Mission Accomplished? Unified Science and Logical Empiricism at the 1935 Paris Congress and Afterwards

Pour la plupart, les membres du cercle de Vienne se sentaient investis d’une mission philosophique et aussi culturelle: poursuivre la tradition française des Lumières et l’adapter aux exigences du temps. Si l’on se demande dans quelle mesure l’objectif a été atteint, la réponse est double. Quand ils ont cherché à élaborer une encyclopédie empiriste, à savoir l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, qui serait comme l’équivalent de la Grande Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’échec a été flagrant. À cela, il y a des raisons externes, comme la seconde guerre mondiale, ou la mort d’Otto Neurath, le principal éditeur et aussi le moteur de toute l’entreprise. Mais cela tient aussi à des facteurs internes, comme l’insistance de Neurath sur un Index verborum prohibitorum, qui a empêché certaines contributions importantes d’aboutir. Si maintenant l’on élargit l’horizon pour considérer le mouvement dans son ensemble, un bon point de départ se trouve dans la critique très polémique formulée par Max Horkheimer en 1937. L’examen des arguments avancés montre que les positions défendues par l’empirisme logique étaient beaucoup plus solides que ne l’imaginaient Horkheimer et l’École de Francfort: la prise en compte des faits et théories scientifiques est et reste un ingrédient important de toute politique éclairée.Perhaps not all, but certainly many of the logical empiricists of the Vienna Circle, felt that they were undertaking a philosophical and cultural mission for their time, namely to follow in the tradition of the French Enlightenment and to adapt it to the requirements of their own time. My question here is whether they were able to fulfill this ambition, and if so, to what extent. The answer is twofold: when they tried to construct an empiricist encyclopedia, namely the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, as a counterpart to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Grande Encyclopédie, the project was a quite spectacular failure. There were a number of “external” reasons for this, including the start of the Second World War and the death of Otto Neurath, the chief editor and main driving force behind the whole thing, shortly after the end of the war. But it also had to do with inbuilt “internal” factors, such as Neurath’s insistence on his strange index verborum prohibitorum, which stood in the way of some important contributions. I then widen the horizon and take the whole movement of logical empiricism as the object to be evaluated. I take as a suitable starting-point Max Horkheimer’s very polemical criticism of the movement (published in 1937) and evaluate his critical arguments. The result is that logical empiricism fares far better than Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School imagined: the acknowledgement of empirical facts and scientific theory was (and remains) an important ingredient of every enlightened politics

O coerentismo pragmático-sociológico de Otto Neurath

Esta dissertação visa apresentar sistematicamente o pensamento de Neurath, mostrando que este constitui um todo coerente e sui generis. Para alcançar este desiderato, a principal tese a ser defendida é a de que existe uma dupla relação entre as seguintes teses de Neurath: Coerentismo Semântico: uma frase é verdadeira se, e somente se, pertencer a, ou for dedutível de, um sistema coerente de frases. Relativismo Sociológico: o valor de uma alteração na estrutura económico-social mede-se pela forma como influencia as condições de vida de um determinado grupo. Argumentar-se-á que, do ponto de vista da reconstrução do seu pensamento, o coerentismo semântico implica o relativismo sociológico; mas que, do ponto de vista da estrutura conceptual inerente ao pensamento do autor, é o relativismo sociológico que implica o coerentismo semântico. Chegamos, desta forma, a um círculo virtuoso. Por um lado, o relativismo sociológico (em conjunto com os compromissos sociológicos de primeira ordem de Neurath) permite explicar a sua perspectiva acerca da ciência; por outro lado, só podemos explicar essa perspectiva dessa forma uma vez justificado o relativismo sociológico, via a teoria de Neurath acerca da verdade. A exposição guiar-se-á pela procura de uma resposta às seguintes três perguntas: (i) Aceitará Neurath a definição tripartida de conhecimento? (ii) Qual o tipo de coerentismo defendido por Neurath? (iii) Será essa forma de coerentismo compatível com o empirismo? A resposta à primeira pergunta será negativa. Argumentar-se-á que o fisicismo radical (i.e. a conjunção do fisicismo e do naturalismo epistémico) implica a rejeição desta definição. A resposta à segunda pergunta consistirá em mostrar que a defesa por Neurath do coerentismo semântico não implica, como por vezes se afirma, a sua adesão ao coerentismo epistémico. Por fim, responder-se-á negativamente à terceira pergunta, mostrando que, dada a teoria neurathiana das frases protocolares, o empirismo e o coerentismo defendidos pelo autor são compatíveis. A investigação em torno destas questões permitir-nos-á obter os elementos exegéticos suficientes para suportar a tese acima descrita, enquanto proposta de leitura global do pensamento de Neurath.Abstract: This dissertation aims at a systemic presentation of Neurath’s thinking as a coherent and sui generis whole. In order to satisfy this desideratum, the main idea put forth in this dissertation is that a specific two-way relation holds between two of Neurath’s main philosophical theses: Semantic Coherentism: a sentence is true if, and only if, it belongs to, or can be deduced from, a coherent set of sentences. Sociological Relativism: the value of a social change depends on how it influences the living conditions of a certain group of individuals. The two-way relation is the following: from the reconstructive point of view, Neurathian semantic coherentism entails his sociological relativism; but, from the point of view of the conceptual structure underlying Neurath’s thinking, it is his sociological relativism that entails his semantic coherentism. We thus arrive at a virtuous circle. On the one hand, the appeal to sociological relativism (together with Neurath’s first order sociological commitments) allows us to explain his view of science; on the other hand, only once we have acquired a justification for sociological relativism, via his theory of truth, are we entitled to explain his view of science in this way. The exposition will be guided by the attempt to find an answer to the three following questions: (i) Does Neurath accept the standard threefold definition of knowledge? (ii) What kind of coherentism is endorsed by Neurath? (iii) Is Neurath’s coherentism compatible with empiricism? The answer to the first question will be negative. It will be argued that radical physicalism (i.e. the conjunction between physicalism and epistemic naturalism) entails the rejection of this definition. The answer to the second question will amount to showing that Neurath’s endorsement of semantic coherentism does not entail, as it is sometimes stated, the endorsement of epistemic coherentism. Finally, the third question will be answered negatively by showing that, given Neurath’s theory of protocol sentences, his coherentism and his empiricism are compatible. The exegetical work prompted by the need to answer these questions will provide us with the elements we need in order to substantiate the main idea mentioned above

Towards an encyclopaedia as a web of knowledge

Peter Greenaway kann auf eine lange und erfolgreiche Karriere zurückblicken, die ihn als einen der herausragenden Künstler und Filmemacher der Gegenwart ausweist. Allerdings hat sein stetig wachsendes Gesamtwerk, welches Filme, Gemälde, Ausstellungen, Installationen und Opern gleichermaßen umfasst, in den letzten Jahren zunehmend seine Anziehungskraft auf Publikum und Kritik verloren. Diese Arbeit hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, einerseits Lücken in der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Greenaway zu schließen, andererseits eine Gesamtsicht auf sein Werk zu ermöglichen, welche dieses als ein homogenes Ganzes begreift, das durch eine strukturelle Analyse aufbereitet werden kann. Greenaway ist ein Künstler mit einer enzyklopädischen Vielfalt an Interessen und einer ausgeprägten Sammelleidenschaft, der dafür bekannt ist, seine Werke mit einer Vielzahl von Bildern und Ideen auszustatten, die aus so unterschiedlichen Wissensbereichen wie Biologie, Medizin, Geschichte, Mathematik, Philosophie, Theologie oder den Künsten entlehnt sind. Für eine Analyse der Fülle des von Greenaway gesammelten Materials wurden seine Werke in ihre einzelnen Bestandteile aufgebrochen, um so wiederkehrende Elemente (abstrakte Konzepte, materielle Objekte, Bilder oder literarische Motive) zu identifizieren, die als vereinende/bindende Kräfte zwischen den einzelnen Erscheinungen seines Gesamtwerks fungieren. Zusammengefasst in paradigmatische Kategorien werden diese wiederkehrenden Elemente im Rahmen einer enzyklopädischen Sammlung aufbereitet, die gleichzeitig den Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit bildet. Innerhalb dieses Rahmens wird Greenaways Werk weiter analysiert, indem geschichtliche und kulturgeschichtliche Bezüge sowie Verbindungen zu den Werken anderer Künstler hergestellt werden. Durch die Erforschung einiger der vielen expliziten und impliziten Verbindungen und Pfade, die von Greenaway angelegt wurden, ergibt sich ein Gesamtbild seines Werks als ein verzweigtes Wissensnetz, das uns dazu einlädt, in eine Vielfalt kultureller Formen und Traditionen einzutauchen, und uns dabei die Möglichkeit bietet, bei der Erkundung der Verbindungen zwischen Greenaways Kunst und der Kultur der Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart eigene Wege zu bestreiten.Peter Greenaway can look back on a long and distinguished career that established him as one of the leading artists and filmmakers of our time. Within the last few years, however, his ever-expanding oeuvre, which includes films, paintings, writings, exhibitions, installations, and operas, has largely failed to attract audience interest and scholarly attention. This study not only attempts to fill a considerable gap in the criticism of Greenaway, but also to offer a holistic view that sees his complete work as one homogeneous body, as a system made up of interrelated parts, for which structural theory provides the analytical framework. Greenaway, as an artist with an encyclopaedic range of interests and a strong penchant for collecting, is noted for filling his works with a great variety of images and ideas, borrowed from fields as diverse as biology, medicine, history, mathematics, philosophy, theology, literature, or the fine arts. For an analysis of the wealth of material collected by the artist, his works were disassembled into their constituent parts to identify recurring elements (abstract concepts, material objects, or visual and literary images) that function as unifying/binding forces between the individual emanations of his oeuvre. Grouped together in paradigmatic classes, these recurring elements are presented within the framework of an encyclopaedic collection, which forms the central part of this study. Within this framework, Greenaway’s work is further analysed by contextualising and historicising it, by relating it to a wider context of culture, and by establishing connections to the works of other artists. Thus exploring some of the explicit and implicit paths laid out by Greenaway, his work is outlined as an intricate web of knowledge, which invites us to delve into the depths and richness of cultural traditions, while at the same time allows us to discover our own unique course in an intellectual exploration of the relations between Greenaway’s art and the culture of the past and the present