[Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook] The Vienna Circle in Czechoslovakia Volume 23 ||

This book explores the remarkable interconnections of the Czechoslovak environment and the work and legacy of the Vienna Circle on the philosophical, scientific and artistic level. The Czech lands and later Czechoslovakia were the living and working space for the predecessors and catalysts for Logical Empiricism, such as Bernard Bolzano, Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein, along with key figures in the Vienna Circle such as Philipp Frank and Rudolf Carnap. Moreover, Prague hosted important academic events in which Logical Empiricism was presented to the public, such as the September 1929 1st Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences, which launched the key manifesto, The Vienna Circle. The Scientific Conception of the World. In addition, this book investigates both the positive and negative receptions of Logical Empiricism within Czech and Slovak intellectual circles. The volume features a selection of contributions to the international conference, The Vienna Circle in Czechoslovakia, held in Pilsen, Czech Republic, in February 2015. These essays are supplemented by two texts of vivid personal memoirs by Nina Holton and Ladislav Tondl. The book is of interest to scholars and researchers interested in the history of philosophy and science in central Europe and the philosophy of science and the Logical Empiricism of the Vienna Circle. Editorial Contents Part I: The Vienna Circle in Czechoslovakia – Essays Chapter 1: How Philosophers in the Czech Lands Broke Ground for the Vienna Circle 1.1 Bolzano Mathematician 1.2 Bolzano’s Logical Construction of the World 1.2.1 Existence of External Objects 1.2.2 Perception 1.3 Bolzano’s Logic 1.3.1 Abstract Objects: Propositions in themselves 1.3.2 The System of Extensional Relations Between Propositions 1.3.3 Deducibility and Probability 1.4 The Viennese Counterpart: Wittgenstein 1.5 Bolzano’s Project of Social Reform 1.6 What About Bolzano’s Metaphysics? 1.7 Ernst Mach’s Empirical Epistemology 1.7.1 Unifying Human Knowledge 1.7.2 What the World Is Composed Of 1.7.3 Cognition and Representation 1.7.4 Science in Action 1.7.5 The “true Master of the Vienna Circle” 1.8 Thomas Garrigue Masaryk: The Emancipation of Humanity 1.8.1 The First Philosophical Problem: Suicide 1.8.2 Under the Banner of Auguste Comte 1.8.3 Philosophy of Language 1.8.4 Masaryk, Philosopher of the Revolution 1.9 Conclusion Chapter 2: Why Czech Positivism Could Not Be Absorbed by Logical Positivism 2.1 Positivist Touches in Czech Herbartism 2.2 Masaryk’s Philosophy and Positivism 2.3 Psychology as a Core of Positivism 2.4 Positivism Revived 2.5 Conclusion Chapter 3: Philipp Frank’s Civic and Intellectual Life in Prague: Investments in Loyalty 3.1 Ernst Mach as an Intellectual Interlocutor for Philosophical Problems in Science 3.1.1 The Cleansing Method: Mach’s Skeptical Legacy of Progress in the History of Science 3.1.2 Mach’s Pragmatist Legacy: The Relativity Principle’s Link with Values 3.2 Philipp Frank in Prague: Mach’s Legacy Put to Test 3.2.1 The Fight for Mach’s Heritage in 1914 – The Beginning of Frank’s Academic Profile in Prague 3.2.2 Lampa’s and Frank’s “Antikritik” 3.2.3 Tactics and Arguments 3.3 Situated Knowledge Claims: Values in Science Argument as Frank’s Motivational Resource 3.4 Lectures and Academic Activities: The Controversy Between the “Critical Realists” and “Logical Empiricists” Reflected in the List of Seminars and Lectures 3.5 Frank’s Personal Commitments to His Czech Colleagues 3.6 The Letters 3.7 The Concept of Loyalty 3.7.1 What Is the Achievement of the Concept of Loyalty Over the Concept of Identity? 3.7.2 Two Different Interpretations of Loyalty in the Young Czechoslovakian Republic 3.8 Conclusion Chapter 4: Scientific World Conception on Stage: The Prague Meeting of the German Physicists and Mathematicians 4.1 Words “Vanished Without a Trace”? Not Quite 4.2 Backstage: Physics at the German University in Prague 4.3 Setting the Stage: Fighting the Ignorabimus 4.4 Von Mises: Escaping the Grip of Laplace’s Demon 4.5 Interlude on the Big Stage: Rector von Mises Rails Against the Ignorabimus 4.6 Sommerfeld: Philosophy in the Edge Light 4.7 Critique: Frank on Containing Teleology and the Ignorabimus 4.8 Conclusion Chapter 5: Rudolf Carnap’s Inferentialism 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Logical Syntax of Language 5.3 Syntax as Approximating Semantics 5.4 Inferentialism 5.5 Semantics 5.6 Incompleteness 5.7 Semantics vs. Generalized Rules 5.8 Conclusion Chapter 6: Minimum Dwellings: Otto Neurath and Karel Teige on Architecture 6.1 Against Architectural Formalism 6.2 Science, Metaphysics and Ideology 6.3 Doctrines vs. Commitments Chapter 7: Arnošt Kolman’s Critique of Mathematical Fetishism 7.1 Commodity Fetishism in Marx 7.2 Application of the Concept of Fetishism on Mathematics 7.3 Pythagorean Fetishism 7.4 Logical Positivism 7.5 Logic and Mathematics 7.6 Critical Assessment of Kolman’s Reception of Logical Positivism 7.7 Arguments Against Fetishization 7.8 Kolman in Context 7.9 Appendix: Mathematical Fetishism Today Chapter 8: Igor Hrušovský on Social Sciences 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Igor Hrušovský and Scientific Synthesis 8.3 Philosophy of Biology 8.4 Explorations in Social Sciences 8.5 A Short Detour 8.6 Hrušovský’s Legacy Part II: The Vienna Circle in Czechoslovakia – Memoirs Chapter 9: On Hania Frank Chapter 10: Major Contacts with Stimulating Initiatives of Analytical Philosophy and the Vienna Circle 10.1 Introductory Notes 10.2 Major Contributions and Stimuli of the Main Currents of Analytical Philosophy 10.3 Analytical Philosophy and Language Communication 10.4 A Few Personal Remarks Part III: Reviews Chapter 11: Christian Damböck, Deutscher Empirismus: Studien zur Philosophie im deutschsprachigen Raum 1830–1930. (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts Wiener Kreis, Bd. 24.) Dordrecht: Springer 2017. xiii +237 pages Chapter 12: Stepan Ivanyk, Filozofowie ukraińscy w Szkole Lwowsko-Warszawskiej. Warszawa: Semper 2014. 223 pages Chapter 13: Monika Gruber, Alfred Tarski and the “Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages”: A Running Commentary with Consideration of the Polish Original and the German Translation. (Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, Vol. 39.) Cham: Sprin Obituary: In Memory of Robert S. Cohen (1923–2017) Index