Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T06:32:09.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - The crisis of rational reconstruction, 1929–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

A. W. Carus
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Thanks to Neurath's efforts and other factors, the Vienna Circle had achieved a considerable notoriety by 1930. For Neurath himself, this had been largely a political matter – the desire to oppose irrationalist and anti-scientific intellectual movements at a fundamental level. He (rightly) saw these movements – which were very popular with students – as broadly sympathetic to the authoritarian fascism that was gaining ground throughout Europe. He was, of course, too late; time ran out too quickly for a long-term strategy aimed at intellectual influences to have much effect. But the strategy was reasonable, and given the dimensions of the threat, Carnap was willing to support it as a matter of civic duty, though his own time-horizons were much longer. His own understanding of ‘politics’, as we saw at the end of Chapter 1, comprised not just what is usually meant by that word, or the social activities of education and scientific research, but also the provision of fundamental conceptual frameworks for human discourse.

The Vienna Circle itself realised that its programmatic rhetoric exceeded what could be rigorously argued. Its members harboured various degrees of hope about the realisability of the promises made, but everyone (except perhaps, sometimes, Neurath himself) was aware that the basis for the programme was under construction, and might not be constructible at all in the form of its present design (ca. 1930). The gaps in the Aufbau construction were acknowledged, not least by its author.

Type
Chapter
Information
Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought
Explication as Enlightenment
, pp. 208 - 228
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×