HERBERT FEIGL

INQUIRIES AND PROVOCATIONS

SELECTED WRITINGS 1929-1974 COLLECTION

Editorial Committee

HENK L. MULDER, University ofAmsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University, Boston, Mass., U.S.A. BRIAN McGUINNESS, The Queen's College, Oxford, England

Editorial AdviSOry Board

ALFRED J. A YER, Wolfson College, Oxford, England ALBERT E. BLUMBERG, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A. HASKELL B. CURRY, Pennsylvania State University, Pa., U.S.A. HERBERT FEIGL, University ofMinnesota, , Minn., U.S.A. ERWIN N. HIEBERT, , Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. JAAKKO HINTIKKA KARL MENGER, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A. GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden, Leyden, TheNetherlands ANTHONY M. QUINTON, Trinity College, Oxford, England J. F. STAAL, University of Califomi a, Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A.

VOLUME 14

EDITOR: ROBERT S. COHEN C. G. HEMPEL H. FEIGL

THE LAST TWO EMPIRICISTS 12 MAY, 1973 HERBERT FEIG L

INQUIRIES AND PROVOCATIONS

SELECTED WRITINGS 1929-1974

Edited by

ROBERT S. COHEN

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY

DORDRECHT: HOLLAND / BOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON: ENGLAND Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Feigl, Herbert. Inquiries and provocations.

(Vienna circle collection; v. 14) Includes bibliographies and index. 1. - Collected works. 2. Logical - Collected works. 3. Science - Philosophy - Collected works. I. Cohen, Robert Sonne. II. Title. III. Series. B29.F33 191 80-17721 ISBN -13: 978-90-277-1102-1 e-ISBN -13: 978-94-010-9426-9 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-9426-9

Translations of 'Probability and Experience' and 'Meaning and Validity of Physical Theories' by Gisela Lincoln and R.S.C.

Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland

Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Boston Inc., 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A.

In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland

D. Reidel Publishing Company is a member of the Kluwer Group

AIl Rights Reserved Copyright © 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981 and copyrightholders as specified on appropriate pages within. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE ~

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ~

1. No Pot of Message [197 4a] 1 2. The Origin and Spirit of [1969a] 21 3. The Power of Positivistic Thinking [1963b] 38 4. The Wiener Kreis in America [1969d] 57 5. Scientific Method without Metaphysical Presuppositions [1954] 95 6. Probability and Experience [1930] 107 7. Meaning and Validity of Physical Theories [1929] 116 8. Confirmability and Confirmation [1951a] 145 9. The Logical Character of the Principle ofInduction [19 34a] 153 10. What Hume Might Have Said to Kant [1964a] 164 11. Operationism and Scientific Method (and Rejoinder) [l945a] and [1945b] 171 12. E~stential Hypotheses [195 Ob ] 192 13. Logical Reconstruction,Realism and Pure Semiotic [1950c] 224 14. De Principiis Non Disputandum ... ? [1950a] 237 15. at Bay? [1971 e] 269 16. The Mind-Body Problem in the Development of Logical Empiri- cism [1950d] 286 17. Physicalism, and the Foundations of Psychology [l963d] 302 18. Mind-Body, Not a Pseudoproblem [1960] 342 19. Some Crucial Issues of Mind-Body Monism [1971a] 351 20. Naturalism and Humanism [1949a] 366 21. Validation and Vindication: An Analysis of the Nature and the Limits of Ethical Arguments [1952] 378 22. Everybody Talks about the Temperature [1964c] 393 23. Is Science Relevant to Theology? [1966a] 399 24. Ethics, Religion, and Scientific Humanism [196ge] 408 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED 422

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HERBERT FEIGL 439

NAME INDEX 447 PREFACE

The title is his own. Herbert Feigl, the provocateur and the soul (if we may put it so) of modesty, wrote to me some years ago, "I'm more of a catalyst than producer of new and original ideas all my life ...", but then he com• pleted the self-appraisal: " ... with just a few exceptions perhaps". We need not argue for the creative nature of catalysis, but will simply remark that there are 'new and original ideas' in the twenty-four papers selected for this volume, in the extraordinary aperrus of the 25-year-old Feigl in his Vienna dissertation of 1927 on Zufall und Gesetz, in the creative critique and articulation in his classical monograph of 1958 on The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'; and the reader will want to turn to some of the seventy other titles in our Feigl bibliography appended. Professor Feigl has been a model philosophical worker: above all else, honest, self-aware, open-minded and open-hearted; keenly, devotedly, and even arduously the student of the sciences, he has been a logician and an empiricist. Early on, he brought the Vienna Circle to America, and much later he helped to bring it back to Central Europe. The story of the logical empiricist movement, and of Herbert Feigl's part in it, has often been told, importantly by Feigl himself in four papers we have included here. First of these, chapter two, the retrospective sketch of 'The Origin and Spirit of Logical Positivism' [1969a] with its astute focus upon the thought and influence of . Second, chapter four, a widely-read analytic essay on the intellectual and social history of 'The Wiener Kreis in America' [1969d]. Third, chapter sixteen, Feigl's personal account of 'The Mind-Body Problem in the Development of Logical Empiricism' [1950d]. Finally, chapter one, the sweet-tempered but impishly-titled autobiographical essay, 'No Pot of Message' [1974a]. Nearly fifteen years ago, Paul Feyerabend and Grover Maxwell edited a splendid Festschrift for Herbert Feigl, Mind, Matter, and Method (Minneapolis, Press, 1966). Feyerabend's biograph• ical sketch for that occasion supplements our first chapter with a lively account of Feigl's life in philosophy, of his posts and his honors, and of his impact on students, colleagues, and the rest of us.

I am grateful to Professor Duane L. Cady of Hamline University in St. Paul, ix x PREFACE

Minnesota, for kindly permitting us to use his admirable photograph of Herbert Feigl with his dear friend, Carl G. Hempel (taken in 1973 during Professor Hempel's visit to Gustavus Adolphus College when Cady was teaching there). Special thanks also to Carolyn Fawcett, and to Renate Hanauer, and Barbara 'Nielson for their help, and to Gisela Lincoln for her translations. Most of all, this is Herbert Feigl's own book, and I most warmly express gratitude for his collaboration in the labor of preparing it; as he often shortens such sentiments, 106 thanks.

R. S. COHEN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author, the editor and the publisher are grateful to the following persons and institutions for permission to reprint the papers included in this volume:

'No Pot of Message', from Mid- Twentieth Century Philosophy: Personal Statements, Peter A. Bertocci (ed.) (1974), pp. 120-139. © 1974 by Humanities Press, Inc. 'The Origin and Spirit of Logical Positivism', from The Legacy of Logical Positivism, Peter Achinstein and Stephen F. Barker (eds.) (1969), pp. 3- 24. © 1969 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. 'The Power of Positivistic Thinking', from Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 36 (1963), pp. 21-41. Copyright 1963 The American Philosophical Association. 'The Wiener Kreis in America', originally published in Perspectives in Ameri• can History, Vol. 2, D. Fleming and B. Bailyn (eds.) (1968), pp. 630-673; reprinted in The Intellectual Migration 1930-1960, D. Fleming and B. Bailyn (eds.XI969). © 1968 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. 'Scientific Method without Metaphysical Presuppositions', Philosophical Studies 5 (1954), pp. 17-32. D. Reidel Publishing Co. 'Probability and Experience'; fIrst published in German under the title: 'Wahrscheinlichkeit und Erfahrung', Erkenntnis 1 (1930), pp. 249-259, by Felix Meiner Verlag. 'Meaning and Validity of Physical Theories'; fIrst published in German in Theorie und Erfahrung in der Physik, Chapter III (1929), pp. 94-138, by G. Braun. 'Confmnability and Confmnation', Revue Internationale de Philosophie 5 (1951), pp. 268-279. 'The Logical Character of the Principle of Induction', 1 (1934), pp. 20-29. Copyright © 1934 The Williams & Wilkins Co. 'What Hume Might Have Said to Kant', from The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, Mario Bunge (ed.) (1964), pp. 45-51. Copyright © 1964 by The Free Press of Glencoe, a Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

'Operationism and Scientific Method' and 'Rejoinder and Second Thoughts', Psychological Review 52 (1945), pp. 250-259 and pp. 284-288, respec• tively. Copyright 1945 by the American Psychological Association. 'Existential Hypotheses: Realistic Versus Phenomenalistic Interpretations', Philosophy of Science 17 (1950), pp. 35-62. Copyright © 1950 The Williams & Wilkins Co. 'Logical Reconstruction, Realism and Pure Semiotic', Philosophy of Science 17 (1950), pp. 186-195. Copyright © 1950 The Williams & Wilkins Co. 'De Principiis Non Disputandum ... ? On the Meaning and the Limits of Justification', from Philosophical Analysis, Max Black (ed.) (1950), pp. 119-156. © 1950 by Cornell University Press. 'Empiricism at Bay?: Revisions and a New Defense', from Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 14), Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (eds.) (1974), pp. 1-20. Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Co. 'The Mind-Body Problem in the Development of Logical Empiricism', Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4 (1950), pp. 64-83. 'Physicalism, Unity of Science and the Foundations of Psychology', from The Philosophy of (The Library of Living , Vol. 11), Paul A. Schilpp (ed.) (1963), pp. 227-267. © 1963 by The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc. The Open Court Publishing Company. 'Mind-Body, Not a Pseudoproblem', from Dimensions of Mind, Sidney Hook (ed.) (1960), pp. 24-36. © 1960 by New York University. New York University Press. 'Some Crucial Issues of Mind-Body Monism', Synthese 22 (1971), pp. 295- 312. Copyright © 1971 by D. Reidel Publishing Co. 'Naturalism and Humanism', American Quarterly 1 (1949), pp. 135-148. 'Validation and Vindication: An Analysis of the Nature and the Limits of Ethical Arguments', from Readings in Ethical Theory, and John Hospers (eds.) (1952), pp. 667-680. © 1952, renewed 1980, by Prentice-Hall, Inc. 'Everybody Talks about the Temperature', from Festschrift for Jlrgen J;rgensen (1964). © 1964 Munksgaard, Copenhagen. 'Is Science Relevant to Theology?', Zygon 1 (1966), pp. 191-199. © 1966 by The University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 'Ethics, Religion, and Scientific Humanism', The Humanist 28 (1968), pp.21-25.