Vienna Circle/ Logical Empiricism

Printable Syllabus

The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism

Jonathan Tsou

Course Description:

The historical origins of 20th century analytic philosophy of science are rooted in the philosophical movement known as logical empiricism. This movement was made up by a group of scientifically minded philosophers (e.g., Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, Carl Hempel, Mortiz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Philipp Frank) who shared the view that metaphysical forms of philosophy are meaningless. In the place of metaphysics, the logical empiricists offered a radical form of empiricism, characterized by a commitment to scientific (and in particular logical) methods of philosophical analysis and an ideal of .unified science.. Logical empiricism originated in the Vienna Circle (Schlick, Friedrich Waismann, Hans Hahn, Neurath, Frank, Carnap, Kurt Gödel, Gustav Bergmann, Viktor Kraft), which was an informal meeting group in Vienna organized by Moritz Schlick. With the growth of Nazism, most members of the Vienna Circle fled to North America in the late-1930s, and were highly influential in the development of American philosophy of science. This course examines the logical empiricist movement, surveying works written during the Vienna Circle period (1925-1937), and the post-Vienna period (1938-1955). The aim of this course is to provide students with an introduction to logical empiricism. Topics to be covered in the course include the rejection of metaphysics, the empiricist criterion of meaningfulness, the protocol-sentence debates, and the unity of science thesis. Students will read works by Rudolf Carnap, Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Carl Hempel, and Hans Reichenbach. Students will also read some recent historical scholarship on logical empiricism by writers such as Michael Friedman, Thomas Uebel, and George Reisch.

Texts for the Course:

Required

A. J. Ayer (ed.) (1959). Logical Positivism. New York: The Free Press. Packet of photocopied readings

Recommended

Alan Richardson & Thomas Uebel (eds.) (2007). Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

George A. Reisch (2005). How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Course Requirements:

Students will be expected to have read the weekly readings carefully and be prepared to discuss them critically in class. Evaluation for the course will be based the following criteria:

1. Optional Midterm Paper (6-8 pages) due in week 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%

2. Final Paper (12-15 pages) due in week 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50% (or 80%)

3. Class Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20%

Papers can be on any topic covered in the course. For the final paper, students may choose to expand upon issues developed in their shorter midterm paper.

Course Schedule:

I: Introduction to the Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism

• No required readings

II: The Scientific-World Conception

• Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, & Otto Neurath ([1928] 1971). The Scientific Conception of the World. Reprinted in Maria Neurath and Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Empiricism and Sociology. Dordrecht: Reidel.
• Viktor Kraft (1953). The History of the Vienna Circle., in Viktor Kraft, The Vienna Circle, the Origin of Neo-positivism; A Chapter in the History of Recent Philosophy. Translated by Arthur Pap, pp. 3-15.
• Moritz Schlick (1930/ 31). The Turning Point in Philosophy. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 53-59.

III: Wittgenstein's Influence on the Vienna Circle

• Ludwig Wittgenstein ([1921] 1961). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Paragraphs 1-3, 4-4.25, 4.46-4.5, 5.552-5.641, 6.124-7 (reading packet)
• Rudolf Carnap. Autobiography. Excerpt (reading packet)
• Friedrich Waismann (1979). Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations. Excerpt (reading packet)
• David G. Stern (2003). The Methods of the Tractatus Beyond Positivism and Metaphysics. In Paolo Parrini, Wesley Salmon & Merrilee Salmon (eds.), Logical Empiricism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, pp. 125-156. (reading packet)

IV: The "Right-Wing" and "Left-Wing" of the Vienna Circle

• Moritz Schlick (1934). The Foundation of Knowledge. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 209-227
• Friedrich Waismann (1956). How I see Philosophy. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 345-380.
• Otto Neurath (1913). The Lost Wanderers of Descartes and the Auxiliary Motive. Reprinted in Cohen, R. S. and Neurath, M. (eds) 1983. Otto Neurath: Philosophical Papers. Dordrecht: Reidel.
• Rudolf Carnap (1934). Logical Syntax of Language. Excerpt

V: The Rejection of Metaphysics

• Rudolf Carnap (1932). The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 60-81.
• Moritz Schlick ([1932/ 33). Positivism and Realism. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 82-107.
• Otto Neurath (1931-32). Sociology and Physicalism. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 282-317.

VI. The Unity of Science Thesis

• Rudolf Carnap ([1932] 1934). Unity of Science. Translated by Max Black. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Excerpt. (Reading Packet)
• Otto Neurath (1938). Unified Science as Encyclopedic Integration, in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. 1, no. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-27 (Reading Packet)
• Philipp Frank (1947). The Institute for the Unity of Science: Its Background and Its Purpose, Synthese 6: 160-167.
• George Reisch (2005). How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Excerpt

VII: The Protocol Sentence Debates

• Otto Neurath (1932-33). Protocol Sentences. Reprinted in Ayer (1959), pp. 199-208.
• Rudolf Carnap (1932). On Protocol Sentences. Translated and Published in Nous (1987), pp. 457-470.
• Thomas Uebel (1992). Overcoming Logical Positivism from Within: The Emergence of Otto Neurath's Naturalism in the Vienna Circle's Protocol Sentence Debate. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. xvi + 374. Excerpt

VIII. The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning

• Rudolf Carnap (1936-37). Testability and Meaning. Philosophy of Science 3-4: 419-471, 1-40. Excerpt.
• Rudolf Carnap (1956). On the Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts. In Herbert Feigl & Michael Scriven (eds.), The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 38-76.
• Carl G. Hempel ([1950] 1959). The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning. Reprinted in A. J. Ayer (1959), pp. 108-132.

IX. Logical Empiricism in North America

• Hans Reichenbach (1938). Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Excerpt
• Rudolf Carnap ([1950] 1956). Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology. Reprinted in Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Carl Hempel (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation, and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. Excerpt

X. Contemporary Issues in the History of Logical Empiricism

• George Reisch (1991). Did Kuhn Kill Logical Empiricism? Philosophy of Science 58: 264-277.
• Michael Friedman (1999). Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 3
• Richard Creath (1991). Every Dogma Has Its Day. Erkenntnis 35: 347-389.
• Howard Stein (1992). Was Carnap Entirely Wrong? Synthese 73: 275-295.

Home