Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 An Introduction to Logical Empiricism and the Unity of Science Movement in the Cold War
- 2 Otto Neurath, Charles Morris, Rudolf Carnap, and Philipp Frank: Political Philosophers of Science
- 3 Leftist Philosophy of Science in America and the Reception of Logical Empiricism in New York City
- 4 “Doomed in Advance to Defeat”? John Dewey on Reductionism, Values, and the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
- 5 Red Philosophy of Science: Blumberg, Malisoff, Somerville, and Early Philosophy of Science
- 6 The View from the Left: Logical Empiricism and Radical Philosophers
- 7 The View from the Far Left: Logical Empiricism and Communist Philosophers
- 8 Postwar Disillusionment, Anti-Intellectualism, and the Values Debate
- 9 Horace Kallen's Attack on the Unity of Science
- 10 Creeping Totalitarianism, Creeping Scholasticism: Neurath, Frank, and the Trouble with Semantics
- 11 Frank's Neurathian Crusade: Science, Enlightenment, and Values
- 12 “A Very Fertile Field for Investigation”: Anticollectivism and Anticommunism in Popular and Academic Culture
- 13 Anticommunist Investigations, Loyalty Oaths, and the Wrath of Sidney Hook
- 14 Competing Programs for Postwar Philosophy of Science
- 15 Freedom Celebrated: The Professional Decline of Philipp Frank and the Unity of Science Movement
- 16 The Marginalization of Charles Morris
- 17 Values, Axioms, and the Icy Slopes of Logic
- 18 Professionalism, Power, and What Might Have Been
- References
- Index
1 - An Introduction to Logical Empiricism and the Unity of Science Movement in the Cold War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 An Introduction to Logical Empiricism and the Unity of Science Movement in the Cold War
- 2 Otto Neurath, Charles Morris, Rudolf Carnap, and Philipp Frank: Political Philosophers of Science
- 3 Leftist Philosophy of Science in America and the Reception of Logical Empiricism in New York City
- 4 “Doomed in Advance to Defeat”? John Dewey on Reductionism, Values, and the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
- 5 Red Philosophy of Science: Blumberg, Malisoff, Somerville, and Early Philosophy of Science
- 6 The View from the Left: Logical Empiricism and Radical Philosophers
- 7 The View from the Far Left: Logical Empiricism and Communist Philosophers
- 8 Postwar Disillusionment, Anti-Intellectualism, and the Values Debate
- 9 Horace Kallen's Attack on the Unity of Science
- 10 Creeping Totalitarianism, Creeping Scholasticism: Neurath, Frank, and the Trouble with Semantics
- 11 Frank's Neurathian Crusade: Science, Enlightenment, and Values
- 12 “A Very Fertile Field for Investigation”: Anticollectivism and Anticommunism in Popular and Academic Culture
- 13 Anticommunist Investigations, Loyalty Oaths, and the Wrath of Sidney Hook
- 14 Competing Programs for Postwar Philosophy of Science
- 15 Freedom Celebrated: The Professional Decline of Philipp Frank and the Unity of Science Movement
- 16 The Marginalization of Charles Morris
- 17 Values, Axioms, and the Icy Slopes of Logic
- 18 Professionalism, Power, and What Might Have Been
- References
- Index
Summary
For those interested in the history of philosophy of science, logical empiricism holds a special attraction. Like old sepia-toned photographs of ancestors who made our lives possible by surviving wars, emigrations, and the vicissitudes of times gone by, logical empiricism holds the nostalgic allure of the smoky Viennese cafés where much of it took shape some eighty years ago. The setting and the story are irresistible. In the Vienna of Freud, Schoenberg, Wittgenstein, and other twentieth-century luminaries, the philosophers, mathematicians, and logicians making up the Vienna Circle were surrounded by intellectual creativity. They themselves were on the front lines of the century's exciting developments in physics and logic. The core members included Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, Philipp Frank, and Otto Neurath, while their colleagues and devotees in Europe and America included Hans Reichenbach, Carl Hempel, Ernest Nagel, and W. V. O. Quine. Until the circle's dissolution and demise in the early 1930s, these present and future leaders in philosophy met regularly at the University of Vienna and at various cafés to debate their ideas about knowledge, science, logic, and language. As they sipped coffee and lit their pipes, they ignited nothing less than a revolution in philosophy and bequeathed to us the discipline we know today as philosophy of science.
Nostalgia, of course, carries little philosophical weight.
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- Information
- How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of ScienceTo the Icy Slopes of Logic, pp. 1 - 26Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005