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Program of Logical Empiricism Should Be Seen Too uianna Circle Society for the Advancement of Scientific World Vi HOPOS 2000 ABSTRACTS Invited Plenary Speakers ........................................................................... 3 Special Panels ............................................................................................5 Panels ..........................................................................................................9 Contributed Papers .................................................................................. 35 Index of Speakers and E-mail Addresses .............................................. 87 Location Conference Location: University Campus Alserstrasse/Spitaigasse 1080 Wien Conference Office: nstitut für Zeitgeschichte/ Dept of Contemporary History {IFZ| Court V IFZ 1st floor Book display: Court 2 RoomC Lecture Rooms: Court 1 Aula Court 2 Room A Court 2 RocmC Court 1 Seminar Room 1. IFZ 1st floor Conference TelVFax/Email: (July 3 - 9): Tel *43 1 4277 41226 Fax *43 1 4277 9412 Email HOF’[email protected] INVITED PLENARY SPEAKERS Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara (University of Florence. I) What is a Law? The term 'law'' has been used in different contexts with different meanings We speak of 'natural laws", 'legal laws', "moral laws", "historical laws", 'aesthetic laws", and so on Is there any deep common root among these different uses and meanings7 We will try and answer this question by using some logical tools from the possible world semantics The modem notion of physical law can be formally reconstructed in the framework of a semantic approach to empirical sciences ( which includes an abstract description of measurements, operational definitions of physical quantities, approximations,...). What can be said about the relationships between natural laws and legal norms7 At first sight, one could try and explain the mam difference in terms of logical modalities The operator Physically necessary (or according to a physical law) seems to represent a typical alethic modality characterized by the principle Necessary A implies A In other words laws of nature cannot be escaped1 The operator Legally obligatory is. instead, a typical deontic modality Obligatory A does not generally imply A Norms are possibly violated1 However, the situation is not so simple In fact, similarly to the case of deontic semantics, physicists often refer to idealized physical situations where some real parameters which do have an important role in the actual physical world, are neglected As a consequence, the notion of legal norm and of natural taw turn out to be less far from each other than it is usually supposed Similar arguments can be developed for the notions of historical truth and of historical law Michael Friedman (University of Indiana, USA) On the Idea of a Scientific Philosophy (= 8th Vienna Circle Lecture and Keynote Lecture) In the course of an historical discussion of a variety of episodes within the tradition that came to identify itself as "scientific philosophy" (beginning with Helmholtz and the Neokantians and continuing through the logical empiricists) I consider a number of conceptions of the relationship between philosophy and the sciences; that philosophy is itself a branch of natural science (e g . of cognitive psychology); that it is a branch of mathematical science (of mathematical logic); that philosophy while not itself a science, should nevertheless strive to be "scientific." Appealing to the theory of scientific revolutions developed by Thomas Kuhn. I argue that none of these conceptions is fully adequate and that philosophy, although it certainly interacts fruitfully with the sciences should not strive to be scientific in any of the above senses The result is a new conception of the relationship between philosophy and the sciences that emerges naturally from the historical tradition with which I began Marina Frasca-Spada (University of Cambridge, UK) Hume and Sense Impressions This paper is devoted to the nature and roles of sense impressions in Hume s account of perception I start by considering how Hume introduces sense impressions at the beginning of the Treatise My purpose is to show that even though he explains the distinction between impressions and ideas on the basis of their different strength and liveliness, the crucial difference between them is in fact that ideas are copies of impressions, while impressions are their originals" and do not, in turn, copy anything; they 3 are what ideas represent, the objects of our thought This reading of Hume s sense impressions gives rise to two problems, the first is. if impressions do not represent anything, how can Hume talk about "objects' at all - in fact, what are Humean 'objects’? Dealing with this problem is the mam subject of the paper The second problem I only consider in a tentative manner at the end. and has to do with the difference between feeling and thinking: why does Hume give such prominence to the different strength and liveliness of impressions and ideas, if their distinction is, in fact based on their origmal-to-copy and object-to-representation relation’ Lothar Schäfer (University of Hamburg, D) Neokantian Origins of Modern Empiricism According to Popper, critical rationalism owes much to Kant's philosophy, and he explains his own position vis-ä-vis the Vienna Circle as a repetition of Kant's reply to Hume's sceptical challenge of the epistemic status of natural science -1 shall show (i) Popper's reading of the Critique of Pure Reason is m fact transformed by Neo-kantian positions, and (ii) the program of logical empiricism should be seen too. as a transformation of Kant's system, rather than a continuation of Hume's approach 4 SPECIAL PANELS Special Panel A: (in German) The Political Meaning and Cultural Context of Philosophy (of Science) in Austria and Central Europe before and after World War II Friedrich Stadler (University of Vienna) On the Political Meaning and Cultural Context of Logical Empiricism The range of political positions and attitudes of the Vienna Circle's members is widespread seen from a traditional perspective it reaches from the conservative-liberal label (with Karl Menger. Felix Kaufmann, and Montz Schlick) via the social-liberal one (as Viktor Kraft's) to the left wing socialist approach (e g of Rudolf Carnap. Hans Hahn. Philipp Frank. Otto Neurath, and Edgar Zilsel) between the Wars One may characterize the selfunderstanding as an 'autostereotype' with overlapping liberal and socialist Weltanschauungen and Scientific World Conceptions, which both - independently from their apparent differences - have been marginalized by the predominant sociopolitical and academic elites (sympathizing with and/or adhenng Austrofascism as well as National Socialism) Accordingly the 'heterostereotype' image of the Vienna Circle/Logical Empiricism dunng the First Republic was composed by negative philosophical and political elements which where linked to the antagonisms of metaphysical vs antimetaphysical philosophy and science and autocratic vs democratic cultures Thereby an explicit and implicit racist, antisemitic discourse served as a common ideological background However, this prejudice emerged both from the German-Nationalist (Nazist) and Christian-Social movements employing antisemitism and anti- science as useful tools for their struggle against rationalism and empiricism, or against the hated liaison of relativism and liberalism The result was the construction of a "value-free positivism" as opposed to the so called 'German Philosophy and Science' ("Deutsche Philosophie.Wissenschaft") This trend, which inevitably led to forced migration and destruction of the proponents of LE in Central Europe, can be paradigmatically exemplified by the assassination of Montz Schlick, especially by the public reactions to it - before and after World War II Thus there appears a remarkable continuity from the First to the Second Republic - partly becoming topical also in the context of the recent political situation in Austria Hans-Joachim Dahms (Currently University of Vienna) The Absence of the ’Scientific World-Conception“ from Middle Europe after 1945 Causes and Consequences None of the expelled and emigrated members of the Vienna, Berlin and Prague group of logical empiricists ever came back to their former homes and teaching positions in middle europe Only from the beginning sixties began a certain restricted reimport of their teachings This is all well known and documented But what were the causes for these processes7 Were the emigrants simply not invited to come back7 Were perhaps some invited, but did not want to come back and for what reasons7 I try to answer these questions on the basis of unpublished archival material "Positivism" was portrayed since the beginning sixties in some influential philosophical and sociological quarters - especially in Germany - as a sort of technocratic ideology With regard to the old days of logical positivism in the 20ties and 30ties this characterization would be certainly wrong, as the extensive relations of the Viennese and Berlin circles to their surroundings in culture and politics show. But perhaps these relations had not been made explicit enough in the teachings of empiricist writers, so that these aspects could have been forgotten in the meantime7 Or "positivism" underwent a change itself from a cultural expression of "Red Vienna" to a technocrat ideology in the aftermath of the Second World War7 I answer the first question with a "yes" The second question needs a more elaborated treatment, in which
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