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Exact thinking in demented times : the Vienna Circle and the epic quest for the foundations of science
Sigmund K., Basic Books, Inc., New York, NY, 2017. 480 pp. Type: Book (978-0-465096-95-4)
Date Reviewed: Apr 17 2019

This is an intellectual and personal collective biography of some of the greatest minds of the first half of the 20th century, written for a more or less general audience by Karl Sigmund, a professor of mathematics at the University of Vienna: “The Circle sought to create a purely science-based philosophy without any highbrow talk of unfathomable depths and without any otherworldly obscurantism ... The scientific worldview knows no unsolvable riddles.” At the same time, especially in the 1920s and to a much greater extent in the 1930s, the Circle was “set against a backdrop of wild fanaticism and maniacal stupidity” because “the belief that violence was ultimately the only solution to political tension kept growing” (p. 172). The book includes excellent explanations of the ideas and problems discussed by the Vienna Circle members and associates, as well as numerous quotes from the Circle (and associated thinkers) and more than 50 interesting illustrations.

It all started with the protocircle (early 1900s), with the participation of such famous contributors as Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, Albert Einstein, David Hilbert, Bertrand Russell, and others: “It was a truly unique circumstance that the disciplines of mathematics, physics, law, medicine and sociology--and of course, philosophy--were all equally well presented in the Circle’s weekly gatherings.” As a notable example, the debate on “whether atoms exist” between Mach and Boltzmann “turned less on atoms themselves than on what ‘to exist’ means.” Boltzmann stated that “what brain is to man, mathematics is to science,” and harshly criticized such “obscure and vacuous” philosophers as Hegel and Schopenhauer. Also notably, “in the years leading to World War I, modern art was not any less exciting than modern science,” and Sigmund mentions in this context such names as Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Arnold Schönberg, and Oskar Kokoshka. Klimt’s faculty paintings produced for the University of Vienna (murals destroyed in the closing days of World Was II by retreating SS units) are discussed in some detail. As to modern literature, Sigmund notes that Robert Musil studied engineering and philosophy, obtained a PhD, published his essay “The mathematical Man” in 1913, and later became a famous writer--just one example of a thinker who was not overspecialized.

The Vienna Circle acquired its name as a subtitle to the 1929 manifesto “The Scientific Worldview,” written by Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and others as a surprise for the Circle’s leader, Moritz Schlick: “Only the results of experimentation and logical analysis were admitted--nothing else,” and “as a summary of the Vienna Circle, [this manifesto] is still unsurpassed” (p. 142). (There were dozens if not hundreds of circles in Vienna at that time, so in Vienna “people continued to call it merely ‘the Schlick Circle’” (p. 141).) Schlick excellently summarized the separation of concerns between science and philosophy: “the scientist seeks the truth (the correct answers), and the philosopher attempts to clarify the meaning (of the questions)” (p. 147). This is clearly in opposition to Martin Heidegger “who once famously asserted, ‘Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.’”

The Vienna Circle members and associates included such intellectual luminaries as Wittgenstein, Kurt Gödel, Karl Menger, Carnap, Karl Popper, A. J. Ayer, and others. As an example of Sigmund’s approach in this book, he presents not only Gödel’s biography, but also his incompleteness theorem (“there exist true mathematical statements that cannot be derived by formal means from a set of axioms” (p. 222)) and even Gödel numbering shown in a popular and convincing manner. Gödel’s results concerning Georg Cantor’s continuum hypothesis are also explained, up to a point, although diagonalization is not mentioned. On an apparently unrelated note--but see the following sentence--the Austrian School of Economics is also discussed by Sigmund, emphasizing its approach based on the needs and decisions of individuals, rather than on “impossibly idealized collectives, classes and masses,” and referring to such disciples of this great school as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek (regretfully, the term “systems thinkers” was not used, although in my opinion it is appropriate not only for these economists, but also for other Vienna Circle associates). Observe in this context Hayek’s remark--missing from the book under review--that “no explaining agent can ever explain objects of its own kind, or of its own degree of complexity,” with an explicit reference to “the celebrated theorem due to Kurt Gödel” [1].

In the mid-1930s, the Vienna Circle fell apart: some members left Austria, and the remaining “were well aware of how precarious their situation had become,” as some were Jewish and some others “friends of the Jews,” and this was contrary to “the spirit of the new Austria” (a quote from the Austrian daily Reichspost). As one of many examples, Carnap wrote to Popper that he understood that “the ground is burning under your feet,” and Popper was able to get a fellowship at the University of Cambridge and then, in 1936, a position at Canterbury College in New Zealand. In March of 1938, on the day of Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Germany, Vienna “transformed itself into a nightmare painting by Hieronymus Bosch” (p. 325). Sigmund observes that the dissolution of the Circle was “a body blow not only to philosophy, but also, it might be added, to the town of Vienna” (p. 384). Thus, in the mid-1930s, the Vienna Circle “had lost its Viennese roots ... and was able to find shelter in Anglo-Saxon countries, and from there it exerted a seminal influence on the intellectual and scientific history of the 20th century.” The final chapter 13, “Fadeout,” is about the life and work of Circle associates after World War II, in particular Ludwig Wittgenstein, Popper, Carnap, and Gödel.

The English version of the book, reviewed here, is an expanded and revised translation of its original German version. The translation was accomplished by the author himself, with additional editing (and a preface) by Douglas Hofstadter. Regretfully, some very interesting illustrations were omitted from the English version, such as Klimt’s portrait of Wittgenstein’s sister Margarete; the minutes from Wittgenstein’s four-minute presentation “What is philosophy?” at the meeting of Cambridge’s philosophical society in 1912; an invoice for services handwritten by the electrician and submitted, in 1939, to Kurt Gödel with a note “Heil Hitler!” (referring to “a former schoolmate of Ludwig Wittgenstein [who] had become the chancellor of Germany and ... had no intention of stopping with this“ (p. 262)); and quite a few other fascinating tidbits.

I would highly recommend this enjoyable book.

More reviews about this item: Amazon, Goodreads

Reviewer:  H. I. Kilov Review #: CR146535 (1907-0272)
1) Hayek, F. A. Rules, perception and intelligibility. Proceedings of the British Academy 48, (1962).
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