The Berlin Circle (German : die Berliner Gruppe) was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy.
The "Berlin Circle" had its roots in seminars by Hans Reichenbach between 1926-1928, resulting in the formation of a group that included Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav among others. They subsequently joined the local Berlin group (German: "Berliner Ortsgruppe") of the International society for empirical philosophy (German: "Internationale Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie") co-founded in 1927 by Joseph Petzoldt, which was renamed in 1928 as Berlin society for empirical philosophy (German: "Berliner Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie"). After Petzoldt's death in 1929, the society was essentially taken over by Reichenbach's group, who in 1931 rebranded it as Berlin society for scientific philosophy (German: "Berliner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Philosophie"). [1] [2] [3] Additional members of the group include philosophers and scientists such as Carl Gustav Hempel, David Hilbert and Richard von Mises. Together with the Vienna Circle, they published the journal Erkenntnis ("Knowledge") edited by Rudolf Carnap and Reichenbach, and organized several congresses and colloquia concerning the philosophy of science, the first of which was held in Prague in 1929. [4]
The Berlin Circle had much in common with the Vienna Circle, but the philosophies of the circles differed on a few subjects, such as probability and conventionalism. Reichenbach insisted on calling his philosophy logical empiricism, to distinguish it from the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. Few people today make the distinction, and the words are often used interchangeably. Members of the Berlin Circle were particularly active in analyzing the philosophical and logical consequences of the advances in contemporary physics, especially the theory of relativity. Apart from that, they denied the soundness of metaphysics and traditional philosophy and asserted that many philosophical problems are indeed meaningless. After the rise of Nazism, several of the group's members emigrated to other countries, including Reichenbach, who moved to Turkey in 1933 and later to the United States in 1938; Dubislav emigrated to Prague in 1936; Hempel moved to Belgium in 1934 and later to the United States in 1939; and Grelling was killed in a concentration camp. A younger member of the Berlin Circle or Berlin School to leave Germany was Olaf Helmer who joined the RAND Corporation and played an important role in the development of the Delphi method used for predicting future trends, and other early forms of social technology. [5]
After emigrating to various countries the group effectively came to an end, but not without influencing a wide range of philosophers of the 20th century, its method having been especially influential on analytic philosophy and futurology.[ citation needed ]
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement whose central thesis is the verification principle. This theory of knowledge asserts that only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content. Starting in the late 1920s, groups of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians formed the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle, which, in these two cities, would propound the ideas of logical positivism.
Rudolf Carnap was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism.
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist, and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.
The Vienna Circle of logical empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Schlick. The Vienna Circle had a profound influence on 20th-century philosophy, especially philosophy of science and analytic philosophy.
Leonard Nelson, sometimes spelt Leonhard, was a German mathematician, critical philosopher, and socialist. He was part of the neo-Friesian school of neo-Kantianism and a friend of the mathematician David Hilbert. He devised the Grelling–Nelson paradox in 1908 and the related idea of autological words with Kurt Grelling.
Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy of science. Hempel articulated the deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation, which was considered the "standard model" of scientific explanation during the 1950s and 1960s. He is also known for the raven paradox.
Hans Reichenbach was a leading philosopher of science, educator, and proponent of logical empiricism. He was influential in the areas of science, education, and of logical empiricism. He founded the Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie in Berlin in 1928, also known as the "Berlin Circle". Carl Gustav Hempel, Richard von Mises, David Hilbert and Kurt Grelling all became members of the Berlin Circle.
Kurt Grelling was a German logician and philosopher, member of the Berlin Circle.
Fritz Mauthner was an Austrian philosopher and author of novels, satires, reviews and journalistic works. He was an exponent of philosophical scepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge and of philosophy of language.
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which asserts that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or a truth of logic.
Victor Kraft was an Austrian philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle.
Erkenntnis is a journal of philosophy that publishes papers in analytic philosophy. Its name is derived from the German word "Erkenntnis", meaning "knowledge, recognition". The journal was also linked to organisation of conferences, such as the Second Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences, of which it published the papers and accounts of the discussions.
Walter Dubislav was a German logician and philosopher of science (Wissenschaftstheoretiker).
This is a list of articles in analytic philosophy.
Friedrich Stadler is an Austrian historian and philosopher and professor for history and philosophy of science at the University of Vienna. He is the founder and long-time director of the Institute Vienna Circle, which was established as a Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education of the Vienna University in May 2011. Currently he is a permanent fellow of this department and serves at the same time as the Director of the co-operating Vienna Circle Society, which is the continuation of the former Institute Vienna Circle as an extra-university institution.
Marcel Boll was a French scientist, sociologist, philosopher, educator, scientific journalist, and a founding member (1930) of the Rationalist Union. Boll was one of the most prolific contributors of articles to Les Cahiers Rationalistes and Raison Présente, two journals published by the Rationalist Union. He was one of the main popularizers of the theory of relativity, the quantum theory, and other aspects of the physical sciences during the interwar period (1918-1939) and in the early 1950s. An advocate of neopositivism, his numerous works on physics, philosophy, sociology, education, and other subjects all reflect his neopositivist perspective. He was the first person to draw the French public's attention to the Vienna Circle. Louis Rougier (1889-1982) and Général Charles-Ernest Vouillemin (1865-1954) later joined Boll in being among the first to introduce and promote the Vienna Circle and its overall philosophical outlook in France.
The Second Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences was held on 5–7 September 1930 in Königsberg, then located in East Prussia. It was at this conference that Kurt Gödel first presented his incompleteness theorems, though just "in an off-hand remark during a general discussion on the last day". The real first presentation took place in Vienna.
Nikolay Milkov is a German-Bulgarian philosopher and professor at the University of Paderborn.
Friedrich Jodl was a German philosopher and psychologist.
Joseph Petzoldt was a German positivist philosopher.