with, its members styled themselves as conceptual revolutionaries who cleared the stables of academic philosophy by showing metaphysics not simply to be false, but to be cognitively empty and meaningless. In addition, they often associated their attempt to overcome metaphysics with their public engagement for scientific Enlightenment reason in the ever-darkening political situation of 1920s and 1930s central Europe. Small wonder then that the Vienna Circle has sharply divided opinion from the start. There is very little beyond the basic facts of membership and its record of publications and conferences that can be asserted about it without courting some degree of controversy. (For English-language survey monographs and articles on the Vienna Circle, see Kraft 1950, Jorgensen 1951, Ayer 1959b, Passmore 1967, Hanfling 1981, Stadler 1998, Richardson 2003. Particularly rich in background and bio-bibliographical materials is Stadler 1997 [2001]. The best short introductory book has remained untranslated: Haller 1993.)
Fortunately, more than three decades worth of recent scholarship in history of philosophy of science now allows at least some disputes to be put into perspective. (See, e.g., the following at least in part English-language collections of articles and research monographs: Haller 1982, McGuinness 1985, Rescher 1985, Gower 1987, Proust 1989, Zolo 1989, Coffa 1991, Spohn 1991, Uebel 1991, Bell and Vossenkuhl 1992, Sarkar 1992, Uebel 1992, Oberdan 1993, Stadler 1993, Cirera 1994, Salmon and Wolters 1994, Cartwright, Cat, Fleck and Uebel 1996, Giere and Richardson 1996, Nemeth and Stadler 1996, Sarkar 1996, Richardson 1998, Friedman 1999, Wolenski and Köhler 1999, Fetzer 2000, Friedman 2000, Bonk 2003, Hardcastle and Richardson 2003, Parrini, Salmon and Salmon 2003, Stadler 2003, Awodey and Klein 2004, Reisch 2005, Galavotti 2006, Carus 2007, Creath and Friedman 2007, Nemeth, Schmitz and Uebel 2007, Richardson and Uebel 2007, Uebel 2007, Wagner 2009, Manninen and Stadler 2010, McGuinness 2011, Symons, Pombo and Torres 2011, Creath 2012, and Wagner 2012, Damböck 2016, Schiemer 2016.) What distinguishes these works from valuable collections like Schilpp 1963, Hintikka 1975 and Achinstein and Barker 1979 is that the unspoken assumption, to have understood Vienna Circle philosophy correctly enough so as to consider its consequences straightforward, is implicitly questioned in the more recent scholarship. Many other pieces of new Vienna Circle scholarship are spread throughout philosophical journals and essay collections with more systematic or wider historical scope; important work has also been done in German, Italian and French language publications but here must remain unreferenced.)
Two facts must be clearly recognized if a proper evaluation of the Vienna Circle is to be attempted. The first is, that, despite its relatively short existence, even some of the most central theses of the Vienna Circle underwent radical changes. The second is that its members were by no means of one mind in all important matters; occasionally they espoused perspectives so radically at variance with each other that even their ostensive agreements cannot remain wholly unquestioned. Behind the rather thin public front, then, quite different philosophical projects were being pursued by the leading participants with, moreover, changing alliances. One way of taking account of this is by speaking (as above) explicitly of the philosophies (in the plural) of the Vienna Circle (and to avoid the singular definite description) while using the expression “Vienna Circle philosophy” (without an article) in a neutral generic sense.
Recent scholarship has provided what the received view of Viennese neopositivism lacks: recognition and documentation of the sometimes sharply differentiated positions behind the generic surface. This does not invalidate all previous scholarship, including some fundamental criticisms of its positions, but it restores a depth to Vienna Circle philosophy that was absent from the standard histories. The value of this development must not be underestimated, for the recognition of the Vienna Circle’s sophisticated engagement with aspects of the philosophical tradition and contemporaneous challenges calls into question unwarranted certainties of our own self-consciously post-positivist era. While there remains support for the view that philosophical doctrines were held in the Vienna Circle that wholly merited many of the standard criticisms to be cited below, there is now also support for the view that in nearly all such cases, these doctrines were already in their day opposed within the Circle itself. While some of the Vienna Circle philosophies are dated and may even be, as John Passmore once put it, as dead as philosophies can be, others show signs of surprising virulence. Which ones these are, however, remains a matter of debate.
The lead pursued in this article is provided by the comments of a long-time associate of the Vienna Circle, C.G. Hempel, made in 1991:
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- اقتباس :
- When people these days talk about logical positivism or the Vienna Circle and say that its ideas are passé, this is just wrong. This overlooks the fact that there were two quite different schools of logical empiricism, namely the one of Carnap and Schlick and so on and then the quite different one of Otto Neurath, who advocates a completely pragmatic conception of the philosophy of science…. And this form of empiricism is in no way affected by any of the fundamental objections against logical positivism…. (quoted in Wolters 2003, 117)
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Without setting out to endorse Hempel’s specific claim about how the two schools divide, the aim here is to fill out his suggestive picture by indicating what Schlick, Carnap and Neurath stand for philosophically and why the different wings of the Vienna Circle require differentiated assessments. After reviewing the basic facts and providing an overall outline of Vienna Circle philosophy (in sect. 2), this article considers various doctrines in greater detail by way of discussing standard criticisms with the appropriate distinctions in mind (in sect. 3). No comprehensive assessment of the Vienna Circle and the work of its members can be attempted here, but some basic conclusions will be drawn (in sect. 4).[/size]
Vienna Circle
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