Schlick’s relationship with the Tractatus has been mainly investigated in what concerns the conception both of language and world, the insight of logic, the criteria of verifiability, the proper role of philosophy as mental activity. However, some other features of Schlick’s reading of the Tractatus require a closer consideration. In the 1920s, Schlick was dealing with the questions of ethics (and, to some extent, of religion), that represent from the early days the core issue of his philosophy of culture. Schlick’s (...) intellectual relationship with Wittgenstein ought to be explored also in this broader context, namely after his first encounter with the Tractatus. As it emerges from their private conversations in 1929, Schlick did not agree with Wittgenstein’s account of ethics as a domain going beyond the limits of language. Whereas Wittgenstein maintains that “that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same [Tractatus 6.421]”, Schlick considers ethics as a factual science. As he says in the Problems of ethics (1930), “if there are ethical questions that have meaning, and are therefore able to be answered, then ethics is a science”. Wittgenstein’s position is patently in contrast with Schlick’s. According to Wittgenstein, ethics, no differently from religion, cannot be tested as is usual for meaningful propositions, namely by recurring to hypotheses, high probability or knowing. My paper aims at highlighting this contrast, that is rooted both in the Tractatus and in Schlick’s conception of ethics as science already endorsed in his work before the arriving in Vienna. How Schlick would have appreciated Wittgenstein’s late thoughts on ethics remains, at any rate, an open question. (shrink)

Abstract“Growth” or “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer and History of Science. Ernst Cassirer's contributions to history of science have been long time neglected. The aim of this paper is to show the historical and philosophical framework of Cassirer's engagement in this field, starting from his seminal work about the problem of knowledge in science and philosophy of the modern age. Moreover the author suggests that Cassirer's late studies about Galilei and the origins of mathematical science are of some interest in order to (...) comprehend both his commitment to contemporary history of science (from Burtt to Koyré) and his intellectual heritage for our agendas in a post‐Kuhnian era. (shrink)

Hermann Cohen, der Begründer der Marburger Schule des Neukantianismus, hat einen bis dato unterirdischen Einfluss auf den Logischen Empirismus ausgeübt. Seine Konzeption der transzendentalen Methode sowie seine scharfe Polemik gegen den Psychologismus wurden insbesondere von Rudolf Carnap und Hans Reichenbach zum Teil angenommen, aber zugleich auch umgewandelt. Reichenbach’s Analyse der Wissenschaft und Carnaps logische Analyse wissenschaftlicher Sätze sind mit Cohens Ansatz in dem Sinne noch verbunden, dass die Kritik der Vernunft Kantischer Prägung durch die Eruierung der begrifflichen Struktur wissenschaftlicher Theorien (...) ersetzt wird. Trotz offensichtlicher Differenzen handelt es sich doch um einen Zusammenhang, auf den die Forschung weiter einzugehen hat. (shrink)

Introduces the problem of the symbolic structure of physics, surveys the modern history of symbols, proceeds to an epistemological discussion of the role of symbols in our knowledge of nature, and addresses key issues related to the methodology of physics and the character of its symbolic structures.

This paper explores the philosophical relationship between Clarence Irving Lewis and Moritz Schlick, questioning their understanding of verificationism. At stake is not only the crucial point of the possibility of verifying statements regarding, for instance, the other side of the moon, but also the proper status of ethical values in opposition to, or in connection with, scientific propositions grounded in experience. This latter aspect can better explain how both Lewis and Schlick understand the notion of experience in general, posing the (...) conceptual framework within which Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism established a dialogue in the 1930s but still worthy of closer inquiry. (shrink)

This paper aims at focusing on Cassirer's relationship with Hegel during the crucial period when Cassirer is outlining and completing the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in the early 1920s. The main thesis is that Cassirer has never abandoned his original Neo-Kantian approach, despite the fact that it has been enriched within the perspective of a philosophy of culture indebted to some extent also to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. However, Cassirer maintains that Kant's critical idealism must be contrasted with Hegel's absolute (...) idealism, keeping thereby open the process of the spirit that cannot close itself in a definitive logical structure. This critical stance is shared by some contemporaries of Cassirer such as Dilthey, Windelband, and above all Natorp. We have thus to read Cassirer's project against the historical backdrop of the ‘Hegel-Renaissance’ in Germany, a circumstance that, according to the author, can contribute to a more adequate understanding of Cassirer's opus magnum. (shrink)

As recent scholarship has repeatedly shown, the history of Vienna Circle is to some extent rooted in the tradition of Austrian Philosophy which Neurath considered as not involved in the “Kantian interlude”. Nevertheless, it seems that the heritage of Leibniz and, in particular, of his “reform of logic” has been hitherto neglected. Indeed, Leibnizianism (along with Herbartianism) represents a main feature of this tradition stretching from Bolzano to quite forgotten figures as Exner and Zimmermann, and still influent on the Brentano (...) circle. This paper attempt to highlight the role played by Leibniz in framing of the “scientific world conception”, focusing in particular both on Carnap’s and Neurath’s stance towards the characteristica universalis underlying the project of the encyclopedia Leibniz aimed to realize. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to an overview of Cassirer’s work both as historian of philosophy and historian of science. Indeed, the “intelletcual cooperation” between history of philosophy and history of science represents an essential feature of Cassirer’s style of philosophizing: while the roots of a wide exploration stretching from Renaissance thought to modern physics go back to the Neo-Kantianism of the Marburg School, the results of a similar cross-fertilization of research fields have deeply contributed to shaping new standards of inquiry. (...) Cassirer’s relationship with the Warburg milieu in Hamburg and late in his life with the American intellectual scenario are surely worthy of closer investigation. Distinguished scholars such as Meyerson, Brunschvicg, Burtt, Koyré, Metzger, Lovejoy, Kristeller, have disussed, appreciated, critizised Cassirer’s still today fascinating studies devoted to Pico della Mirandola, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, to mention but a few. To explore some of these aspects focusing both on affinities and differences within a cosmpolitian intellectual community can provide a better understanding of philosophy and history of science in the first half of 20th century. Cassirer’s legacy requires, therefore, a new assessment. (shrink)

Schopenhauer und Nietzsche haben eine bedeutende Rolle in Schlicks philosophischem Werdegang gespielt. Es geht um einen bis dato wenig berücksichtigten Umstand, dem freilich nicht bloß eine biographische Bedeutung zukommt. Denn Schopenhauer und Nietzsche sind zwei Hauptfiguren, die nicht nur die Bildungszeit Schlicks prägten, sondern auch seine spätere philosophische Tätigkeit, und zwar bis auf die Wiener Zeit, verschiedenartig beeinflusst haben. Dieser Einfluss lässt sich besser verstehen, wenn das übliche Bild von Schlick als subtilem Ausleger der Relativitätstheorie und als Vater der wissenschaftlichen (...) Weltauffassung erheblich modifiziert bzw. ergänzt wird. Wie Edgar Zilsel anlässlich der brutalen Ermordung Schlicks bemerkte, war neben der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit auch „eine zweite Linie“ deutlich, die „ganz ebenso zu seinem Werk gehört“. Nach Zilsel. (shrink)

Comments on G. Maddalena and G. Tuzet, editors, I Pragmatisti Italiani. Tra Alleati e Nemeci (Italian Pragmatists. Between Enemies and Allies). Milano: Albo Versorio, 2007.

This note examines Fulvio Tessitore’s objections formulated in his critical review of Massimo Ferrari’s paper Non solo sentieri interrotti . According to the author, Tessitore has misunderstood his interpretation of historicism, as well as his interpretation of the German philosophy within the Italian philosophical culture after the Second World War. Moreover, Tessitore suggests that the author’s position is the consequence of a sort of prejudice towards the history of philosophy practised in Napoli. The author shows the incorrectness of this opinion, (...) trying to sketch another view of this philosophical enterprise beyond any geographic boundary and local patriotism. (shrink)

In contemporary Italian political debate we are witness to an increasing oblivion of a proper tradition of thought that lively animated the scene before and immediately after the First World War. This paper aims at focusing the contribution that among others Rodolfo Mondolfo, Piero Gobetti, and Carlo Rosselli offered in order to rethink the bond between ethics, socialism, and political action. This topic, as the author suggests, remains even today highly relevant.