In the History of Philosophy, Logical Empiricism Is Often Referred to As Neo-Positivism

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In the history of philosophy, Logical Empiricism is often referred to as neo-positivism. Since the positivism debate of the 1960s at the very latest, positivism has been considered the very embodiment of an affirmative philosophy that, in contrast to critical theory, is completely devoid of a social criticism component and lacks even the capacity to develop a transcendental perspective with respect to the existing social and economic order. Ever since, generations of students have been intellectually socialized with this negative image of positivism, which was also transferred to the Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism of the interwar years. In the context of the historical centers of continental European Logical Empiricism, the research project analyzed two organizations that were dedicated to the dissemination of this approach in philosophy of science: The Ernst Mach Association and the Berlin Society of Empirical Philosophy (renamed Berlin Society of Scientific Philosophy in 1931). The associations were founded independently of one another in 1927 and 1928; however, a comparative analysis of their origins demonstrates remarkable parallels. Many representatives of the ‘scientific world-conception’ (which was the title of the Vienna Circle’s manifesto) came from an ideologically informed late-Enlightenment milieu that was anything but apolitical. Associations such as the Monists, the Freethinkers and even representatives of non-religious humanitarian ethics played key roles in the establishment of both societies. Although the activities of both associations became increasingly ‘scientific’ in the following years, they were never apolitical. Red Vienna and Red Berlin were opposed by Black Vienna and Black Berlin, both of which forcefully attacked their respective counterparts, as analysis of contemporary media coverage shows. Eventually they were banned by Fascism and National Socialism for political reasons. In addition to the organizational histories, the research projects examined the intellectual and political biographies of its most important representatives: Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn, Philipp Frank and Rudolf Carnap in Vienna; Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling, Walter Dubislav and Alexander Herzberg in Berlin. As scrutiny of their political biographies makes clear, later logical empiricists were intellectually socialized in the youth movement before and after World War I. Therefore, the research project marshaled the systematic evidence of a progressive, social-liberal-to- Marxist basic stance on the part of representatives of Logical Empiricism and their associations, and applied it to the fundamental question of the extent to which the youth movement, or certain currents within it, influenced their later Logical Empiricism. With respect to the ideas of science and education as well as to their progressive and emancipatory political attitudes, continuities such as these could be convincingly demonstrated. Without a doubt, Logical Empiricism was also a political project. .

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