Logical Empiricism and Pragmatism

Cham: Springer Verlag (2017)
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Abstract

This book explores the complexity of two philosophical traditions, extending from their origins to the current developments in neopragmatism. Chapters deal with the first encounters of these traditions and beyond, looking at metaphysics and the Vienna circle as well as semantics and the principle of tolerance. There is a general consensus that North-American pragmatism and European Logical Empiricism were converging philosophical traditions, especially after the forced migration of the European Philosophers. But readers will discover a pluralist image of this relation and interaction with an obvious family resemblance. This work clarifies and specifies the common features and differences of these currents since the beginning of their mutual scientific communication in the 19th century. The book draws on collaboration between authors and philosophers from Vienna, Tübingen, and Helsinki, and their networks. It will appeal to philosophers, scholars in the history of philosophy, philosophers of science, pragmatists and beyond.

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Chapters

Ernst Mach and Pragmatism – The Case of Mach’s Popular Scientific Lectures (1895)

The relation of Logical Empiricism and North-American Pragmatism has been increasingly investigated in the last decade. This seems reasonable enough given the various personal and scholarly exchanges between the Vienna Circle and Berlin Group with pragmatist philosophers after World War I leading up... see more

On Rational Restraints of Ontology

In this paper, my aim is to construe a pragmatic and rationally responsible account of ontological theorizing. The account is pragmatic in the sense that it is compatible with philosophical naturalism and does not involve commitments to substantial and controversial doctrines like global realism or ... see more

Review Essay: Two books on the Berlin Group of Logical Empiricists

Although the logical empiricism movement and its program took root in a number of European cities , it seems undoubted today, however, that “the projects characteristic of logical empiricism developed primarily in Vienna and Berlin” as Alan Richardson and Thomas Uebel put it only a few years ago. As... see more

Eino Kaila and The Vienna Circle

Eino Kaila was the leading Finnish philosopher in the first half of the twentieth century. During the time he sought personal contact with Hans Reichenbach, Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap, he had already in 1926 formulated his own position of “logical empiricism”. For Kaila, philosophy is “the al... see more

William James and the Vienna Circle

William James was welcomed in Vienna with much more interest and sympathy than in Germany. Ernst Mach knew James’s work fairly well and they corresponded for many years. Thanks to the German translation of is book on Pragmatism provided by Wilhelm Jerusalem, within the “First Vienna Circle” James’ w... see more

On the Viennese Background of Harvard Neopragmatism

The Americanization of originally European analytic philosophy, beginning with the rise of Nazism in Europe before WWII, has aptly been described as a move “from the Vienna Circle to Harvard Square” . Not only logical empiricism but also later developments of analytic philosophy have had interesting... see more

Report/documentaion – From “Late Enlightenment” to Logical Empiricism: The Berlin Society of Empirical/scientific Philosophy and the Ernst Mach Association in Vienna

It is widely acknowledged today that continental Logical Empiricism developed primarily in Vienna and in Berlin. Both capitals Berlin and Vienna gave birth to academic and intellectual groups that presented a challenging new program in philosophy of science. Despite the largely autonomous and indepe... see more

Classical Pragmatism and Metaphysics: James and Peirce on Scientific Determinism

The present paper has two main aims. The first one is philosophical: I show how a question , which would have been labelled as nonsensical according to the Vienna Circle’s “Scientific World Conception”, was very much of interest for William James and Charles Peirce, who were deeply involved in scien... see more

The Ghost of Pragmatism. Some Historical Remarks on the Debate on the Foundations of Probability

This paper explores the impact of pragmatism on logical empiricism in connection with the debate on the foundations of probability. Peirce ’s conception of probability, anticipating the propensity interpretation launched by Popper in the late 1950s, is recalled together with the multifarious influen... see more

Beyond Realism and Antirealism? The Strange Case of Dewey’s Instrumentalism

The following article aims to shed a light on the role of instrumentalism in John Dewey’s epistemology as well as philosophy of science. Its basic conclusion is that Dewey can be considered an unorthodox realist, following the terminology by Godfrey-Smith, and that his instrumentalist position can b... see more

Feigl, Sellars, and the Idea of a “Pure Pragmatics”

In the “Personal Postscript” to his seminal essay “Existential Hypothesis”, Herbert Feigl declares:

American Pragmatism, Central-European Pragmatism and the First Vienna Circle

In this paper I wish to bring together two investigations undertaken elsewhere. These are, first, a study of the reception that American pragmatism found among members of the Vienna Circle prior to the process of internationalization of logical empiricism that had set in by the time of the 8th Inter... see more

Ernst Mach and Pragmatism – The Case of Mach’s Popular Scientific Lectures

The relation of Logical Empiricism and North-American Pragmatism has been increasingly investigated in the last decade. This seems reasonable enough given the various personal and scholarly exchanges between the Vienna Circle and Berlin Group with pragmatist philosophers after World War I leading up... see more

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Author Profiles

Sami Pihlström
University of Helsinki
Friedrich Stadler
University of Vienna

Citations of this work

Vienna circle.Thomas Uebel - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pragmatism and the Birth of Subjective Probability.Maria Carla Galavotti - 2019 - European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 11 (1).
Pragmatism at Cambridge, England before 1900.Lukas M. Verburgt - 2021 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (1):84-105.
The Perspectival Realist features of Ernst Mach’s critical epistemology.Pietro Gori - 2023 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 54 (1):99-124.

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