This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40 (2009) 14–24 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa The Left Vienna Circle, Part 1. Carnap, Neurath, and the Left Vienna Circle thesis Sarah S. Richardson Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 240, Room 108, Stanford, CA 94305-2022, USA article info abstract Article history: Recent scholarship resuscitates the history and philosophy of a ‘left wing’ in the Vienna Circle, offering a Received 28 May 2007 counterhistory to the conventional image of analytic philosophy as politically conformist. This paper dis- Received in revised form 1 August 2008 putes the historical claim that early logical empiricists developed a political philosophy of science. Though some individuals in the Vienna Circle, including Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath, believed strongly in the importance of science to social progress, they did not construct a political philosophy of science. Both Carnap and Neurath were committed to forms of political neutralism that run strongly Keywords: against a political reading of their logical empiricism. In addition, Carnap and Neurath sharply differ Vienna Circle on precisely the subject of the place of politics in logical empiricism, throwing into question the construct Rudolf Carnap Otto Neurath of the ‘Left Vienna Circle’ as a coherent, sociohistorical, programmatic unit within the Vienna Circle. Logical empiricism Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. History of philosophy of science Political philosophy of science When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 1. Introduction operates as a new disciplinary history reflecting disciplinary anxi- eties within analytic philosophy of science about the proper aims, Research on the ‘left wing’ of the Vienna Circle has blossomed in methods, and objects of analysis of the subdiscipline. the last decade. Many celebrate the recovery of the Left Vienna Cir- cle’s spirited sense of its political relevance as an antidote to the 2. The Left Vienna Circle thesis neutralist self-conception of analytic philosophy of science. More recently, some scholars contend that the Left Vienna Circle offers The Vienna Circle discussions of the 1920s and 1930s are widely theoretical resources for developing a politically engaged analytic recognized as the source of the methods and approaches that dom- philosophy of science today. Represented in the work of Don How- inated North American analytic philosophy of science in the twen- ard, Alan Richardson, George Reisch, Ron Giere, and Thomas Uebel, tieth century. The Vienna Circle originated in 1924 as a discussion this position regards the Left Vienna Circle as presenting, for its group around physicist–philosopher Moritz Schlick. A number of time, a political philosophy of science with implications for con- notable scientists and philosophers participated in its discussions, temporary debates. including Hans Hahn, Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Kurt Gödel, This paper is Part 1 of a two-part examination of Left Vienna Felix Kaufman, Edgar Zilsel, and Friedrich Waismann. Karl Popper, Circle (LVC) historiography. I analyze the claim that a group within Ludwig Wittgenstein, Carl Hempel, W. V. O. Quine, and Albert the Vienna Circle developed a critical and politically engaged ver- Einstein were among the well known visitors to the Circle. Several sion of logical empiricism. I argue that while some members of important monograph series grew out of the Vienna Circle, as well the Vienna Circle saw their work, and science, as politically impor- as the journal Erkenntnis. Its members dispersed by the mid-1930s, tant, they did not develop a ‘political philosophy of science’. In Part following Hitler’s rise to power, joining a large exodus of German- 2, I turn to the contemporary context of LVC historiography. Why speaking intellectuals to American and British universities. They are political histories of the Vienna Circle being generated and brought logical empiricism with them and many former members warmly received at this time? I argue that LVC historiography of the Vienna Circle became key figures in the postwar develop- E-mail address: [email protected] 0039-3681/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2008.12.002 Author's personal copy S.S. Richardson / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40 (2009) 14–24 15 ment of the subdiscipline of analytic philosophy of science in the cism. Describing LVC logical empiricism as ‘critical and politically English-speaking academy. engaged’ and as a ‘political philosophy of science’, Uebel implies Recent scholarship resuscitates the history and philosophy of a that Carnap, Neurath, and others share the theoretical interests, ‘left wing’ in the Vienna Circle, offering a counterhistory to the con- tools, and questions of present-day social epistemologists, feminist ventional image of analytic philosophy as politically conformist. philosophers of science, and others interested in the possibilities of Thomas Uebel’s ‘Political philosophy of science: The Left Vienna a political or politically engaged philosophy of science. Indeed, he Circle’ (2005) is a representative exposition of the Left Vienna Cir- writes that his interest in the LVC is to ‘resurrect it to see how rel- cle thesis. Uebel argues that a unit within the Vienna Circle, com- evant it may be to our present concerns’ (ibid., p. 755). prised of Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Phillip While Uebel demonstrates that LVC members were, in their Frank, developed a distinctive version of logical empiricism that time and in some degree, ‘politically engaged’, his case for an represents an early ‘political philosophy of science’. Uebel con- LVC ‘political philosophy of science’ relies on a creative retrospec- tends that ‘there once existed another form of logical empiricism tive reconstruction of such a philosophy in light of apparent reso- that was critical and politically engaged’ and that ‘this ‘‘other” log- nances with contemporary projects in political philosophy of ical empiricism was obliterated’ (ibid., p. 755) in later historical science. Uebel focuses primarily on the conviction of some mem- narratives of analytic philosophy. bers of the Vienna Circle that philosophy of science has political According to Uebel, LVC logical empiricism differed from the implications and is part of a larger progressive project. Uebel neutralist logical empiricism later popularized in North America shows that LVC members were, on a continuum, comparatively in two principal ways. First, it admitted that philosophy has a less hostile toward considerations of values and politics in philos- larger ‘superstructural’ (ibid., p. 760) role in society. LVC members ophy of science than the ‘politically conformist’ form of logical believed that by providing conceptual tools to facilitate the pro- empiricism that later took root in North America. But this finding gress of science, philosophy may participate in the advancement stops short of demonstrating that the LVC’s logical empiricism in- of emancipatory politics. Second, the LVC allowed that the space vited, encouraged, or provided tools for the consideration of the so- of theory underdetermination leaves room for pragmatic consider- cial and political dimensions of science. ations in the choice of logical languages or scientific models (ibid.). In theory, Uebel argues, this would permit that political concerns 3. Reading between the lines may legitimately influence the practice of science itself. Uebel claims that these views, taken together, indicate that the LVC held ‘Red Vienna’, a term describing the city during its political con- to a substantively different interpretation of the doctrine of ethical trol by the Democratic Socialist Party (SDAP) in the 1920s, forms non-cognitivism than the ‘politically conformist’ one that is famil- the immediate political context of the Vienna Circle. Following iar in North American philosophy of science. World War I, Austria was newly constituted as an independent na- The doctrine of ethical non-cognitivism holds values (political, tion and Vienna was in shambles. The need for reconstruction moral, and otherwise) to be ‘psychological’ and ‘emotive’, and hence prompted an openness to new ideas and grand social visions. Led non-cognitive or meaningless within a scientific idiom. In North by Otto Bauer and academic intellectuals Max Adler, Friedrich Ad- America this doctrine would become an entrenched division be- ler, Karl Renner and Rudolf Hilferdig, the SDAP embraced a techn- tween facts and values, the context of justification and the context osocialist approach to social change that came to be known as