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INTRODUCTION The present volume unites contributions by the leading
figure of the Vienna Circle and by two of his closest assoCiates,
contributions that deal with an area of thought represented,
indeed, in this Collection but certainly not the central one in the
common picture ofthe Circle's activities. It is no accident that an
interest in ethics and the philosophy of action was particularly
marked in what Neurath was apt to call the right wing of the
Circle. For them, as for Wittgenstein (the respected
mentorofSchlickandWaismanninparticular), theadvancetobehoped for in
philosophy consisted not solely in freeing natural science from a
confused sense of dependence on speculative metaphysics but also in
seeingthatotherareasoflanguageandaction hadto bethoughtaboutin
theirownterms, whichwereneitherthoseofnaturalsciencenorthoseof
philosophy as traditionally conceived. The scepticismofSchlick
about theprogrammeofUnifiedSciencewaswellknown: EinheizwissenschaJt
he called it, as it might be 'boozified science'. And in sober
truth the programme sometimes masked a left-wing set of values
taken (surely illogically) for granted, though the membersofthe
Circle entertained a wide range ofpolitical views. Schlick's own
contribution to the present volume is a section from
thenotesforoneofhisfinal lectureseries, forsightofwhich wewarmly
thanktheonlysurvivingcontributortoourvolume, DrJosephSchachter:
Schlick'sgrandsonDra. M. H. vandeVeldehaskindlyconsentedtotheir
publication. This section poses the problem we have outlined: there
are questionsandaneedforclarificationinethics, butthesenomoredemand
a metaphysical solution than does a similar situation in
epistemology. Here, as in his earlier Problems of Ethics, l Schlick
sets his face against thewholeprocess, mostobviousin Kant,
ofmakingtheconceptofvalue absolute. One might say that for Schlick
there is no unhypothetical imperative.
a priori, and what is more, to a rejection based ultimately on a
posteriori findings; in other words, the "pure" science of nature
in Kant's sense of the term had proved to be, not only not pure,
but even false. As for logic and mathematics, the decisive works of
Frege, Russell, and White head suggested two conclusions: first,
that it was possible to construct mathematics on the basis of logic
(logicism), and secondly, that logical propositions had an
irrevocably analytic status. But within the frame work of logicism,
the status of logical propositions is passed on to mathematical
ones, and mathematical propositions are therefore also conceived of
as analytic. All this creates a situation where the existential
presupposition contained in the Kantian question about the
possibility of judgements that are both synthetic and a priori
must, it seems, be rejected as false. But to drop this
presupposition is, at the same time, to strike at the very core of
Kant's programme of putting the natural sciences on a philosophical
foundation. The failure of the modern attempt to do so suggests at
the same time a reversal of the relationship between philosophy and
the individual sciences: it is not the task of philosophy to meddle
with the foundations of the individual sciences; being the less
successful discipline, its task is rather to seek guidance from the
principles of rationality operative in the individual sciences."
INTRODUCTION The present volume unites contributions by the leading
figure of the Vienna Circle and by two of his closest assoCiates,
contributions that deal with an area of thought represented,
indeed, in this Collection but certainly not the central one in the
common picture ofthe Circle's activities. It is no accident that an
interest in ethics and the philosophy of action was particularly
marked in what Neurath was apt to call the right wing of the
Circle. For them, as for Wittgenstein (the respected
mentorofSchlickandWaismanninparticular), theadvancetobehoped for in
philosophy consisted not solely in freeing natural science from a
confused sense of dependence on speculative metaphysics but also in
seeingthatotherareasoflanguageandaction hadto bethoughtaboutin
theirownterms, whichwereneitherthoseofnaturalsciencenorthoseof
philosophy as traditionally conceived. The scepticismofSchlick
about theprogrammeofUnifiedSciencewaswellknown: EinheizwissenschaJt
he called it, as it might be 'boozified science'. And in sober
truth the programme sometimes masked a left-wing set of values
taken (surely illogically) for granted, though the membersofthe
Circle entertained a wide range ofpolitical views. Schlick's own
contribution to the present volume is a section from
thenotesforoneofhisfinal lectureseries, forsightofwhich wewarmly
thanktheonlysurvivingcontributortoourvolume, DrJosephSchachter:
Schlick'sgrandsonDra. M. H. vandeVeldehaskindlyconsentedtotheir
publication. This section poses the problem we have outlined: there
are questionsandaneedforclarificationinethics, butthesenomoredemand
a metaphysical solution than does a similar situation in
epistemology. Here, as in his earlier Problems of Ethics, l Schlick
sets his face against thewholeprocess, mostobviousin Kant,
ofmakingtheconceptofvalue absolute. One might say that for Schlick
there is no unhypothetical imperative.
a priori, and what is more, to a rejection based ultimately on a
posteriori findings; in other words, the "pure" science of nature
in Kant's sense of the term had proved to be, not only not pure,
but even false. As for logic and mathematics, the decisive works of
Frege, Russell, and White head suggested two conclusions: first,
that it was possible to construct mathematics on the basis of logic
(logicism), and secondly, that logical propositions had an
irrevocably analytic status. But within the frame work of logicism,
the status of logical propositions is passed on to mathematical
ones, and mathematical propositions are therefore also conceived of
as analytic. All this creates a situation where the existential
presupposition contained in the Kantian question about the
possibility of judgements that are both synthetic and a priori
must, it seems, be rejected as false. But to drop this
presupposition is, at the same time, to strike at the very core of
Kant's programme of putting the natural sciences on a philosophical
foundation. The failure of the modern attempt to do so suggests at
the same time a reversal of the relationship between philosophy and
the individual sciences: it is not the task of philosophy to meddle
with the foundations of the individual sciences; being the less
successful discipline, its task is rather to seek guidance from the
principles of rationality operative in the individual sciences."
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