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Reality and Experience Vienna Circle Collection REALITY AND EXPERIENCE VIENNA CIRCLE COLLECTION Editorial Committee HENK L. MULDER, University of Amsterdam, 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, New Col/ege, Oxford, England ALBERT E. BLUMBERG, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A. HASKELL B. CURR Y, Pennsylvania State University, Pa., U.S.A. HERBERT FEIGL, University ofMinnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.A. ERWIN N. HIEBERT, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. J AAKKO HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland, Helsinki, Finland, Stanford University, Calif., and Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla., U.S.A. KARL MENGER, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A. GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden, The Netherlands ANTHONY M. QUINTON, New College, Oxford, England J.F. STAAL, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A. VOLUME 12 EDITOR: ROBERT S. COHEN EINO KAlLA (1890 - 1958) EINO KAlLA REALITY AND EXPERIENCE Four Philosophical Essays Edited by ROBERTS. COHEN with an Introduction by G.H. VON WRIGHT D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT: HOLLAND / BOSTON: U. S.A. LONDON: ENGLAND Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kaila, Eino, 1890-1958. Reality and experience. (Vienna circle collection; v. 12) "The philosophical and psychological writings of Eino Kaila": p. Includes index. CONTENTS: Logistic neopositivism. - On the system of the con­ cepts of reality. - On the concept of reality in physical science. - The perceptual and conceptual components of everyday experience. 1. Reality - Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Logical positiv- ism - Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Experience - Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Cohen, Robert Sonne. II. Title. III. Series. BD331.K23 III 78-10460 ISBN-I3: 978-90-277-0919-6 e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-009-9381-5 DOl: 10.1 007/978-94-009-9381-5 Essays 1-4 translated trom the German by Ann and Peter Kirschenmann Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 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 Introduction by G.H. von Wright ix Editorial Preface xliii Translators' Note xlv 1. Logistic Neopositivism. A critical study 2. On the System of the Concepts of Reality. A contribution to logical empiricism 59 3. On the Concept of Reality in Physical Science. Second contribution to logical empiricism 126 4. The Perceptual and Conceptual Components of Everyday Experience 259 The Philosophical and Psychological Writings of Eino Kaila 313 Index of Names 323 vii INTRODUCTION Philosophically, there is a book which was a tremendous experience for me: Eino Kaila's hychology of the Person­ ality _ His thesis that man lives strictly according to his needs - negative and positive - was shattering to me, but terribly true. And I built on this ground. Ingmar Bergman J 1. This introductory essay is neither intended to be a full presentation nor to be a critical evaluation of the contributions to philosophy made by Eino Kaila. Kaila's work will speak to the reader through the four papers here published in English translation from the German. They belong in the tra­ dition of the Vienna Circle and of logical empiricism. They cover, however, only one period or sector of Kaila's rich and varied life-work. This is the sector best integrated into the mainstream of contemporary philosophic thinking. The primary aim of this essay is to portray an impressive intellectual personality and to make a modest contribution to Finnish and Scandinavian intellectual history. Much of its content may be thought to be of 'local' relevance only. But considering the position which Kaila held in his country and considering his decisive influence on the development of philosophy in Finland, I hope that this local background will also interest an international circle of readers. 2. Eino Sakari Kaila was born on 9 August 1890, the oldest child in a family of nine. His father, Erkki Kaila, was at that time vicar of Alajarvi in Western Finland. Later he was appointed associate professor in the Faculty of Divinity in the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (later Helsinki University) and the family moved to Helsinki. After his academic career Erkki Kaila was bishop and, eventually, archbishop of Finland. An uncle of Erkki Kaila's had also been a professor of divinity and archbishop. Eino Kaila thus belonged to a family with distinguished academic and clerical traditions. His own attitude throughout his mature life was decidedly anti-clerical. According to what he told me, this began as an early protest against the family atmosphere. Yet, as we shall see, his own personality had unmistakably religious traits. ix x INTRODUCTION Eino Kalla went to school in Helsinki and was enrolled at the University in September 1908. He got his Master's degree in an exceptionally short time, at the age of only 19. He was examined in the two branches of philosophy, viz. 'theoretical' and 'practical', the former being his major subject, and also in aesthetics, economics, and Scandinavian history. His academic training was thus exclusively humanistic. Through self-study he later acquired an impress­ ive knowledge also in the scientific subjects. But the lack of a proper scientific training in his early years may have been a hampering factor in his efforts to penetrate the depths of modern physical and biological theories. - In 1916 he got his doctorate with a dissertation in experimental. psychology, Uber die Motivation und die Entscheidung [13]. Soon after the First World War two new universities were founded in Finland, both of them in the country's ancient capital Turku (Abo). The one, called Abo Academy, had Swedish as its language of instruction. The other was called the Finnish University of Turku; later the name was simplified to University of Turku. The professor of philosophy in the former was Edvard Westermarck. In 1921 Kaila was made the first professor of philosophy at the latter. It thus happened that these two prominent figures in the history of Finnish philosophy were active for one decade in two adjacent, small aca­ demic communities. But contrary to what might be expected, there was not much contact between the two men. Kaila had studied with Westermarck when the latter held the chair in practical philosophy in Helsinki, and he had great veneration for his colleague and former teacher. Westermarck, however, showed little interest in and understanding of the new trends in philosophy and psychology which Kaila soon began to champion. There was also a signifi­ cant 'generation gap' separating the two. Westermarck remained throughout his long life faithful to the 'naturalistic' climate of opinion which in the Scandinavian countries stamped the 1880's. Darwin was for him the master scientist. Kaila's intellectual personality had been stamped for life by the 'neo-romanticism' of the 1890's and the early years of the century. (Cf. below p. xiii.) In 1930 Kaila was appointed professor of theoretical philosophy in Helsinki University. The appointment was preceded by controversy - as has often been the case with chairs in philosophy in Finland. Conservative elements in the university senate viewed with suspicion the philosophic 'modernist', who was also known for his liberal opinions on political and social questions of the day. Kaila's captivating brilliance, however, soon made him one of the leading intellectual figures of the university, indeed of the country. Even in his lifetime he was very much of a 'legend'. His INTRODUCTION xi lectures attracted big audiences, not only among students of humanistic subjects, but also among young scientists. A new generation of philosophers and psychologists grew up under his guidance and influence. Kaila's life-curve reached its peak in the years immediately before and during the Second World War. After eighteen years as professor in Helsinki, Kaila was made a member of the newly founded Academy of Finland. As academician he retained his teaching rights but was relieved of administrative and teaching obligations and was free to devote himself exclusively to research. In his later years he became somewhat isolated. A slight deafness contributed to this. Also, his paths in philosophy became more and more lonely, away from the main stream of logical empiricism and analytical philosophy. He had ambitious plans for a philosophic synthesis on a strict scientific basis. (Cf. below p. xxxvii.) This work remained a skeleton. Kaila died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 31 July 1958, shortly before his sixty-eighth birthday. 3. The academic world in which Kaila was reared was in many ways more isolated and more elitist than is the case in Finland and most other countries today. The predominant influence in scholarship and science was German. In the second place it was French. Cultural relations with the English-speaking countries were little developed; Westermarck was in this regard an exception and a pioneer. Nor were the personal contacts between Finland and Scan­ dinavia as lively as they became after Finland's independence. Yet Scandinavia including Finland was in certain ways more of a cultural unity than it is today. The language of the educated class in Finland was still to a large extent Swedish. The literature of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark was an integral part of an educated Finn's spiritual inheritance.
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