Talk:Vienna Circle

Untitled

I will double-check before I change anything, but I believe it should be "Phillip Frank" not "Philip Frank."

Patrick0Moran 03:46, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wittgenstein

Why isn't there a single mention of Wittgenstein or the Tractatus in this article? -- noosphere 04:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Carnap (in his Autobiography published in The philosophy of Rudolf Carnap) said that Wittgenstein’s influence on Vienna Circle was overestimated. Moreover, Wittgenstein did not take part to Vienna Circle’s discussions; there were separate meetings between him, Schlick, Carnap and Waismann, but soon Carnap was not admitted to those meetings. However, a reference to Wittgenstein or the Tractatus is appropriate. [[Murzim 22:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)]]

Well, Carnap is certainly entitled to his view, and it should be represented as such on the page. However, Carnap's POV on the matter does not preclude us giving other accounts, as long as they're properly sourced. -- noosphere 02:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Your mention of Wittgenstein and his influence on the Vienna Circle is correct. [[Murzim 12:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)]]

The citation for Wittgenstein reading poetry during the meetings of the Circle exists on the page on Wittgenstein himself, the link to the citation is: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/09/07/the-limits-of-science-and-scientists/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.130.160.235 (talk) 08:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the material, which was inappropriate to the lead per WP:LEAD. — goethean 12:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Goethean, your edit improves the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Quine

The assertation that Quine brought the ideas of the Vienna Circle to the U.S. after his period in Europe (1932-33) is historically incorrect. The spread of logical positivism in the USA occurred throughout the 1920s-1930s. In 1929 and in 1932 Schlick was a Visiting Professor at Stanford, while Feigl, who immigrated to the USA in 1930, became lecturer (1931) and professor (1933) at the University of Iowa. Articles about logical positivism were published in U.S. before Quine went in Europe. I can remember: E. Nagel, Nature and Convention in The Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1929, in which Nagel discussed Reichenbach's interpretation of the theory of relativity; S. Hook, Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy in The Journal of Philosophy, 27, 1930, in which Hook presented a favorable report on logical positivism; A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl, Logical Positivism: A New Movement in European Philosophy in The Journal of Philosophy, 28, 1931. And, of course, the definite diffusion of logical positivism in U.S. was due to Hempel, Reichenbach, Carnap, Frank and Feigl, who emigrated and tought in U.S. Thus I suggest to remove the reference to Quine. However, before I change anything, I prefer to discusse this point. [[Murzim 18:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)]]

Thanks. I assume your point is correct - so I suggest to add another paragraph, e.g. Reception of the work of the Vienna Circle there the travel of Quine could be mentioned, together with the other links to the U.S. A separate point could then mention the links to the UK, and other countries.

Yes, a paragraph such that you suggest is useful. I'll try to write about that subject. [[Murzim 18:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)]]

I have provisorily put in the two new paragraphs:

Reception in the U.S., and Reception in the UK and chanage the sentence about Quine according to your remarks.

Please comment what you think now about it. I will try to find some more references verifying this, perhaps concentrating more on the reception in the UK.

A. E. Blumberg

One often forgotten figure in discussions of the history of the Vienna Circle, is the philosopher, Albert Blumberg, who along with Herbert Feigl gave the name, "logical positivism," to the ideas of the Vienna Circle and helped to make American philosophers aware of their work.

Blumberg's name, appears at the top of John McCumber's list of American Philosophers Professionally Injured During the McCarthy Era.

He studied under Moritz Schlick in Vienna, where he came into contact with the Vienna Circle. Within philsophy, he became famous for having in 1931 co-authored a paper with Herbert Feigl which appeared in the Journal of Philosophy entitled: "Logical Positivism: A New Movement in European Philosophy," which is credited with giving the philosophy of the Vienna Circle the designation of logical positivism.

George Reisch, in his How the Cold WarTransformed Philosophy of Science provides some discussion of his career as a philosopher, discussing his relationships with the logical empiricists and his activism within the CPUSA.

A few years later, he became an active Communist. As such he was a founding editor of the journal, Science & Society. He became a leading figure within the CPUSA, heading for a while the Maryland and District of Columbia branch of the Party and was apparently a leading political strategist within the Party.

As noted in the NY Times obit that appears below, during the McCarthy period, while managing to avoid prison, he was barred from academia until the mid-1960s when he was able to secure a post at Rutgers where he achieved some prominence.

According to George Reisch, Herbert Feigl helped to ease his return to academic life, including providing him some coaching on the then recent developments in the philosophy of science.

---

Albert Blumberg, 91, Philosopher and Communist By ROBERT MCG. THOMAS JR. (NYT) 806 words Published: October 13, 1997

Albert E. Blumberg, an idealistic philosophy professor who fought for economic and social reforms as an oft-harassed Communist Party official in the 1940's and 50's, then continued the fight with somewhat more success as a Democratic Party district leader in Manhattan, died on Wednesday at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center near his home in upper Manhattan. He was 91. To the Congressional committees and Justice Department officials who hounded him over two decades, Dr. Blumberg's professed interest in improving the plight of workers and minority groups was a sham.

As they saw it, his work as secretary of the Communist Party in Maryland and the District of Columbia, and as the national party's legislative director, was a cover for his role in a Stalin-directed conspiracy to overthrow the Government.

To those who knew him during his years as a respected philosophy professor and department chairman at Rutgers University and as a Democratic leader in New York, his commitment to helping others was real.

Among other things, since settling in northern Manhattan in 1965, he organized and led numerous community organizations, served as president of the Audubon Reform Democratic Club and of the Congress of Senior Citizens of Greater New York and became an adviser to officials like City Councilman Stanley E. Michels, Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr., State Senator Franz S. Leichter and Mayor David N. Dinkins, who named him chairman of the senior citizens advisory panel.

A native of Baltimore whose parents were immigrants from Lithuania, Dr. Blumberg was a brilliant student who graduated from Johns Hopkins University before going off on a grand academic tour, picking up a master's from Yale, studying at the Sorbonne and receiving a doctorate from the University of Vienna, where he was attracted to the Vienna circle of logical positivists.

In recent years, Dr. Blumberg talked so little about his past that it is hard to know just how or why he became involved with the Communist Party, but a nephew, recalling his uncle describing campaigns against Jews in Vienna in the 1930's, suggested that, like many European Communists of the day, he came to see Soviet Communism as an antidote to Nazism.

Whatever the initial attraction, Dr. Blumberg and his Baltimore-born wife, Dorothy Rose, quickly became prominent in party circles.

In 1940, for example, he was cited for contempt for refusing to identify party members to the House Un-American Activities Committee, but apparently did not learn the intended lesson: in 1957, he refused to answer similar questions before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee.

By then, Dr. Blumberg had become one of the first Communists convicted under a provision of the 1940 Smith Act equating party membership with conspiring to overthrow the Government.

Despite that 1956 conviction, Dr. Blumberg did not go to prison. In 1957, while his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court declared the provision unconstitutional. (His wife, convicted earlier under a different section, served a three-year term.)

For Dr. Blumberg, the victory was a hollow one. Although he had taught philosophy at Johns Hopkins in the 1930's, he could not get a teaching job and worked in a bookstore until he was hired by Rutgers in 1965.

There he helped organize Livingston College, the university's first residential college for men and women; served as chairman of its philosophy department; wrote an acclaimed textbook, Logic: A First Course, and was repeatedly elected president of the faculty governing body. As a colleague, Dr. Peter Klein, recalled on Friday, Dr. Blumberg was a master synthesizer who would often astound his colleagues by tapping his gavel during a rancorous dead-end debate, declaring, I think I hear a consensus, then articulating an inspired compromise.

After retiring in 1977, he stepped up his political activities in New York. By then he had become such an established figure in the local Democratic Party that he won a 1977 election as leader of the 71st Assembly District even though his opponent had tried to use his Communist past against him.

As district leader, Dr. Blumberg was chairman of the county committee's policy committee and worked to bring his upper Manhattan neighborhood's growing Dominican population into the party's inner circles, succeeding so well that he lost his post to a Dominican rival in 1985.

Dr. Blumberg, whose wife died several years ago, is survived by a brother, Harold, of Boston.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company --JimFarm 16:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

On the name Logical Positivism

It's often stated that Blumberg and Feigl gave the name "logical positivism" to the idea of Vienna Circle. For example, Passmore in the entry Logical Positivism in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote "LOGICAL POSITIVISM is the name given in 1931 by A. E. Blumberg and Herbert Feigl to a set of philosophical ideas put forward by the Vienna circle". The reference is to A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl, "Logical Positivism: A New Movement in European Philosophy" in The Journal of Philosophy, 28, 1931. However, Swedish philosopher Ake Petzall (1901-1957) and Finnish philosopher Eino Kaila (1890-1958) employed for the first time the expression "Logical Neopositivism" for denoting the new philosophical movement (A. Petzall, Der Logistische Neupositivismus, 1930 and E. Kaila, "Der Logistische Neupositivismus" in Annales Universitatis Aboensis, ser. B, 13, 1930). Murzim 09:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. It's not just Passmore who has gotten it wrong. Just about every reference book or textbook on philosophy, when discussing the history of the Vienna Circle, attributes the term, "logical positivism," to Feigl & Blumberg. I guess in the anglophone world, people don't pay that much attention to the Scandinavians.

--JimFarm 15:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Vladislav Boskonovitch Karimov

Does anyone know anything about this guy - Vladislav Boskonovitch Karimov?

There's a new article about him, for which i can't find any sources. I've got a hunch that it's a hoax. Please correct me if i'm wrong. --Amir E. Aharoni 08:19, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Experience

The way the word experience is used within this article may contribute to confusion to the general reader. From the article on experience,

The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge" or "a posteriori knowledge".

However, in this article, I did not initially understand the word to be used strictly to mean the empirically or logically verifiable kind of objective experience, and, instead, took it to mean the more generally used verb form "to experience", which can be used to mean "to perceive", and contain both the objective sense and the subjective perception, and where errors can be made attributing what is sensed versus what is perceived, where the delineation between what part of the "experience" is personal interpretation and what is not can become an issue. As an example, here is a portion of the section "The elimination of metaphysics", and within it I have italicized the part that can be confusing:

[Metaphysicians] assert that no empirical relation between x and y can completely explain the meaning of "x is the principle of y", because there is something that cannot be grasped by means of the experience, something for which no empirical criterion can be specified. It is the lacking of any empirical criterion – says Carnap - that deprives of meaning the word 'principle' when it occurs in metaphysics. Therefore, metaphysical pseudo-statements such as "water is the principle of the world" or "the spirit is the principle of the world" are void of meaning because a meaningless word occurs in them.

On the contrary to the first sentence, metaphysicists would probably claim that there is something about the word that can "be grasped by means of experience", as it is this non-empirical, cognitively perceived or "experienced" meaning of the word that they would claim is fully within their allowed understanding of its meaning. They would say that there is something about it that, while it may be outside of empirical representation, is still "experienced" by them, by means of their internal perception or qualitative understanding of the word.

The existence of this dual interpretation of what the meaning of the word experience is, i.e. the common, more general one, versus the strict, philosophical, specific usage, thus may even be falling for something quite similar to the very issue being expounded upon in this section. Mmortal03 (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)