Throughout history, scientific research has allowed the development of a large number of technologies and the understanding of a great diversity of phenomena that make our daily lives easier. Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, Medicine, Psychology… all of them have developed over time. But all of them have a common origin, an origin that dates back to ancient times and that starts from the human search for an explanation for the mysteries of life: The philosophy
And like the previous ones, philosophy has also evolved over time, in turn affecting scientific development. These advances and changes have generated a great diversity of paradigms, some of which have been forged and discussed in different circles of thinkers. Maybe one of the best known of modern times was the Vienna Circle which we are going to talk about throughout this article.
An important scientific and philosophical movement is called the Vienna Circle. It was founded in 1921 by Moritz Schlick in the Austrian city that gives its name to this group. This movement emerged with the purpose of forming an informal discussion group on scientific topics, although it would end up being the main ideological nucleus of logical neopositivism and the philosophy of science.
This movement included great figures of science from very diverse disciplines, including (in addition to Schlik himself) Herbert Feigl, Freidrich Waisman, Rudolf Carnap, Víctor Kraft, Otto Neurath, Philipp Frank, Klaus Mahn, Carl Gustav Hempel, Felix Kaufmann or Alfred Ayer. Many of them were physicists, mathematicians or professionals who studied different branches of science but they would end up delving into philosophical aspects.
Although he would be born in 21, it would not be until 1929 that he would make his first official manifesto, entitled “The scientific vision of the world”, in which they would propose philosophy as the main instrument to generate a common language for the different scientific disciplines, relegating it only to this function.
The movement centered on a total empiricism that It sought to be based on advances in logic and physics and focused its methodology on the inductive method Another of the main aspects by which it is characterized is its profound rejection of metaphysics, derived from its inductivism and empiricism, considering it alien to the reality of phenomena. Their meetings, held on Thursday nights, would end up germinating the so-called logical neopositivism.
Main philosophical contributions
The vision of reality and science typical of the members of the Vienna Circle is what would end up being called logical neopositivism. This philosophical-scientific position proposed empiricism and induction as the main elements for scientific study and assumed the search for a unity of scientific language under the premise that the different disciplines are all part of the same system with the possibility of being unified.
The movement proposed a readaptation of the sciences to search for common fundamental laws from which to later deduce those specific to each of its branches. For this, the use of a single method was essential, the logical analysis of language, with which, through the use of symbolic logic and the scientific method, we sought to avoid false statements and be able to generate a unified knowledge of the world.
For them, the unresolved problems were only because what they are trying to solve are pseudo-problems that must first be transformed into empirical problems As we have previously commented, this analysis would correspond to the mother of all sciences, philosophy, which should not seek but clarify scientific problems and statements.
With respect to statements, they considered that there is no valid knowledge unconditionally derived from reason or a priori, only statements based on empirical evidence and logic and mathematics being true. In this sense they stated the principle of demarcation, in which a statement will be scientific if it can be contrasted and verified by objective experience.
Curiously, no method was considered invalid (even intuition was valid), as long as what resulted from it could be empirically contrasted
The Vienna Circle touched on a large number of disciplines, including physics (this being possibly the most highlighted and considered), mathematics, geometry, biology, psychology or the social sciences. In addition, it was characterized by its opposition to metaphysics (as well as theology), considering that it was based on neither empirical nor verifiable data.
The dissolution of the Circle
The Vienna Circle offered interesting contributions and advances both in the field of philosophy and in the various branches of science, as we have seen previously. However, a few years after being formed it would end up dissolving due to the historical events that happened during the time. We are talking about the rise to power of Hitler and Nazism
The beginning of the end of the circle occurred when in June 1936 and on his way to teach at the University, the pioneer and founder of the Circle Moritz Schlick was murdered on the stairs of the same by a former student of his, Johann Nelböck. , with an ideology close to the Nazi (although apparently the murder occurred due to delusional ideas of a jealous type regarding another of Schlick’s students, who had rejected the murderer).
The student would be arrested and imprisoned, but Two years later he would be freed by the Nazis by justifying his actions as an act to prevent doctrines and paradigms that were harmful and threatening to the nation, due to the fact that a large part of the Vienna Circle was made up of scientists of Jewish origin.
This murder, in addition to the subsequent rise of Nazism, the annexation of Austria to the German regime and the persecution of the Jews that followed, would cause almost all of the Vienna Circle members to decide to flee to different countries, most of them to the United States. In 38 the publications of the Circle were banned in Germany A year later, the last work of the Circle, the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, would be published, this being the end of the Vienna Circle as such (although they would continue working on their own).
Only one of the members of the Circle would remain in Vienna, Victor Kraft, around whom would form what would receive the name Círculo Kraft and that he would continue discussing various topics of scientific philosophy.
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