Vienna Circle

By Stadler, Friedrich
Translated by Piller, C.

The Vienna Circle was a group of about three dozen thinkers drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly in Vienna between the ...

Neurath, Otto (1882–1945)

By Cat, Jordi; Cartwright, Nancy

An Austrian socialist philosopher, economist, sociologist and historian, Neurath was a charismatic orator and an energetic cultural activist. Deeply concerned with education as a tool for social progress ...

Logical positivism

By Friedman, Michael

Logical positivism (logical empiricism, neo-positivism) originated in Austria and Germany in the 1920s. Inspired by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revolutions in logic, mathematics and mathematical physics, it ...

Nagel, Ernest (1901–85)

By Levi, Isaac

Ernest Nagel was arguably the pre-eminent American philosopher of science from the mid 1930s to the 1960s. He taught at Columbia University for virtually his entire career. Although ...

Schlick, Friedrich Albert Moritz (1882–1936)

By Oberdan, Thomas

Moritz Schlick is usually remembered as the leader of the Vienna Circle, a group that flourished from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, and made an important contribution ...

Mach, Ernst (1838–1916)

By Hamilton, Andy

Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. Though not one of the great philosophers, he was tremendously influential in the development of ‘scientific philosophy’ in the late nineteenth ...

Ayer, Alfred Jules (1910–89)

By MacDonald, Graham

A.J. Ayer made his name as a philosopher with the publication of Language, Truth and Logic in 1936, a book which established him as the leading English representative ...

Science, 19th century philosophy of

By Butts, Robert E.

In the nineteenth century, science was organized, it tested and confirmed positive knowledge of the natural world and achieved remarkable theoretical development and hitherto unimagined practical application. Science ...

Linguistic turn

By Glock, Hans-Johann; Kalhat, Javier

The term ‘the linguistic turn’ refers to a radical reconception of the nature of philosophy and its methods, according to which philosophy is neither an empirical science nor ...

Ingarden, Roman Witold (1893–1970)

By Stepien, Antoni B.
Translated by Gutowski, Piotr

Ingarden was a leading exponent of phenomenology and one of the most outstanding Polish philosophers. Representing an objectivist approach within phenomenology he stressed that phenomenology employs a variety ...

Kotarbiński, Tadeusz (1886–1981)

By Stanosz, B.

Kotarbiński was one of the founders and main representatives of the Polish philosophical school known as the Lwów–Warsaw School and akin to, though independent of (and less radical ...

Carnap, Rudolf (1891–1970)

By Creath, Richard

Carnap was one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, and made important contributions to logic, philosophy of science, semantics, modal theory and probability. Viewed as ...

Planck, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig (1858–1947)

By Howard, Don

Planck was a German theoretical physicist and leader of the German physics community in the first half of the twentieth century. Famous for his introduction of the quantum ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

By Heal, Jane

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889–1951)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on 26 April 1889 and died in Cambridge on 29 April 1951. He spent his childhood and youth in Austria and Germany, ...

Reichenbach, Hans (1891–1953)

By Salmon, Wesley C.

Philosophy of science flourished in the twentieth century, partly as a result of extraordinary progress in the sciences themselves, but mainly because of the efforts of philosophers who ...

Analytical philosophy

By Baldwin, Thomas

Philosophical analysis is a method of inquiry in which one seeks to assess complex systems of thought by ‘analysing’ them into simpler elements whose relationships are thereby brought ...

Quine, Willard Van Orman (1908–2000)

By Orenstein, Alex

Quine is the foremost representative of naturalism in the second half of the twentieth century. His naturalism consists of an insistence upon a close connection or alliance between ...

Analytical philosophy in Latin America

By Martí, Oscar R.

In Latin America, philosophical analysis has been portrayed as an intellectual revolution. Its avowed goal has been to replace the abstruseness and obscurantism of scholastic and metaphysical jargon ...

Czech Republic, philosophy in

By Zumr, Josef
Translated by Burša, G.R.F.

The foundation of the University of Prague in 1348 contributed significantly to establishing Bohemia as a centre of philosophical thought. The main philosophers and theologians from the University ...

Causation

By Cartwright, Nancy

Two opposed viewpoints raise complementary problems about causation. The first is from Hume: watch the child kick the ball. You see the foot touch the ball and the ...

Einstein, Albert (1879–1955)

By Fine, Arthur; Howard, Don; Norton, John D.

Albert Einstein was a German-born Swiss and American naturalized physicist and the twentieth century’s most prominent scientist. He produced the special and general theories of relativity, which overturned ...

Meaning and verification

By Hart, W.D.

The verifiability theory of meaning says that meaning is evidence. It is anticipated in, for example, Hume’s empiricist doctrine of impressions and ideas, but it emerges into full ...

Twentieth-century philosophy

By Livingston, Paul M.

Although it is difficult to generalize, twentieth-century philosophy has a number of broadly characteristic and widely shared concerns. These include the ambition to clarify the nature and foundations ...

Scandinavia, philosophy in

By Follesdal, Dagfinn

The three countries of Scandinavia – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – share much of their history and culture with Finland and Iceland, and it is natural to treat ...