The question of how to lead a happy and meaningful life has been at the heart of philosophical debate since time immemorial. Today, however, these questions seem to be addressed not by philosophers but self–help gurus, who frantically champion the individual′s quest for self–expression and self–realization; the desire to become authentic. Against these new age sophistries, How to Stop Living and Start Worrying tackles the question of ′how to live′ by forcing us to explore our troubling relationship with death. For (...) Critchley, philosophy begins with the question of finitude and with his understanding of a key classical theme – that to philosophize is to learn how to die. Learning how to accept both our own and others′ mortality as a part of life also raises the question of how to love. Critchley argues that the act of love requires us to give up something of ourselves, to lose control so as to be open to the demands of love. We will never be equal to this demand and so we are brought face to face with our own limitations – one form of which is what Critchley calls our ′originary inauthenticity′. By scrutinizing the very nature of humour, Critchley explores what we need to laugh at ourselves and presents the need to confront the inescapable ridiculousness of life. Reflecting on the work of over 20 years, this book provides a unique, witty and erudite introduction to the thought of Simon Critchley. It includes a revealing biographical conversation with Critchley and a fascinating debate with the critically acclaimed novelist Tom McCarthy about the nature of authenticity. Taken together the conversations give an intimate portrait of one of the most lucid, provocative and engaging philosophers writing today. (shrink)

In this first issue of the new Erkenntnis, it seems fitting to recall at least briefly the character and the main achievements of its distinguished namesake and predecessor. The old Erkenntnis came into existence when Hans Reichenbach and Rudolf Carnap assumed the editorship of the Annalen der Philosophie and gave the journal its new title and its characteristic orientation; the first issue appeared in 1930. The journal was backed by the Gesellschaft f r Empirische Philosophie in Berlin, in which (...) Reichenbach, Walter Dubislav, and Kurt Grelling were the leading figures, and by the Verein Ernst Mach in Vienna, whose philosophical position was strongly influenced by that of the Vienna Circle; a brief account of these groups, and of several kindred schools and trends of scientific and philosophical thinking, was given by Otto Neurath in his 'Historische Anmerkungen' (Vol. 1, pp. 311-314). As Reichenbach noted in his introduction to the first issue, the editors of Erkenntnis were concerned to carry on philosophical inquiry in close consideration of the procedures and results of the various scientific disciplines: analysis of scientific research and its presuppositions was expected to yield insight into the character of all human knowledge, while at the same time, the objectivity and the progressive character of science inspired the convection that philosophy need not remain an array of conflicting 'systems', but could attain to the status of objective knowledge. As a student in Berlin and Vienna during those years, I experienced vividly the exhilarating sense, shared by those close to those two philosophical groups, of being jointly engaged in a novel and challenging intellectual enterprise in which philosophical issues were dealt with 'scientifically' and philosophical claims were amenable to support or criticism by logically rigorous arguments. The 'logical analyses' and 'rational reconstructions' set forth by adherents of this program often made extensive use of the concepts, methods, and symbolic apparatus of contemporary symbolic logic, whose importance for philosophy was the subject of Carnap's article, 'Die Alte und die Neue Logik', which appeared in the first issue.. (shrink)

Between the two World Wars, Jørgen Jørgensen was a central figure in Danish philosophy and internationally recognized, as his teacher Harald Høffding had been before World War 1. When in the late 1920s Jørgensen established contact with the movement that would later be called logical positivism, he found a group of philosophers of his own age who advocated empiricism, the tools of formal logic and the Unity of Science, and who shared his anti-metaphysical approach to philosophy. He became one of (...) the movement’s organizers and wrote its history, but he was only for a short period influenced by especially Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy of logic. Although Jørgensen was never an uncritical member of the movement, he is often considered as a central representative of logical positivism in Scandinavia. (shrink)

Even the thinking of professional revolutionaries progresses, as evidenced today in legal revolution. According to the German constitutional jurist, Rudolf Smend, who died in 1975, the German people suffer from a “touching need for legality.” Smend came to this conclusion not only as historian of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, but also as observer of the positivistic normativism of his own time. Recently an old and experienced Spanish revolutionary, Santiago Carrillo, put forward the same notion in a (...) book about Eurocommunism and the State. Akhough his “touching need for legality” is politically of a different nature, Carrillo is expressly convinced that die more violent mediods of Lenin's and Trotsky's illegal revolution of October 1917 are now antiquated, mat they were only justifiable in the instance of an agrarian (peasant) society breaking dirough to a modern (industrial) society. (shrink)

The concept of “style of thought” or Denkstil is today probably primarily associated with the Polish microbiologist and philosopher of science Ludwik Fleck and his writings from the 1930s. It was however used quite extensively already by Karl Mannheim in his writings on the sociology of knowledge from the 1920s. Quite interestingly, the concept of style of thought was also used twice by Rudolf Carnap in the preface to Der logische Aufbau der Welt from 1928. No doubt, the concept (...) must have been in the air during the interwar period. In what follows I will characterize the early positivism in Nordic philosophy in terms of a certain style of thought or as a certain habitus of thought. I will single out six basic convictions about philosophy and how to do philosophy that make up a more or less common ground and starting point for the early philosophical positivists in the Nordic countries. However, to begin with I will motivate why I prefer to use the designation “the positive spirit” rather than “positivism”. In the latter part of the article I will then dwell on some more specifi c topics and fi gures relating to the positive spirit or positivism before Logical positivism in Nordic philosophy. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Religiöse Erfahrung zwischen Emotion und Kognition: William James’ Karl Girgensohns, Rudolf Otto und Carl Gustav Jungs Psychologie des religiösen Erlebens [Religious Experience between Emotion and Cognition: William James, Karl Girgensohns, Rudolf Otto and Carl Gustav Jung on the Psychology of Religious Experience], by Henryk Machoń.

Recently, Michael Friedman has claimed that virtually all the seeds of Hempel’s philosophical development trace back to his early encounter with the Vienna Circle (Friedman 2003, 94). As opposed, however, to Friedman’s view of the principal early influences on Hempel, we shall see that those formative influences originated rather with the Berlin Group. Hempel, it is true, spent the fall term of 1929 as a student at the University of Vienna, and, thanks to a letter of recommendation from Hans Reichenbach, (...) he even attended some sessions of the Vienna Circle. But he spent much less time in Vienna than in Berlin, where he studied under Reichenbach from 1926 till 1933 and wrote a dissertation on probability, Reichenbach’s specialty. Hempel also attended seminars conducted by Walter Dubislav, another member of the Berlin Group. (shrink)

Rudolf Eucken (1846-1926) war Philosophieprofessor in Jena, der einen lebensphilosophisch angehauchten Neoidealismus vertrat und dessen Schriften im gebildeten Bürgertum breite Resonanz fanden. 1908 erhielt er den Nobelpreis für Literatur und galt seitdem als einer der renommiertesten deutschen Intellektuellen mit internationaler Ausstrahlungskraft. Eucken sammelte in den Jahren vor 1914 einen Kreis von Anhängern und Gleichgesinnten um sich, der sich als geistig-moralische - "kulturkritische" - Sammlungsbewegung verstand. Während des Ersten Weltkriegs trat Rudolf Eucken als unermüdlicher Propagandist der deutschen Sache im (...) Inland wie im neutralen Ausland auf. Nach dem Krieg gab sich die von ihm ins Leben gerufene Bewegung mit der Gründung des "Euckenbunds" eine feste organisatorische Gestalt mit 20-25 Ortsgruppen und mehr als 1000 Mitgliedern (darunter auch Gustav Stresemann). Der Euckenbund und die vierteljährlich erscheinende Zeitschrift des Bundes ("Die Tatwelt") existierten auch nach dem Tod Rudolf Euckens 1926 weiter. Seit 1928 betrieben die Witwe des Philosophen, Irene Eucken, und ihre Tochter Ida zudem ein "Rudolf-Eucken-Haus" als internationale Begegnungsstätte der Universität Jena. Auch der Sohn Euckens, der heute viel bekanntere Nationalökonom Walter Eucken, war zeitweise in der "Eucken-Bewegung" stark engagiert. Euckenbund, Euckenhaus und "Die Tatwelt" bestanden auch nach 1933 weiter und betätigten sich, subventioniert vom Auswärtigen Amt, in der deutschen Kulturpropaganda, ohne sich aber vom Regime im Sinne der NS-Ideologie,,gleichschalten" zu lassen. Im Jenaer Rudolf-Eucken-Haus fanden seit Mitte der 1930er Jahren philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Tagungen statt, an der eine ganze Reihe bekannter Geistes- und Naturwissenschaftler teilnahmen (u. a. Helmut Schelsky, Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Gotthard Günther, Pascual Jordan, Gerhard Ritter, Walter Eucken). Erst nach dem Tod Irene und Ida Euckens 1941/43 löste sich der Euckenbund auf. Die Studie verfolgt den Werdegang Rudolf Euckens, setzt sich mit seiner Philosophie und Weltanschauung auseinander und zeigt die programmatische und organisatorische Entwicklung der,,Eucken-Bewegung" und deren Aktivitäten auf. Allgemein beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit den geistigen und politischen Befindlichkeiten des kulturkritisch gesinnten liberal-konservativen Bildungsbürgertums zwischen dem wilhelminischen Kaiserreich, der Weimarer Republik und dem Nationalsozialismus. (shrink)

Carnaps Werk zwischen den späten 1920er- und frühen 1930er-Jahren nimmt verschiedentlich auf Begrifflichkeiten und Debatten der philosophischen und experimentellen Psychologie seiner Zeit Bezug. Diese Bezugnahmen sind jedoch nicht immer konsistent oder explizit. Beispielsweise bedient Carnap sich sowohl im Aufbau als auch in seinen Ausführungen zur Psychologie in einer physikalischen Sprache einiger Grundannahmen der experimentellen Psychologie, führt dies jedoch nicht konsequent zu Ende. Umgekehrt sieht er seine Auffassungen zur Physikalisierung der psychologischen Sprache nicht zuletzt auch als potenzielles Korrektiv für die existierende (...) Psychologie seiner Zeit, was bei dem Gestaltpsychologen Carl Duncker auf Unverständnis stößt. In dem vorliegenden Aufsatz belege ich meine These von Carnaps spannungsvolle Verhältnis zur Psychologie und versuche, dieses Verhältnis historisch und systematisch einzuordnen. (shrink)

During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger. The younger Menger never finished the work. While working in the Menger collections at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, we discovered draft chapters of the biography, a valuable source of information given that relatively little is known about Carl Menger’s life nearly a hundred (...) years after his death. The unfinished biography covers Carl Menger’s family background and his life through early 1889. In this article, we discuss the biography and the most valuable new insights it provides into Carl Menger’s life, including Carl Menger’s family, his childhood, his student years, his time working as a journalist and newspaper editor, his early scientific career, and his relationship with Crown Prince Rudolf. (shrink)

The Received View on scientific theories is a framework for formalizing and analyzing theories mainly developed by Rudolf Carnap and Carl Gustav Hempel within logical empiricism. Its central assumptions are that theories and observations can be formalized in predicate logic, that the language of formalization has a context-dependent observational sub-language or separate observation language, and that the interpretation of the language is restricted only by theories and the interpretation of the observational language. For the observational language as a (...) sub-language, non-observational terms were initially assumed to be explicitly definable in observational terms, and later assumed to have necessary or sufficient conditions in observational terms. In the final version of the Received View, no specific relations between observational terms and theoretical terms were assumed. The Received View also provided the framework for conceptualizations of explanation, confirmation, reduction, criteria of cognitive significance, the analytic-synthetic distinction, and concept formation. Many criticisms of the Received View in the philosophy of science rely on misrepresentations. (shrink)

This article, inspired by Rudolf Haller’s thesis of an independent, specific, and unitary Austrian tradition of scientific philosophy, develops the idea of a specific Austrian tradition of psychological research, as distinguished in its development from that in Germany. This tradition was shaped by two phenomenological trends, which were merged into unity in Prague by Carl Stumpf and Brentano’s students of the second generation. One trend traces back to Goethe and was continued in Prague by the physiologists Jan E. (...) Purkinje and Ewald Hering, culminating in the work of Ernst Mach. The other trend was initiated by Franz Brentano and spread through his school. Stumpf was the key integrator of these two traditions, which he then partially passed on to his Berlin students and founders of Gestalt psychology. Finally, Karl Bühler’s “reimport” of the Brentanian psychological legacy into the Vienna of the First Republic is briefly illustrated. (shrink)

Hempel publicly abandoned the Received View on scientific theories in the 1960s in favor of a new view. However, Hempel misrepresents his own works within the Received View in a number of his criticisms, and his new view turns out to be identical to the Received View on correspondence rules, observational terms, theoretical terms, and the demarcation between basic principles of a theory and correspondence rules. Hempel’s criticism of the assumption of axiomatization has counterexamples in his own previous work within (...) the Received View, and his criticism of the meaning of theoretical terms in the Received View ignores developments he witnessed and discussed. (shrink)

The contributions to this special collection concern issues and problems discussed in or related to the work of Wesley C. Salmon. Salmon has long been noted for his important work in the philosophy of science, which has included research on the interpretation of probability, the nature of explanation, the character of reasoning, the justification of induction, the structure of space/time and the paradoxes of Zeno, to mention only some of the most prominent. During a time of increasing preoccupation with historical (...) and sociological approaches to under standing science (which characterize scientific developments as though they could be adequately analysed from the perspective of political movements, even mistaking the phenomena of conversion for the rational appraisal of scientific theories), Salmon has remained stead fastly devoted to isolating and justifying those normative standards distinguishing science from non-science - especially through the vindi cation of general principles of scientific procedure and the validation of specific examples of scientific theories - without which science itself cannot be (even remotely) adequately understood. In this respect, Salmon exemplifies and strengthens a splendid tradi tion whose most remarkable representatives include Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap and Carl G. Hempel, all of whom exerted a profound influence upon his own development. (shrink)

Naturalistic experiments of color perception are critically evaluated. The review concludes that they fail to confirm a natural determination of color perception. Rather than demonstrating universal sensitivity to focal colors, the experiments actually yielded enormous cultural variation in response. This variation is interpreted as supporting a sociohistorical psychological explanation of color perception.

The signaling theory of religion has many claimed virtues, but these are not necessarily all realizable at the same time. Modeling choices involve trade-offs, and the available options here have not traditionally been well understood. This paper offers an overview of signaling theory relevant to the signaling theory of religion, arguing for a narrow, “core” reading of it. I outline a broad taxonomy of the choices on offer for signaling models, and examples of how previous and potential approaches to modeling (...) religious signaling meet or fail to meet the initial promise of the theory. A pluralist approach to religious signaling seems possible, but this would require a high level of detail and specificity with respect to both formal models and target systems. (shrink)