This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Verlag Vienna, 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an accessible (...) introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy" in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluss" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria.The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature. (shrink)

Otto Neurath experienced an adventurous as well as dangerous life. Already in his childhood, he was fascinated by his father’s huge library. He was especially impressed by images and illustrations since Ancient times and the French Encyclopédie, which inspired his lifelong dealing with picture language. This became manifest with the founding of his “Social and Economic Museum of Vienna” and the invention of his “Vienna Method of Pictorial Language,” later on renamed ISOTYPE. In the flourishing period of “Red Vienna” (...) he acquired a lot of books in several languages covering his research fields and practical activities as a social reformer, teacher and museologist, philosopher, sociologist and historian of science. With his forced migrations from Vienna and The Hague, this most valuable collection of books and brochures was partly destroyed, dispersed, and aryanized, when Austro-Fascism came into power in Austria and Hitler’s troops invaded into the Netherlands. Luckily, Otto Neurath and some members of his family and collaborators could survive and save parts of this unique collection of books which mirrors the education and intellectual background of the polymath Neurath in Dutch and British exile. Here, he again bought and published books continuing his activities for the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism as well as the Unity of Science and the Isotype movements covering some 3000 books in 1945. Three typical case studies from the Neurath library are provided covering economics, philosophy, and literature: Neurath’s annotations in books of Friedrich A. von Hayek, Karl Popper, and the writer Stefan Zweig. (shrink)

Ist Intelligenz erblich? Karl-Friedrich Fischbach und Martin Niggeschmidt zeigen, dass „Erblichkeit“ in der biologischen Fachsprache etwas anderes bedeutet als in der Alltagssprache – was fast zwangsläufig zu Fehlinterpretationen führt. Die 2. Auflage dieses essentials wurde um Kapitel zur Aussagekraft von Zwillingsstudien und genomweiten Assoziationsstudien über IQ-Unterschiede erweitert. Wer sich die Logik der Modelle und Methoden vergegenwärtigt, stellt fest: Intelligenz als „erblich“ zu bezeichnen, ist unpräzise und irreführend. Die Autoren: Prof. Dr. Karl-Friedrich Fischbach ist Entwicklungsbiologe und Neurogenetiker. (...) Er war von 1985 bis 2013 Professor für Biophysik und Molekularbiologie an der Universität Freiburg, davon zwei Jahre lang als geschäftsführender Direktor des Instituts für Biologie III. Martin Niggeschmidt ist Redakteur in Hamburg. Stimmen zur 1. Auflage: „... Das zugänglich geschriebene Werk erklärt faktenbasiert und anhand zahlreicher Abbildungen den komplexen Stoff, um so Missverständnisse, aber auch bewusste Falschaussagen aufzudecken.” „... wirklich lohnenswert, ja verdienstvoll...“. (shrink)

F.A. Staudenmaier (1800-1856), eine der Zentralfiguren der Kath. Tübinger Schule und einer Theologie der lebendigen Auseinandersetzung mit dem dt. Idealismus und der Romantik, hat gerade in der Gotteslehre kirchliche Tradition und Gedankengut seiner Zeit zu vereinen gesucht. Seine Lehre von Gott ist getragen vom Lebensgedanken, der - verknüpft mit dem Gedanken vom absoluten Geist - die dreipersonale Lebenseinheit Gottes gegenüber pantheistischen Tendenzen sichert. Orientierung an und Distanzierung von Hegel kennzeichnen St.s. reifende und reife Theologie, deren Weitschweifigkeit durch diese Arbeit prägnant (...) zusammengefasst wird. (shrink)

Este artigo discute tópicos fundamentais relativos à tensão interna entre os aspectos absolutista e liberal do pensamento de Hobbes.

In my essay I try to explore a parallel between Herder and Humboldt and some modern investigations into the origin of language. Herder favors a pan-psychistic account of nature, and he proposes a theory maintaining that only language can do the business to mediate between the abstract reasoning of man and the content delivered to him by his senses. Humboldt, in his turn, prefers a Kantian transcendental analysis of the form of language, the form being dependent on man’s mental activity (...) and therefore dynamical in character. We may summarize this result in the thesis that Herder is speculating on the origin of language whereas Humboldt attempts to give a theory of the origination of language by synthetic acts. Problems connected with a narrative style of theorizing can also be demonstrated by contrasting two modern authors, namely R. G. Millikan and M. Tomasello. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

In his preface to the English edition, Apel (identified with critical theory) explains that the title of his two-volume German collection connotes both a reconstruction of the process of hermeneutic transformation in recent philosophy and the author's semiotical transformation of transcendental logic. The emphasis here is on the latter with discussions of the a priori nature of language per Wittgenstein, Peirce, and Chomsky, and its implications for a rational foundation for ethics in modern science. Includes a new foreword. Name index (...) only. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

The standard microeconomic analysis of taxation suggests that excise taxes on goods with a price-inelastic demand are more efficient in that they lead to a lower deadweight loss than taxes on goods with price-elastic demand. This argument ignores secondary effects on the rest of the economy. By narrowly focusing on the primary effects on the market where the tax is raised, the overall deadweight loss is underestimated when demand is price-inelastic. Moreover, it is overestimated when demand is price-elastic. This puts (...) into question the validity of the standard textbook argument. In this paper we address this issue by considering how taxes affect consumer behavior in other markets. From this we can clearly see how the impact of an excise tax is not limited to one market in isolation, but is spread over all markets and affects the demand for cash balances. We suggest a simple way to incorporate this important insight into a standard textbook exposition. (shrink)

Following its publication in Germany in 1963, Otto Friedrich Bollnow's Human Space quickly became essential reading within a cross-disciplinary field of subject areas including architecture, anthropology, and philosophy. In this first English translation, Bollnow conceives the human experience of space not merely as a philosophical problem but also as an extension of his research into psychology, human behavior, and the conventional domains of architecture: living in a building, in an apartment, in a house. Human Space is a remarkable (...) investigation of space as we experience it, by a man many consider to be the father of spatial and architectural anthropology. This lush hardcover edition includes an afterword by Joseph Kohlmaier that situates the work in the context of philosophical and architectural discussion. (shrink)

Collected together for the first time in English, Karl-Otto Apel’s most recent work covers a broad spectrum of philosophical issues. Highly original, this work will be valuable to academics and students concerned with (post-) analytic philosophy, epistemology, history of science, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, current debates about transcendental modes of argument, second-generation Frankfurt School thinkers and American pragmatists. It will be no less useful to all those interested in reformulations of Kantian themes and redefinitions of older ideas within the (...) linguistic paradigm, as well as those who, being familiar with Habermas’s work, wish to know more about the controversies and debates within the circle of the Frankfurt School itself. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Sprachanalytik, Semiotik, Hermeneutik. Bd. 2. Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft.

Reflecting a revival of Peirce studies and the rediscovery of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophical thinking, this study articulates a contemporary and relevant interpretation that may offer a challenge to neo-pragmatists.