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Philosophiascientiae 1517
Philosophiascientiae 1517
Philosophiascientiae 1517
22-3 | 2018
Sur la philosophie scientifique et l’unité de la
science
Le congrès de Paris 1935 et son héritage. Actes du colloque de Cerisy
Édition électronique
URL : http://journals.openedition.org/philosophiascientiae/1517
DOI : 10.4000/philosophiascientiae.1517
ISSN : 1775-4283
Éditeur
Éditions Kimé
Édition imprimée
Date de publication : 25 octobre 2018
ISBN : 978-2-84174-908-9
ISSN : 1281-2463
Référence électronique
Michel Bourdeau, Gerhard Heinzmann et Pierre Wagner (dir.), Philosophia Scientiæ, 22-3 | 2018, « Sur la
philosophie scientifique et l’unité de la science » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 25 octobre 2020, consulté le
30 mars 2021. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/philosophiascientiae/1517 ; DOI : https://doi.org/
10.4000/philosophiascientiae.1517
Michel Bourdeau
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut d’histoire et
de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (CNRS, Paris 1
Panthéon-Sorbonne), UMR 8590 (France)
Gerhard Heinzmann
Archives Henri-Poincaré – Philosophie et Recherches
sur les Sciences et les Technologies,
Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg,
CNRS, Nancy (France)
Pierre Wagner
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut d’histoire et
de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (CNRS, Paris 1
Panthéon-Sorbonne), UMR 8590 (France)
1. [Rougier 1936a, 3]. Pour la vie et l’œuvre de Rougier, voir [Berndt & Marion
2006]. Rougier est depuis 1924 professeur de philosophie à l’université de Besançon
et professeur invité à l’université royale du Caire de 1934 à 1936.
4 Michel Bourdeau, Gerhard Heinzmann & Pierre Wagner
la philosophie scientifique qu’il défend prétend être science au même titre que
les autres sciences, soit c’est en un autre sens. Philippe de Rouilhan montre
que l’idéal visé par Carnap correspond à la première branche du dilemme alors
qu’il est en réalité contraint d’adopter une position qui le place sur la seconde.
Ansten Klev s’intéresse, quant à lui, à l’un des trois changements opérés par
Carnap en 1935. C’est presque simultanément en effet que celui-ci opère le
tournant sémantique, procède à ce qu’on appellera plus tard la libéralisation
de l’empirisme et adopte le langage des choses. C’est ce dernier aspect qui
fait l’objet du travail d’Ansten Klev, qui s’interroge sur les motivations qui
ont poussé Carnap dans cette direction et examine les mérites respectifs de ce
langage et des autres types de langages protocolaires.
Les deux chapitres suivants abordent des sujets inscrits dès le départ
en bonne place sur l’agenda des congressistes : la logique et la théorie des
probabilités. Dans le premier cas, la place à accorder à la sémantique a
en effet donné lieu à une vive controverse, qui constitue rétrospectivement
un des événements majeurs du congrès, et qui opposa Carnap, Tarski et
Kokoszyńska à Neurath. Après avoir rappelé les termes du débat, Jan Woleński
montre comment la victoire de la sémantique, acquise dès ce moment, orienta
de façon durable le développement de la logique. Maria Carla Galavotti
présente ensuite les deux sessions consacrées en 1935 à l’induction et au
calcul des probabilités. Là encore on ne peut qu’être frappé par la qualité des
intervenants : Reichenbach, Schlick et Carnap, puis à nouveau Reichenbach et
Schlick, auxquels se joignirent de Bruno de Finetti et Janina Hosiasson. Cette
dernière session offrit aux tenants des différentes conceptions qui s’opposaient
alors (logicisme, fréquentisme, subjectivisme) l’occasion de confronter leurs
points de vue. Le dernier chapitre, « Wrongful Life », traite de la grande
absente du congrès, à savoir la biologie. Étendant son enquête aux congrès de
Prague (1934) et de Copenhague (1936), Gereon Wolters identifie les différentes
raisons de cette désaffection, notamment l’ignorance où étaient la plupart des
philosophes en matière de biologie, et l’importance par eux accordée à des
considérations idéologiques comme le vitalisme.
Les deux derniers chapitres abordent une question à laquelle les deux co-
organisateurs du congrès accordaient une grande importance, quitte à prendre
ensuite des positions presque diamétralement opposées : l’articulation de la
science, de la philosophie et de la politique. Oliver Schlaudt, dans « On
the political meaning of “scientific philosophy” », examine le cas de Edgar
Zilsel, qui n’était pas présent à Paris mais qui illustre de façon exemplaire
la dimension politique, un temps oubliée, du Cercle de Vienne. On a été
tenté de chercher chez Zilsel un modèle de cette philosophie des sciences
politiquement pertinente que certains appellent aujourd’hui de leurs vœux.
Cela ne va pourtant nullement de soi. Être un intellectuel politiquement
engagé, ce n’est pas nécessairement être un philosophe politique des sciences.
De plus l’approche sociologique de Zilsel est fort différente de l’approche
actuelle, qui part des individus. « Mission accomplie ? », se demande enfin
Hans-Joachim Dahms. Un des événements majeurs du congrès de 1935 fut
Introduction 13
Bibliographie
Actes [1936], Actes du Congrès international de philosophie scientifique,
Sorbonne, Paris 1935, Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, 388–395, t. I–
VIII, Paris : Hermann.
Berndt, Claudia & Marion, Mathieu [2006], Vie et œuvre d’un rationaliste
engagé : Louis Rougier (1889-1982), Philosophia Scientiæ, 10(2), 11–90, doi :
10.4000/philosophiascientiae.459.
Carnap, Rudolf [1934], Logische Syntax der Sprache, Vienne : Springer, doi :
10.1007/978-3-662-25375-5, trad. angl. A. Smeaton, The Logical Syntax of
Language, Londres : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1937.
Kraft, Victor [1968], Der Wiener Kreis. Der Ursprung des Neopositivismus,
Vienne ; New York : Springer.
Stadler, Friedrich [2007], The Vienna Circle : Context, profile, and deve-
lopment, dans The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism, édité
par A. Richardson & Th. Uebel, Cambridge : Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, 13–40, doi : 10.1017/
CCOL0521791782.002.
Michel Bourdeau
CNRS, Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et
des techniques (CNRS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne),
UMR 8590 (France)
Résumé : Dans les Archives Neurath conservées à Haarlem, une des corres-
pondances les plus volumineuses est celle qu’il a échangée avec Louis Rougier.
Les deux hommes ayant été chargés de co-organiser le premier congrès du
mouvement pour l’unité de la science, qui s’est tenu à Paris en septembre 1935,
cette correspondance permet de retracer l’histoire, pleine de péripéties, des
préparatifs de cet événement, dont l’idée première surgit à Berlin en 1932,
lors d’une conversation entre Rougier et Reichenbach. Outre l’éclairage qu’elle
apporte sur le congrès, cette étude permet, de façon plus générale, de combler
une lacune dans l’histoire du mouvement pour l’unité de la science, où le
nom de Rougier n’apparaît que rarement, alors pourtant que, de 1933 à 1940,
il en a été un des membres les plus actifs. Aussi, il s’agira également, de
façon subsidiaire, de mettre en valeur l’action de Rougier dans l’histoire de
la philosophie scientifique et de s’interroger en particulier sur le rôle qui lui
revient dans la non-réception en France des idées du Cercle de Vienne.
try to understand the role he could have had in the non-reception in France
of the ideas of the Vienna Circle.
mieux que Carnap, dans la dernière lettre qu’il adressa à son ami, quelques
mois avant la mort de celui-ci, n’a peut-être décrit ce qui fait l’originalité de
Neurath :
[...] ton tempérament et ta façon d’agir est différente de celle
de la plupart d’entre nous ; tu es plus énergique, plus actif, plus
battant [driving], plus agressif. En conséquence, c’est à toi qu’il est
revenu d’être la force motrice de notre mouvement et de toutes ses
différentes activités. Nous t’en sommes reconnaissants et obligés ;
nous sommes tous conscients de là où serait encore notre train
si nous n’avions pas eu la grosse locomotive. [Carnap à Neurath,
lettre du 23 août 1945], citée dans [Hegselmann 1985, 287, ma
traduction]
Il est difficile d’imaginer personnalités plus opposées que celles des deux
correspondants, au point qu’on serait tenté de dire qu’ils étaient faits pour
ne pas s’entendre. Alors que Neurath est un socialiste, proche de l’austro-
marxisme (on dit que c’est avant tout contre lui qu’est dirigé « Scientisme
et science sociale » de Hayek), Rougier, lui, est un des fondateurs du néo-
libéralisme, notamment en tant qu’organisateur du Colloque Lippmann,
considéré comme la matrice de la Société du Mont Pelerin3 . Né dans une famille
de la grande bourgeoisie lyonnaise, il évolue à son aise dans les plus hautes
sphères de l’État et le maréchal Pétain ira même jusqu’à lui confier, en 1940,
une mission secrète auprès de Churchill, ce qui lui vaudra, en 1945, d’être
pour un temps exclu de l’université. À l’époque qui nous occupe, ses contacts
au ministère des Affaires étrangères, au ministère de l’Éducation nationale ou
encore au Bureau de coopération intellectuelle, l’équivalent, pour la Société des
nations de ce qu’est l’UNESCO pour l’ONU, lui sont très utiles dans sa tâche
d’organisateur. Docteur ès lettres depuis 1920, avec une thèse remarquable sur
Poincaré, il est souvent en poste ou en mission à l’étranger, et il n’occupe dans
la communauté philosophique française qu’une place de second rang.
Vienne, le 28.11.1933.
Rapport sur les entretiens des 21 et 22 nov. à Paris.
21 novembre, entretien Rougier-Neurath
22 novembre “...” Boll-Neurath
22 novembre “...” Boll-Rougier-Neurath
savoir davantage sur les relations qu’ils ont entretenues jusqu’à l’été 1935. À
cette date Rougier, sans doute sur les instances de Frank, qui s’étonne de
l’absence de Boll, reprend contact avec ce dernier. Voilà comment il décrit, le
4 juillet, le résultat de cette démarche :
Dans une lettre à Neurath du 3 juillet, Boll, qui semble avoir été de
caractère particulièrement irascible, donnera sa propre version des faits, qui
ne s’accorde que partiellement avec celle de Rougier, dont le témoignage est
donc sujet à caution. Malgré une lettre presque suppliante de Neurath, Boll
4. Le nom de Pierre Janet, professeur au Collège de France, figurait parmi les
membres du comité scientifique international.
5. Enrique Freymann était alors le directeur des éditions Hermann, qui publiaient
les Actualités Scientifiques et industrielles, où paraîtront les Actes du colloque
de 1935.
28 Michel Bourdeau
Il est vrai que les deux Viennois n’éprouvaient guère de sympathie pour « les
deux R », Rougier et Reichenbach, à qui ils reprochaient un même manque de
diplomatie.
J’ai écrit plus de 100 lettres : pour les uns, c’est le temps sacré
des vacances, d’autres invoquent leur incompétence. [...] Il n’y a
que les jeunes qui marchent. [Rougier à Neurath, 7 juin 1935]
Remerciements
Mes plus vifs remerciements vont à madame Godelieve Bolten, qui m’a accueilli
à deux reprises aux Noord-Hollands Archief de Haarlem, ainsi qu’au professeur
A. J. Kox, secrétaire du Wiener Kreis Stichting, qui m’a aimablement autorisé
à citer des extraits de la correspondance de Neurath, déposée à Haarlem, avec
l’ensemble des Wiener Kreis Archiv.
Bibliographie
Allais, Maurice [1990], Louis Rougier, prince de la pensée, Lourmarin de
Provence : Fondation de Lourmarin R. Laurent-Vibert : Association des
amis de Lourmarin.
Berndt, Claudia & Marion, Mathieu [2006], Vie et œuvre d’un rationaliste
engagé : Louis Rougier (1889-1982), Philosophia Scientiæ, 10(2), 11–90, doi :
10.4000/philosophiascientiae.459.
was no less important for the matter as it deeply renewed the concepts of
time, space, substance, cause, and law by questioning the theses of Kantian
transcendentalism and by focusing attention on effective scientific practices.
1 Introduction
On dit parfois que l’expression « philosophie scientifique » fut popularisée par
Reichenbach dans sa brochure Ziele und Wege der heutigen Naturphilosophie
[Reichenbach 1931a], qui énonçait le programme de la Société pour la
philosophie empirique. Résultat d’un exposé à cette société, le 4 novembre
1930, cette brochure fut éditée par Felix Meiner en 1931 et traduite en français
en 1932 chez Hermann par le général Ernest Vouillemin, avec une introduction
de Marcel Boll. Cette traduction fut commentée en anglais par Julius Weinberg
dans The Philosophical Review [Weinberg 1937]. Vingt et un ans plus tard,
en 1951, Reichenbach publia The Rise of Scientific Philosophy [Reichenbach
1951a], traduit en 1955 chez Flammarion sous le titre L’Avènement de la
philosophie scientifique. Le texte allemand de 1931 fut réédité en 2011 dans
un recueil préfacé par Nikolay Milkov [Milkov 2011].
Cependant en France comme en Allemagne, l’idée et l’expression avaient
des racines plus anciennes. En France ces racines remontent au moins à
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), en qui Charles Morris (1901-1979) voit « le
commencement, ou du moins la transition vers la période contemporaine
de l’empirisme », c’est-à-dire vers un empirisme moins individualiste et
subjectiviste que celui de Locke, Berkeley, Hume et Mill parce qu’attentif aux
résultats et aux méthodes scientifiques, ainsi qu’à leur dimension historico-
sociale [Morris 1936, 47]. « L’empirisme scientifique », ainsi que le nomme
Ch. Morris, allie la pratique ou l’étude des sciences positives avec une attitude
naturaliste issue du darwinisme et un pragmatisme qui évalue une hypothèse
en fonction de ses conséquences. Si la « philosophie positive » fut le nom du
système comtien, c’est en Allemagne, à ma connaissance, qu’émerge dès le
début du xixe siècle sous le nom de « philosophie scientifique » l’exigence
d’une pensée intégrative des données et des méthodes de la science.
Mon propos ici est de donner une idée synthétique d’une variété de
contextes et de perspectives dans lesquels s’est affirmée en Allemagne cette
idée de philosophie scientifique. Dans un paysage plutôt bigarré, je veux,
après un échantillonnage montrant l’apparition de traits qui détermineront
l’identité multiple de la philosophie scientifique, faire une place particulière
aux vues de Hans Reichenbach, car, au contraire des idées du Cercle de Vienne,
elles semblent n’avoir pas reçu grande attention en France1 . Je montrerai
1. « Reichenbach est aujourd’hui un auteur bien oublié », écrit Marc Joly dans
La Révolution sociologique [Joly 2017]. Plus généralement remarquons que c’est
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 35
4. Dès la page II on peut lire : « S’il n’y a pas, distincte de toute mythologie,
une philosophie comme science rigoureuse, qui soit pour nous évidente de manière
purement spéculative, dans laquelle on peut compter tous les principes et les
théorèmes particuliers, avec pour chacun une place déterminée et une justification
propre, comme dans la mathématique pure, et s’il n’y a pas d’intérêt intrinsèque à
élaborer ainsi cette science, alors nous devons abandonner complètement nos efforts. »
5. Nommée aussi par Fries « physique expérimentale de l’intériorité » [Fries 1807,
XLIII, ma traduction]
6. Herbart parlera de même de « Gesetzmäßigkeit des Geistes ».
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 37
Au contraire de Herbart, Lotze n’a pas fait école, mais son influence sur
Frege est reconnue, ainsi que sur Husserl, qui lui doit probablement l’idée que
la philosophie a pour importante fonction d’évaluer la science en fonction d’un
idéal éthique, idée déjà présente chez Fries. Lotze est en effet resté attaché à
manuscrit. Ce texte prône une philosophie du bon sens et un réalisme fondé sur
l’identité de l’objet perçu avec l’objet réel. Thomas Reid eut une très grande influence
sur le développement de la philosophie en France au début du xixe siècle, sur Pierre-
Paul Royer-Collard et Victor Cousin entre autres [cf. Boutroux 1897].
14. Je laisse de côté la conception husserlienne, car, à l’inverse des courants
examinés ici, elle tourne le dos aux faits d’expérience et au naturalisme. Je lui
ai consacré un commentaire dans un article complémentaire de celui-ci, intitulé
« Scientific philosophy and philosophical science » [Benis Sinaceur 2018].
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 41
générée par l’habitude [Brentano 2013, 18]. De même, il pense que ce sont
des « visions claires analytiques [analytische Einsichten], liées à certaines
expériences psychologiques, qui sont le soubassement ultime et véritable
de tout notre savoir » [Brentano 2013, 21]. C’est la thèse de l’empirisme
psychologique à laquelle Husserl adhérera avant de s’en détacher sous l’effet
des critiques de Frege.
Brentano conclut ce texte en mentionnant les systèmes « extravagants »
de Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Ce dernier, qui avait durant son « règne » à
l’université de Berlin prononcé un diktat contre la psychologie empirique, est
voué aux gémonies sans réserve et sans discussion précise, alors que différentes
thèses de Kant sont discutées avec contre-arguments à l’appui. Une des raisons
peut bien être le fait que pour Hegel seule mérite le nom de science la
psychologie rationnelle couplée avec la philosophie du concept, tandis que
Kant reconnaissait l’intérêt de la psychologie empirique tout en l’excluant du
domaine des sciences au titre qu’elle n’était pas a priori et qu’on ne pouvait,
pensait-il, en formuler mathématiquement les lois.
Or, effet du développement des sciences expérimentales (physique, chimie,
physiologie, biologie évolutionniste, psychophysique, psychométrie), l’idée de
science est dissociée philosophiquement de celle d’a priori et rejoint le
terrain de l’observation des faits, de l’expérimentation et de la mesure. Les
mathématiques sont mises à contribution moins par leur caractère démonstratif
que par leurs instruments de calcul et les corrélations fonctionnelles par
lesquelles elles permettent d’établir des lois, comme l’équation logarithmique
de Weber-Fechner reliant la différence entre deux sensations au rapport des
excitations correspondantes.
L’idée et le projet de philosophie scientifique vont continuer leur chemin
à travers les œuvres d’auteurs aussi différents que par exemple Ernst Mach
(1838-1916), qui appliqua les méthodes psychophysiques de Fechner15 – et
par ailleurs posa les prémisses de la Gestalttheorie dans son Analyse des
sensations 16 –, et Husserl (1859-1938) qui critiqua âprement ces mêmes
méthodes. Un facteur commun à leurs perspectives bien distinctes est la
valeur épistémologique propre accordée au sensible. Mach affirme que « la
même considération sous-tend [ses] écrits d’épistémologie de la physique et
15. Pour Fechner la psychophysique était un développement sur des bases em-
piriques de ses conceptions métaphysiques, et conformément à l’étymologie, « une
science exacte des rapports de l’âme et du corps » [Fechner 1860, 7]. Sur Fechner voir
par exemple [Nicolas 2002].
16. [Mach 1900]. L’avant-propos de la 4e édition est une profession de foi
plaçant dans les faits d’expérience l’origine et l’instance de contrôle de toute
hypothèse et considérant les sensations comme les éléments primitifs de toute
expérience physique ou psychique ; nul besoin donc d’un système de philosophie
ou d’une vision du monde, mais plutôt une tournure [Wendung] épistémologique
capable de préparer la coopération de recherches spécialisées très éloignées les unes
des autres (en ligne : http://psychologie.biphaps.uni-leipzig.de/wundt/opera/
mach/empfndng/AlysEmIn.htm).
42 Hourya Benis Sinaceur
[ses] recherches en physiologie des sensations, celle que l’on doit éliminer tout
élément métaphysique comme superflu et contraire à l’économie de la science »
[Mach 1900, Préface]. Et tout le premier chapitre de son livre est dédié à
des « Remarques préliminaires antimétaphysiques » destinées à établir que
seules sont données les sensations, dont la psychophysiologie prend en charge
la description mathématiquement organisée et instrumentée. Le postulat anti-
kantien du primat de la perception sensorielle opposé aux formes a priori de
l’entendement est alors largement accepté et perdurera y compris chez des
auteurs critiques des présupposés ontologiques de la physique des sensations
comme Husserl ou, plus tard, Merleau-Ponty.
L’étude scientifique de la perception se poursuit notamment dans les
œuvres de Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz (1821-1894) [Helmholtz 1867] et
de Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) [Wundt 1874], qui créa le premier laboratoire
mondial de psychologie expérimentale (1879) à Leipzig.
Parmi les motifs qui ont conduit au projet de philosophie scientifique les
nouvelles avancées des sciences expérimentales et des techniques d’investiga-
tion et de mesure ont compté de manière significative. Science de l’âme, la
psychologie scientifique a joué en particulier un grand rôle dans la bataille
philosophique contre l’a priori et le transcendantalisme kantiens, contre
l’Esprit absolu de la philosophie spéculative hégélienne et dans l’orientation
scientifique de la philosophie. Elle fut l’œuvre de penseurs qui avaient une
formation pluridisciplinaire associant les mathématiques, la physique et la
physiologie, l’anatomie ou la médecine à la philosophie, et promurent l’alliance
de cette dernière avec le factuel et l’empirique, au prix de son divorce d’avec
la métaphysique et le transcendantal. Institutionnellement, rappelons-le, les
psychologues occupaient en Allemagne des chaires de philosophie et psycholo-
gie, par exemple Wundt à Zurich (1874) puis à Leipzig (1875) ou Georg Elias
Müller à Göttingen (1881).
Ce tableau, non exhaustif certes, permet un contraste saisissant avec
le xixe siècle de la philosophie française qui voit la renaissance de la
métaphysique et la primauté de la psychologie rationnelle, sous l’influence
à retardement de l’idéalisme allemand, introduit en même temps qu’un
spiritualisme éclectique à l’université par Victor Cousin (1792-1867). Pour
celui-ci la psychologie est l’étude des faits de conscience et de l’intuition
réflexive, qui échappent à l’expérimentation physique et au calcul. Il faudra
attendre la fin du xixe siècle en France pour que la psychologie soit considérée
comme autonome par rapport à la philosophie et à la métaphysique par
Théodule Ribot (1839- 1916), que la psychologie expérimentale fasse son
apparition avec Benjamin Bourdon (1860-1943), élève de Ribot et fondateur,
après un séjour au laboratoire de Wundt à Leipzig, du premier laboratoire de
psychologie expérimentale à Rennes [cf. Nicolas 1998]. Et c’est seulement au
début du xxe siècle que se constitue une école d’épistémologie scientifique, hé-
ritière entre autres du positivisme comtien hostile à la méthode d’introspection
comme au spiritualisme.
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 43
20. Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1900, 1904. Un compte rendu du premier volume fut
publié dans La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger, 1900, p. 402 et
dans la Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, 1901, p. 250.
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 45
22. Plus tard, Gilles-Gaston Granger soutiendra aussi que la philosophie est une
connaissance, mais non pas une science. Elle est selon lui analyse des significations
de l’expérience, qui intègre notamment les résultats de la science.
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 47
On peut même dire qu’il n’y a pour ainsi dire jamais d’observations dé-
nuées d’éléments prédictifs (explicites ou tacites), c’est-à-dire qu’il n’y a
pas d’énoncés strictement observationnels [Beobachtungsaussage de Schlick]
ou « protocolaires » [Protokollsätze de Carnap et Neurath]. Aussi faut-il
abandonner toute recherche de certitude pour une conception purement
probabiliste de la connaissance.
Schlick met l’accent sur le principe de vérifiabilité selon lequel seules les
propositions analytiques et les propositions empiriquement vérifiables ont un
sens et c’est à la philosophie qu’il revient d’élucider ce sens, tandis que Carnap
et Neurath défendent une position moins stricte. Pour Schlick la philosophie
est le couronnement des sciences en ce sens que la recherche de sens vient
après la recherche de vérité et que les scientifiques se font philosophes pour
mettre au jour le sens de leurs théorèmes ou lois. La philosophie se fait donc
sur le terrain de la science mais elle a une tâche spécifiquement différente de
celle de la science. C’est pourquoi, selon Schlick, les concepts de probabilité,
d’incertitude et d’induction ne sont d’aucune utilité puisque le sens ou bien est
ou bien n’est pas en notre possession, sans gradation possible. La philosophie
doit donc rester fidèle à son idéal binaire en partageant les propositions en
deux catégories exclusives et deux seulement : celles qui ont un sens et celles
qui n’en ont pas et ne sont par conséquent pas des propositions du tout, sans
possibilité d’une tierce position.
Pour Reichenbach au contraire, il n’y a pas de « sens en soi », le sens
d’une proposition étant déterminé par sa validité scientifique dans un domaine
déterminé ; par exemple seuls les énoncés probabilistes ont un sens dans le
domaine de la physique, qui est une science prédictive. La logique ne peut
donc être seulement un puissant outil d’analyse des propositions qui ont un
sens, elle est elle-même une science appelée à ajuster son système de valeurs
de vérité aux expérimentations et résultats de sciences empiriques29 . L’idée de
vérité scientifique est ainsi dissociée du caractère binaire attribué à la logique
depuis Aristote30 et la logique est davantage un instrument de la science du
réel qu’une norme absolue du vrai et du faux. Il n’est donc pas question de sub-
stituer la logique à la science et l’analyse logique de la science à la philosophie
comme l’a tenté Carnap dans La Syntaxe logique du langage [Carnap 1934].
Reichenbach soutient qu’on ne peut jamais décider du caractère de vérité de
propositions universelles et que « le critère ultime de la vérité scientifique est le
succès de la prédiction d’événements futurs31 ». Car il n’y a pas de loi scienti-
fique qui n’enferme pas d’assertion prédictive sur le futur [Reichenbach 1931b].
C’est pourquoi il faut abandonner non seulement la recherche de la certitude
mais aussi le principe du déterminisme lui-même, qui fonde cette recherche,
et comprendre les concepts de vérité et de vérifiabilité en termes de degrés de
probabilité et celui de causalité en termes de relations statistiques.
Prévoir n’est pas voir déjà, nier l’événement en tant que nouveauté
radicale, le réduire à du déjà-vu comme manifestation régulière
d’une essence permanente. La dialectique de la prévision est celle
de l’action réglée. [...] Sa modalité est la probabilité, non la
nécessité. [Cavaillès 1947, 550]
42. La première étude date de 1920 [Reichenbach 1920], elle n’est pas encore
complètement dégagée du kantisme bien que déjà marquée par une position réaliste.
Schlick a également contribué, entre 1915 et 1921, à la diffusion de la théorie de
la relativité et d’une conception réaliste avant de se tourner vers la Sprachanalyse
[Schlick 1938].
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 55
De fait avec son premier livre publié en anglais, Experience and Prediction
[Reichenbach 1938], Reichenbach introduit la Sprachanalyse comme un des
outils d’élaboration d’une théorie générale de la connaissance, qu’il peut alors
envisager après en avoir posé les bases dans ses travaux antérieurs sur la
probabilité et l’induction [Reichenbach 1938], in [Reichenbach 1977a, vol. 4,
Vorwort, X–XI].
43. « Le progressif est d’essence et les décisions qui le négligent se perdent dans le
vide » [Cavaillès 1947, 552]. Voir aussi la critique de la syntaxe générale de Carnap
[Cavaillès 1947, 517–518].
44. « M. Carnap semble considérer parfois les rapports des mathématiques et de la
physique comme ceux de la forme et de la matière. Les mathématiques fourniraient
le système de coordonnées dans lequel s’inscrivent les données physiques. Cette
conception ne paraît guère défendable puisque la physique moderne, loin de maintenir
la distinction d’une forme géométrique et d’une matière physique, unit au contraire
données spatio-temporelles et données matérielles dans l’armature commune d’un
mode de représentation synthétique des phénomènes ; que ce soit par la représentation
tensorielle de la théorie de la relativité ou par les équations hamiltoniennes de la
mécanique. On assiste ainsi pour chaque système à une détermination simultanée et
réciproque du contenant et du contenu. C’est de nouveau une détermination propre à
chaque domaine à l’intérieur duquel ne subsiste plus aucune distinction entre matière
et forme [Lautman 2006, 49, je souligne].
58 Hourya Benis Sinaceur
45. Hessenberg est l’auteur d’un exposé de la théorie des ensembles dans les
Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule. Neue Folge [Hessenberg 1906]. Par ailleurs,
prolongeant l’analyse de Hilbert des théorèmes de Desargues et de Pappus-Pascal
[Hilbert 1899], Hessenberg montre qu’en géométrie projective ou affine plane le second
théorème implique le premier [Hessenberg 1905, 161–172].
Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 59
49. Lettre à Ernst von Aster du 3 juin 1935, citée par Nicolay Milkov [Milkov
2011, xvii, n. 33, ma traduction]. Cependant, il faut prendre cette déclaration cum
grano salis, l’empirisme, même tardif, de Reichenbach n’étant pas du tout l’empirisme
radical de Ernst Mach.
66 Hourya Benis Sinaceur
4 Conclusion
Ayant souligné les racines allemandes de l’émergence de la philosophie scien-
tifique et mis en lumière le lien entre l’empirisme à la Reichenbach et l’épis-
témologie axiomatico-métamathématique de Hilbert, ainsi que la résonance
produite par cette convergence sur l’épistémologie mathématique française,
sur Cavaillès tout particulièrement, je veux clore cet essai par une liste
d’éléments qui, dans des associations diverses, déterminent le contenu d’une
philosophie scientifique comme résultat du passage d’une Erkenntnistheorie
(Kant) à une Wissenschaftskritik (Reichenbach) ou à une Wissenschaftslogik
[Carnap 1936a] :
Ces rejets ne sont pas tous simultanément présents chez tous les auteurs. Il
y a différentes combinaisons possibles et l’on pourrait écrire une matrice pour
représenter leur répartition. Même en laissant de côté la Philosophie als strenge
Wissenschaft [Husserl 1911] et toute l’acrimonie de Husserl contre le natura-
lisme propagé par les sciences factuelles comme la psychologie expérimentale,
en laissant aussi de côté les apports des scientifiques et philosophes polonais
et les contributions françaises que je n’ai évoquées très brièvement que par
leurs aspects congruents à des traits dominants de l’empirisme scientifique,
il paraît impossible de donner une description unifiée de ce que furent les
différents projets de philosophie scientifique. En revanche, on l’aura compris,
l’idée même de promouvoir une philosophie scientifique a profondément influé
sur le cours de la philosophie occidentale et a durablement installé dans
le paysage philosophique une tendance représentée aujourd’hui par diverses
tentatives de « philosophie formelle » développées dans le monde anglo-saxon
puis en France.
68 Hourya Benis Sinaceur
Bibliographie
Actes [1936], Actes du Congrès international de philosophie scientifique,
Sorbonne, Paris 1935, Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, 388–395, t. I–
VIII, Paris : Hermann.
Bonnet, Christian & Wagner, Pierre (éds.) [2006], L’Âge d’or de l’empirisme
logique, Vienne-Berlin, Prague 1929-1936, a text of philosophy of science,
Paris : Gallimard.
Danneberg, Lutz & Schernus, Wilhelm [1994], Die Gesellschaft für wissen-
schaftliche Philosophie : Programm, Vorträge und Materialen, dans Hans
Reichenbach und die Berliner Gruppe, édité par L. Danneberg, A. Kamlah
& L. Schäfer, Braunschweig : Vieweg, 391–481.
Fries, Jakob [1798], Über das Verhältnis der empirischen Psychologie zur
Metaphysik, Psychologisches Magazin, 3, 156–202, Sämtliche Schriften,
König, G. & Geldsetzer, L. (éds.), Aalen : Scientia Verlag, 1967-1982, vol. 2,
251–297.
—— [1807], Neue Kritik der Vernunft, Heidelberg : Mohr und Winter, 2e éd.,
Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft, 1828.
Grelling, Kurt [1928], Philosophy of the exact sciences : Its present status
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réimpr. dans [Milkov 2015, 47–68].
Kim, Alan [2015], Johann Friedrich Herbart, dans The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, édité par E. N. Zalta, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
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johann-herbart/.
Mach, Ernst [1900], Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis
des Physischen zum Psychischen, Jena : G. Fischer, 2e éd., éd. revue
et augmentée du précédent. Trad. fr. par F. Eggers & J.-M. Monnoyer,
L’Analyse des sensations, Nîmes : Éditions Jacqueline Chambon, 1996.
—— [1988], Auszüge aus den Notizbüchern 1871-1910, dans Ernst Mach, Werk
und Wirkung, édité par R. Haller & Fr. Stadler, Vienne : Hölder, 167–211,
publiés par M. Sommer.
McMullin, Ernan [1970], The history and philosophy of science : A taxonomy,
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mcps.umn.edu/assets/pdf/5.2_McMullin.pdf.
Milkov, Nicolay [2011], Hans Reichenbachs wissenschaftliche Philosophie,
dans Ziele und Wege der heutigen Naturphilosophie, édité par
N. Milkov, Hambourg : Meiner, vii–xliv, URL https://kw.uni-
paderborn.de/fileadmin/fakultaet/Institute/philosophie/Milkov/
Schriften_zum_Download/Einleitung_PhB_621.pdf.
—— [2015], Die Berliner Gruppe des logischen Empirismus, Introduction,
dans Die Berliner Gruppe : Texte zum Logischen Empirismus, édité par
N. Milkov, Hambourg : Meiner, ix–liii.
Milkov, Nikolay & Peckhaus, Volker (éds.) [2013], The Berlin Group and the
Philosophy of Logical Empiricism, Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, doi :
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5485-0.
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BF00172276.
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der Psychologie zur Philosophie. Ein Kapitel aus der Methodenlehre,
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abhandlungenderf01gtuoft.
—— [1928], Kritische Philosophie und axiomatische Mathematik,
Unterrichtsblätter für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, 34(4–5),
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Philosophie scientifique : origines et interprétations 73
Reichenbach, Hans [1916], Der Begriff der Wahrscheinlichkeit für die mathe-
matische Darstellung der Wirklichkeit, Leipzig : Barth.
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of Common Sense, Londres : Thomas Tegg, réed. 1823, réimpr. 1997,
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BF00208605.
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gischen Empirismus im Kontext, Suisse : Springer International Publishing,
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De la certitude, Paris : TEL, Gallimard, 1976.
Anastasios Brenner
Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3,
CRISES EA 4424 (France)
1 Introduction
The concept of scientific philosophy is generally associated with logical
positivism or logical empiricism, which is characterized by its recourse to
mathematical logic in treating philosophical problems. One of the late works of
Hans Reichenbach, published under the title The Rise of Scientific Philosophy
[Reichenbach 1951], would represent the final outcome: a doctrine applying
logic to experimental science, distinguishing the context of justification from
the context of discovery, and establishing a collective program of inquiry. Such
a philosophy would possess all the attributes of science: accuracy, positivity,
and objectivity. As a matter of fact, the project of elaborating a scientific
philosophy arises much earlier. It lies at the heart of the work of Abel Rey,
who precedes the movement of logical empiricism by a generation. His doctoral
thesis had been read enthusiastically by Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, and Otto
Neurath prior to the First World War. Later, Rey, as professor of history and
philosophy of science at the Sorbonne, was the one who officially hosted the
first International Congress for Scientific Philosophy in Paris in 1935. A more
in-depth study of the history of scientific philosophy is thus called for.
Alan Richardson deserves credit for having drawn attention to the need
for a thorough historical study of the expression “scientific philosophy”.1 He
has pointed out in this regard several significant references, which largely
predate logical empiricism. For example, Richard Avenarius founded a
journal in 1877 explicitly devoted to such an orientation: Vierteljahrschrift
für wissenschaftliche Philosophie. He defended this editorial line for some
twenty years, until his early death in 1896. Thereafter, Ernst Mach became
associated with the editorship. The empiriocriticism and positivism that
were advocated by both thinkers thus came to be connected with scientific
philosophy. Unfortunately, Richardson focuses primarily on the German
tradition, leaving out large portions of what was a European debate. In
consequence, his historical inquiry fails to carry us back to the context of
emergence and to seize the underlying factors that fuelled this debate. My
aim is not to provide in this paper a complete study of what was a long and
complex series of events, but to point out the priority of French philosophy in
1. [Richardson 1997, 418–451]. See also the more recent but shorter account,
[Richardson 2008, 88-96]; Auguste Comte is mentioned but not studied.
From Scientific Philosophy to Absolute Positivism 79
this regard and its specific contribution. Rey, who draws on this tradition and
transmits it to the Vienna Circle, appears as a pivotal figure.
What André-Marie Ampère or William Whewell had named philosophy of
science in the early nineteenth century came at some point to seem insufficient.
The expression was probably modeled on the series: philosophy of history,
philosophy of religion, philosophy of law, philosophy of art.2 But in this case
philosophy was directed to the exact sciences; in other words, two disciplines
were brought together, which were very different in nature. Was this discourse
to be internal to science, to be carried out by the scientist in relation to her or
his specialized research? Or was it to be external to science, a comparison of
scientific results with earlier philosophical speculations? While the ambiguity
persisted, the field acquired more and more autonomy. Over the course of
the development of philosophy of science various alternate expressions were
proposed: positive philosophy, scientific philosophy, logic of science, etc. By
focusing on one of these expressions we touch on constitutive issues: how are we
to present, to understand and to pursue the discipline? The scientific philoso-
phy of logical empiricists was criticized and has ceased to be considered a viable
account of science. But its critics—post-positivists or falsificationists—have
failed in turn to provide a generally accepted alternative. What these critics
have been reproached with is tending toward relativism. In other words, they
are accused of being at odds with a truly scientific philosophy.
As we shall see, many different ways of rendering philosophy scientific
have been proposed in the past two hundred years. By bringing back to mind
a neglected strand of this development, I hope to offer some critical insights
on philosophy of science.
5. This paper, delivered at the first Congrès international d’histoire comparée held
in 1900 in Paris, was thus not restricted to a French audience.
6. The passage quoted is entered in the notebook under the years 1857-1860.
7. See introduction by Grmek, [Bernard 1850-1860, 12]. Bernard in the index he
produced referred to several other passages under the heading scientific philosophy,
which are given in this edition.
82 Anastasios Brenner
the documents of the time is likely to reveal its appearance in public prior
to the 1860s. Let us recall that Bernard, who may have been one of the
great physiologists that Montagnon had in mind, went on to publish shortly
after his Introduction à l’étude de la médecine expérimentale [Bernard 1865].
This work, in which he explored the philosophical problems raised by the
life sciences and brought attention to the precise features of experimental
method, provided the background for discussions throughout the remainder
of the nineteenth century.
It is worth noting that, a year prior to the launching of Avenarius’ journal,
the Revue de la France et de l’étranger carried an article by Léon Dumont
signaling the philosophy of Joseph Delbœuf: “M. Delbœuf et la théorie de la
sensibilité” in the following terms:
8. Le Bon edited well over two hundred books in this series during his lifetime,
including the French translation of Mach, 1908. For more on this topic see [Rollet
2002].
From Scientific Philosophy to Absolute Positivism 83
10. For a precise and instructive study of this Institute, see [Gayon 2016].
11. Among others, Paul Schrecker, Aron Gurwitsch, Paul Kraus, Shlomo Pinès,
Aldo Mieli.
From Scientific Philosophy to Absolute Positivism 85
which covers half a century of physics, was to provide logical empiricists with
a fruitful historical perspective.
A doctoral thesis is an academic work that requires some diplomacy. It
was only afterwards that Rey could give free rein to his own views. In his
subsequent book La Philosophie moderne, he gave a more ample and personal
presentation of his ideas [Rey 1908]. He set about to study the major problems
of philosophy in the light of scientific progress, not only number and matter,
but also life, mind, morals and truth. He definitely goes beyond the scope of his
thesis, outlining a general philosophical conception. With respect to number,
for example, he describes the mathematical logic and the philosophical logicism
of Russell and Couturat, a topic absent from his dissertation. He claimed to
have reformulated profoundly the doctrine initiated by Auguste Comte in the
sense of realism. This resulted in his absolute positivism. The outlook is
science-oriented. As he writes:
Current philosophy, if we leave aside fossils, [...] always begins by
acquiring a scrupulous knowledge of the results, the methods and
hypotheses of science. [Rey 1908, 25]
He rebukes as outdated Rudolf Eucken, professor at the University of Iena,
who had published in French journals on philosophy and religion.
I shall now concentrate on an article that appears to me particularly
characteristic of his conception, “Vers un positivisme absolu”, published
in 1909 [Rey 1909], reproduced in [Brenner 2015]. Rey sets his positivism
in historical perspective. According to his account, a separation between
philosophy and science was brought about at the beginning of the nineteenth
century because of two philosophical trends, French spiritualism and German
idealism. Let us note here the similar impact in France of Victor Cousin’s
spiritualism. Positivists and materialists then reacted to these trends. They
sought to bring philosophy and science back into contact. But according to
Rey, neither this early positivism nor materialism was successful. In particular,
Comte in his aversion for speculation overshot the mark and rejected certain
hypotheses that would prove to be fruitful. Rey also signals the emergence
of new scientific fields, in particular sociology and psychology. He points to
Theodule Ribot, one of the initiators of experimental psychology in France.
Ribot, who was also the first editor of the Revue philosophique de la France
et de l’étranger, was instrumental in fostering discussions concerning the
relation between philosophy and science. This particular case needed to be
generalized: the establishment of sciences whose object is the human subject
would necessarily give rise to philosophical consequences. Rey does not merely
follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. He traces his own path, taking into
account the causes of their failure. Rey also calls on a series of philosopher-
scientists stretching from Galois to Poincaré and Duhem, but also to Mach
and Boltzmann. Revolutionary scientific theories transform our thinking.
Let us note that Rey in his sketch of the recent evolution of knowledge
gives importance to the emergence of new sciences, such as psychology
86 Anastasios Brenner
Rey’s conception is set against that of Comte. Let us not forget that
Comte’s disciples were very influent at the beginning of the French Third
Republic. The limitations that orthodox positivism had sought to impose had
become a hindrance for scientific research by the end of the nineteenth century.
By contrast, Rey expounds his position in the following terms:
An absolutely positive philosophy cannot, it seems, be defined
otherwise than the system of positive science. [Rey 1909, 469]12
By absolute positivism Rey means a conception that is complete, integral,
finished, in other words consequent. It should not go beyond science, and a
few lines after this quote Rey specifies that its aim is not a systematization.
Rey defends a new positivism. In this sense he belongs to a general trend
of the time. Édouard Le Roy as early as 1900 called for a new positivism or neo
positivism [Le Roy 1901]; “Positivisme, observations”, in [Lalande 1902-1923].
He was followed by a number of other thinkers. It is worth noting that Milhaud
went so far as to speak of “logical positivism” in an article dating back to 1905.
He applies this expression to Renouvier with regard to his emancipation from
the teachings of Comte:
13. Published directly in English, this is one of Neurath’s last articles. He died on
Dec. 22, 1945.
From Scientific Philosophy to Absolute Positivism 89
from some twenty countries convened at the Sorbonne. Logical positivists were
numerous and many other scientifically inclined thinkers were present. This
event initiated several collaborations. Articles dealing with the Vienna Circle
program were translated and published in French, notably by Frank, Neurath
and Schlick.15 Yet this promising encounter was to be short-lived.
Rey thus refuses a divorce between science and philosophy. His aim is to
develop a scientific humanism.
6 Conclusion
What the study of Rey brings to light is a whole line of development from
Comte and Renan to Poincaré as well as the interactions between French
positivism and its German-Austrian versions. The need to establish a reflection
on science arose in a particular discursive configuration that involved not
only the upheavals within the exact sciences, but the birth of new sciences
as well as the social and political consequences of science. This comes
across clearly in Renan’s wish “to organize scientifically humanity, such is
From Scientific Philosophy to Absolute Positivism 93
then the final word of modern science, such is its audacious but legitimate
pretence” [Renan 1890, 106]. Philosophy of science as it has evolved since
the nineteenth century offers numerous doctrines and multifarious methods.
The logical analysis of scientific language is not the sole technique available.
In particular, Rey, while a positivist and an empiricist, adopted a decidedly
historical approach; he even had the intuition of historical epistemology, which
has come again to the forefront of philosophical debates today. His insights
suggest that we give serious consideration to the benefits of historical method
for philosophy of science.
Up until World War Two French philosophy and Austrian philosophy
followed similar lines of development and there were many points of contact.
Philosophy of science, as it is often conceived today, perhaps under pressure to
justify its disciplinary status, represents a narrowing of focus, with respect to
earlier endeavors. By concentrating exclusively on the logical analysis of theory
structure and its various aspects—measurement, mathematical development,
experimental control—we have neglected many other legitimate topics, namely
the political and ethical implications of science. This descriptive, professional,
apolitical attitude is the outcome of a particular situation. The members
of the Vienna Circle, logical empiricists, finding refuge mainly in the United
States, felt obliged, for obvious reasons, to pass over in silence some of their
more radical ideas as well as their political leanings, especially so during the
McCarthy period. In contrast, the comparison with Abel Rey brings out more
clearly the political agenda, the Enlightenment values that were part and
parcel of the Vienna Circle.
Bibliography
Bergson, Henri [1896], Matière et mémoire, in: Œuvres, Paris: PUF, 1970.
Frank, Philipp [1910], Abel Rey, Die Theorie der Physik bei den modernen
Physikern, Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 21(1), A43–A45, doi:
10.1007/BF01693296.
Wioletta A. Miskiewicz
Archives Henri-Poincaré – Philosophie et Recherches
sur les Sciences et les Technologies (AHP-PReST),
Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg,
CNRS, Nancy (France)
Archives Numériques de l’École de Lvov-Varsovie (ArchéLV)
Abstract: This article deals with the role played by the Polish delegation dur-
ing the 1935 Congress for Scientific Philosophy in Paris. The Poles represented
a strong semantic trend in Paris, something that, in the eyes of organizer Louis
Rougier, gave balance to the concept of scientific philosophy with respect to the
radical nature of the Vienna Circle philosophers. Logistics—lost now almost
without trace from contemporary philosophical historiography—constitutes
the key concept of the article. In referring to the Viennese, Louis Rougier
employed the term full logical empiricism. Taking our cue from him, we
propose that the term full logistics be applied to the Warsaw school of logic.
1. The presentation of this dictionary recalls that this ancient word, which in
the Middle Ages referred to practical calculation, and in Plato practical arithmetic,
was introduced into the Second Congress of Philosophy in Geneva in 1904 by three
participants: Itelson, Lalande, and Couturat “with no prior meeting or discussion”.
They reintroduced this ancient term in order to give a single name to the new logic
of the time (variously referred to up until then as symbolic logic, mathematical logic,
algorithmic logic, or algebra of logic).
Between Semantics and Logistics 99
empiricism in all its diversity.5 Even though, for some years, the most
active group among the logical empiricists consisted of those gathered around
Moritz Schlick of the Vienna Circle, when Rougier came to classify the
groups and movements in scientific philosophy who were to take part in the
Congress, he omitted the Viennese from a list which cited: French positivism,
the empirico-criticism of Avenarius and Mach, Anglo-Saxon pragmatism,
empirical rationalism (represented especially by French and Italian scholars
and philosophers), the restricted conventionalism of Henri Poincaré, Russell’s
logicism, the formalism of the Göttingen school, and Polish semantics [Actes
1936, I.6]. So why did Rougier not list the Viennese? It would seem he
didn’t acknowledge the latest transformation of the Vienna Circle, occupied
now with reducing scientific philosophy to the syntactic analysis of scientific
language. Referring to Henri Poincaré as a renovator of scientific philosophy
in France (“rénovateur en France de la philosophie scientifique” [Actes 1936,
I.5]), Rougier labels the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle as full
logical empiricism [empirisme intégral]. Because of this qualification, Rougier
points to one of the fundamental topics of discussion at the Congress: the
theoretical role played by the Vienna Circle in logical empiricism as a whole.
Many attendees were aware of the risk of logicism 6 within scientific philos-
ophy... Fears of logicist reductionism were plainly expressed in an opening
statement by the Italian Federigo Enriques [Actes 1936, I.12]. As we will now
show, representing the semantic dimension of scientific philosophy, the Poles
present at the Congress played a special role. A role which, moreover, enjoyed
Rougier’s express support.
5. Bonnet & Wagner show that logical empiricism has never been homogeneous,
as was suggested by the Viennese [Bonnet & Wagner 2006]. No Polish philosophers
feature in this anthology.
6. See the definition of “logicism” in [Lalande 1926].
Between Semantics and Logistics 101
the full logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle. Recalling Polish analytical
philosophy at the very outset of the Congress preemptively broadened the
scope of the discussions, beyond the exclusively syntactic analysis of the
language of science, which was the focus of the radicalized Viennese. This
is especially true given the fact that the Lvov-Warsaw School had already
traversed its own polemics regarding logicism, prompted by the stance of the
young Łukasiewicz during the first years of the 20th century. The second
reason is that the Poles had actively participated in meetings that preceded
the Parisian Congress. Last but not least, there is the fact that, inspired by
Twardowski, the rich scientific and academic philosophy practiced in Poland
had earned itself exceptional prestige in the 1930s. And so it is with this latter
point that we shall begin.
The first half of the 20th century saw a true culmination of philosophical
potential in Poland. In the inter-war period, for the first time, it was no longer
one Polish philosopher among others but rather philosophy as practiced in
Poland which lay at the heart of contemporary philosophical debate [Pouivet
2006]. Polish philosophers, with no anxiety or inhibitions, had not only
deciphered current, pre-existing philosophical problems, but had also often
inspired new ideas. Moreover, in this country, with its over two centuries
of state non-existence and essentially no academic institutions, a unique and
“progressive” philosophical style had been developed at the beginning of the
20th century which took as its references, not the history of philosophical texts,
but rather the scientific ideal of objective truth in the academic context.
Polish philosophy enjoyed such esteem that young American philosophers
touring in Europe visited not only England, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, but also
Warsaw. This phenomenon even found voice in an article by Ernest Nagel:
national philosophy. One cannot, in any rigorous way, claim that this
is “Polish” philosophy. Philosophy, as developed by Twardowski, stood
independently of the nationality, gender and religion of the people practicing it.
Barry Smith says:
Just as the term “Austrian Philosophy” is a misnomer to the
degree that it suggests that there is a corresponding national
or regional or ethnic philosophy, or a special Austrian way of
doing philosophy that is unavailable to those born (say) outside
the borders of the former Habsburg Empire; and just as the
term “women’s philosophy” is a misnomer to the extent that it
suggests that there is a special way of doing philosophy that is
available only to those of feminine gender, so also the term “Polish
philosophy” is a misnomer—for just the same reasons.
[Smith 2006, 35]
Barry Smith, who makes his own philosophical paradigm very clear,7
stresses the importance of Brentano in the genesis of the philosophical practice
initiated by Twardowski in Lvov. At the same time, though, he does not
sufficiently value either the influence of French philosophers or the role of
experimental psychology, developing rapidly in Poland, both of which created
especially favorable circumstances for the development of the particular kind of
scientific philosophy embodied by Twardowski and his circle in Poland. Most
importantly, Barry Smith seems unaware of Twardowski’s conscious strategy
towards establishing a modern university in Poland, an ambition Barry Smith
nevertheless sees as being of great importance. A university where science and
freedom would be the highest virtues and professionalism the style. We will
return to Twardowski’s ideas for university further on. For now, it is important
to recall that for the Poles, the philosophical explosion at the beginning of the
20th century was preceded and accompanied by remarkable activity in the
domain of scientific psychology, a then emergent discipline.8
For example, a thought one might have while analyzing a text can thus be
detached and stabilized in order that it not be forgotten. The product of
our concrete psychophysical activity thus attains a certain autonomy with
respect to us and to the fleeting nature of our mental activity. But not only
does this allow us to enter into contact with our own past, it also allows us to
communicate knowledge to others. On condition, it must be added, of properly
mastering the language of expression.
The detached and incarnated products are transborder zones between
cognitive subjects. Perception of the material nature of signs, perception of
the ink stains on paper or paint stains on canvas, become the starting point for
a cognitive process of communication via a concrete process. This individual
psychophysical process leads to the understanding (individual psychic object)
that occurs within the individual who is reading or watching. Material objects
thus co-occupy the inter-individual borders of abstract notions. However, for
Twardowski, the material expression of psychic products that drives triggered
processes does not ultimately decide the success of this transbordering state.
This is especially so with respect to scientific theories. The decisive factor
in scientific domains is the logical and intersubjective dimension of validation
within the collective belonging to a given domain.11
In this sense, the objects of study within, especially, the humanities
and social sciences [Geisteswissenschaften] can be considered as products
(explicitly by Twardowski—artificial artefacts), resulting from a certain type of
individual and collective psychophysical activity, namely, the collective search
for scientific truth. The materially fixed (i.e., primarily in publications and
in archives) abstract notions (“detached notions”) would then constitute the
objects of the humanities.
This heuristic attitude contributed to the success in Poland of philosophy
and theory in the humanities and social sciences prior to the war, and not
only among members of the Twardowski school itself: most Polish academics
before the war shared this basic heuristic attitude, it was in the spirit of the
times. We might mention, for example, Florian Znaniecki, one of the future
founders of the Chicago School of sociology, or Czesław Znamierowski. The
latter was definitely not a student of Twardowski but he was the first to develop
“social ontology” [Znamierowski 1921]—as now developed by Searle. In the
paper he delivered at the Congress, Chwistek, although also not a student of
Twardowski, spoke just like him in stating that letters and logical signs are
“physical” objects “such as stones or birds”. Fleck, again not a disciple of
Twardowski but still a true Leopolitan in spirit, talked about a “collective” in
the same heuristic vein.
Twardowski’s philosophical school undoubtedly constitutes a form of
positivism. Firstly, because it fits naturally into the lineage of positivism
11. The partisans of full logistics (Łukasiewicz and Leśniewski), which will be
elaborated upon below, did not hold this view, instead considering this dimension
to be psychological.
Between Semantics and Logistics 105
provisional organizing committee for the meeting in Paris that would follow
in 1935. One of the members of that committee was Łukasiewicz (founder of
the Warsaw school of logic).
Also invited to take part in the Vorkongress was Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz,
who, at the time, was an academic professor in Lvov. We discover from
Twardowski’s Journals of 14th August that Ajdukiewicz was supposed to
deliver a lecture on Polish Positivism and had discussed it with Twardowski
prior to his departure [Twardowski 1997a, II, 356]. The title of the
lecture: “Logistical Anti-Irrationalism in Poland” [Ajdukiewicz 1934]. Anti-
irrationalism later became the label given to Polish analytical philosophy.
The 8th International Congress of Philosophy in Prague, due to the
radicality of the Vienna Circle’s program and their (in equal parts) aggressive
and technical argumentative style, became an arena for confrontation between
logical empiricism and all other philosophical trends. As already mentioned,
the confrontation with Husserl’s phenomenology was especially intense. Since
the publication of Logical Investigations [Husserl 1900], Husserl had been
claiming his phenomenology was both scientific and rigorous. Both movements
claimed to embody philosophical scientificity.
A large French delegation participated in the Congress, among others:
Gaston Bachelard, Léon Brunschvicg, Léon Robin, and even André Lalande.
An interesting witness to the proceedings, with respect to our subject
here, was Józef Maria Bocheński (1902-1995). Bocheński recalls that the only
one not to back down against the formal mathematical and logical attacks of
the Vienna philosophers was Husserl’s disciple Roman Ingarden.14 Ingarden,
himself also a disciple of Twardowski, had an excellent command of the kind of
logical argumentation practiced by the Viennese. In a fierce polemic, Ingarden
refused the assertion from the Vienna Circle that a proposition for which
there is no method of verification (logic or empiric) has no sense. Ingarden
noted that no method existed for verifying this proposition itself and, ergo,
the proposition from the Viennese was itself a nonsense. No doubt, the only
effective answer for this problem would have been the distinction between
language and metalanguage. A work by Tarski which presents this argument
was published just a year later [Tarski 1935] and this is how Tarski himself
became the main feature of the Paris Congress of 1935.
On the 14th September 1934, Twardowski noted in his Diary that
Ajdukiewicz had returned from Prague very pleased, particularly satisfied
with the Vorkongress. It is rather obvious that one of the reasons for
his satisfaction was the prominent place and role assigned to the Polish
delegation by the Parisian organizers. In all likelihood, Rougier, while
observing the proceedings in Prague, realized that the presence of Polish
14. Ingarden provided Husserl with a comprehensive report on those proceedings
and attached his own paper. In a letter from the 7th October 1934, Husserl
replies: “Vielen Dank für Ihre köstliche Sendung. Sie haben den Wiener Positivismus
glänzend, geradezu in klassischer Prägnanz, abgetan” [Husserl 1968, 89].
Between Semantics and Logistics 107
philosophers would benefit the implementation of his own project for the
Congress: on the one hand, explicitly rejecting phenomenology (it was
Ajdukiewicz who, during his inaugural speech, listed Husserl—and Bergson
too—as non-scientific philosophers), while, on the other, representing a wholly
less radical relation to logistics than the Vienna Circle.
In his Memoirs [Bocheński 1994], Bocheński says that the Viennese
held the (generally older) disciples of Twardowski in high regard in Prague.
The Vienna Circle was a young group, while Polish “positivism” was
matured, multigenerational, and had already survived confrontation with
its own internal logicist dissidence. Within Twardowski’s school, logicist
dissidence had reared its head in the person of Jan Łukasiewicz (in the
very first generation of his pupils, around the years 1903-1905). It was
Łukasiewicz, having become a professor in the mathematics department of
Warsaw University after the restoration of Poland in 1918, who created
the Varsovian school of logic (Łukasiewicz, Leśniewski, Tarski) and who
set the dominating tone for the Varsovian philosophers’ style. We could
say that, just as the Vienna Circle represents a fundamental movement in
logical empiricism (what Rougier names intégral, “full”), so the mathematical
logic of Warsaw represents the logicist branch of Twardowski’s school. This
is why, in order to distinguish logistics in general from Varsovian logistics
(logistyka—a very radical epistemological doctrine) we use the expression “full
logistics”. Full logistics supports an extremely radical epistemological doctrine.
Łukasiewicz preached a mathematical logical analysis of language as the only
proper method for conducting philosophy, evacuating any other traditional
philosophical issues to the realm of beliefs [Weltanschauung]. Leśniewski was
the most radical defender of this approach.
6 Logicism in Warsaw
The young Twardowski was enthusiastic about the progress of science and
embraced the psychologism of his master, Brentano, with fidelity. Yet his
distinction between the content and object of presentations, which he had
developed for his habilitation (professorial thesis), prepared him for Husserl’s
basic argument against psychologism in the sciences, namely the distinction
between thinking and what is thought. It is crucial to stress that the first
volume of Husserl’s Logical Investigations [Husserl 1900] struck the Leopolitan
philosophers like a thunderbolt. One of the most affected was the young
Łukasiewicz, who immediately set out on an anti-psychologistic crusade. In
May 1904, in Lvov, over two sessions of the Polish Philosophical Society (in
the absence of Twardowski), Łukasiewicz unsuccessfully presented Husserl’s
anti-psychologistic argumentation.
Only in 1907, during the Congress of Naturalists and Doctors, and with
the help of Twardowski, did he succeed. At this point—one could claim—
108 Wioletta A. Miskiewicz
sciences in their intersubjective dimension. Thus, not only with the world-
famous achievements in mathematical logic, already referred to by Russell
in his inaugural speech. However Ajdukiewicz claims that the Lvov-Warsaw
School had “found in logistics a language that satisfies scientific criteria”. This
is a rather broad conception of logistics as a language that serves as a tool,
rather than a science in itself, as logistyka [full logistics] was for Łukasiewicz.
This idea expressed by Ajdukiewicz was perfectly compatible with the idea of
scientific philosophy as presented in an introduction by Rougier: la syntaxe et
la sémantique du langage scientifique:
15. Contrary to Tarski, who quite swiftly attained great academic prestige in
California, Carnap struggled to make a name for himself in the USA.
Between Semantics and Logistics 111
that it was only after Jan Woleński had published his monography [Woleński
1985] that the expression “Lvov-Warsaw School” came “into general use”.
By studying the Actes of the Paris Congress, we can see, firstly, that
already in 1935 this label was in use. What’s more, it was Twardowski’s
own disciples who presented themselves under this banner in the context
of a grand, international philosophical meeting of minds. Nevertheless, the
fact that Ajdukiewicz didn’t capitalize when writing “Lvov-Warsaw school”
is certainly neither an error nor a printing typo. Twardowski’s disciples
never constituted a group as homogeneous or militant as the Vienna Circle
philosophers. However, as the discussions from the Krakow Congress of 1936
also show, they all shared in the project of overhauling philosophy using
mathematical logic (logistics) by means of a “semantic therapy”. The idea
of a “logical and semantic therapy of philosophy” was formulated during the
Krakow Congress by Zawirski. To illustrate this reform, Zawirski turns both
to Tarski’s theory of truth and to Ajdukiewicz’s scientific vision of the world.
This illustration also encompasses a resonance of the Polish appearance at the
Congress for Scientific Philosophy in Paris.
In turning our attention to the Polish presence in Paris in 1936, we arrive
at the conclusion that, if we had to choose a qualification that characterizes
the Lvov-Warsaw School in its entirety, then it must be the syntagmatic term
“logico-semantic”. Let us thus recall the meaning the two components of this
term carry.
The Polish analytic school is not only “logical” because of the importance
of the achievements of the Polish logicians produced by this milieu, but also
because of the importance that inter-war period Polish analytic philosophy
attributed to logistics. As we saw above, the term “logistics” has practically
disappeared in its philosophical sense today. It is known only to specialists
of Russell and historians of Polish philosophy. In both cases though, it is
not generally given a meaning that corresponds with the almost universal
dimension logistics boasted in the first half of the 20th century (as seen in the
Actes of the Paris Congress). As has been shown, logistics was then held as a
universal tool for the construction and analysis of scientific and philosophical
theories. And, in fact, more still. As we can read in Lalande’s Dictionnaire,
logistics was held up as a potential general instrument of understanding for
“intellectual operations valid for discerning what is true and what is false
and for proving truth”. Thus, for disciples of the school Twardowski had
established, those who took part in the early development of mathematical
logic, to practice the logistic analysis of theories constituted one of their
common objectives. The importance of this tool to the philosophical sciences
was almost universally acknowledged in the conclusions at the Polish Congress
of Philosophy in 1936. Logistics was to vouch for the formal scientific validity of
theories. It was to enable the formal reform of the philosophical disciplines and
scientific theories. It was therefore not out of mere courtesy that Reichenbach,
in the inaugural discourse of the 1935 Congress, hailed Poland as the “country
where logistics has already long played a leading role in the universities” [Actes
Between Semantics and Logistics 113
1936, I.18]. It is true that Poland is probably the only country where a manual
of logistics had already been published in 1915, for the use of autodidacts.
[Janiszewski 1915]. And yet, as I have shown above, it is important to insist
on the fact that logistics in Poland cannot be reduced to only the full logistics
of Warsaw and to its anti-philosophical stance.
As regards the semantic dimension of Twardowski’s school, it is determined
by Twardowski’s concept of truth. His treatise “On So-Called Relative Truths”
[Twardowski 1900] begins in a quasi-evangelical manner: “The word ‘truth’
designates a true judgment” [translation by W. A. Miskiewicz & Ch. Stevens].
This definition would determine the semantic dimension of the stance adopted
by Twardowski’s disciples. In On Actions and Products [Twardowski 1997b],
judgment is the product of the action of judging, and this definition, in
turn, sets the general perspective of Twardowski’s semantics in the classical
definition framework of truth. The Aristotelian definition would be taken up
in the scholastic articulation of the famous veritas est adequatio rei et intel-
lectus. Twardowski specified the relation of correspondence propositionally:
a sentence (qua material expression, concrete annunciation) is true if the
things it announces exist in the way it announces them. Such an articulation
of the classical theory of truth contains a host of paradoxes familiar since
Antiquity, beginning with the liar paradox, something which went on to present
a constant challenge for Twardowski’s disciples. Finally, in 1933, Alfred Tarski
introduced into the work he subtitled “On the Concept of Truth in Formalized
Languages” the distinction between language and metalanguage as well as the
limitation of this definition to formalized languages (in a certain manner at
least). This article, in which Tarski denounces the logical error consisting of
speaking of a language in that same language, lays the foundations for con-
temporary logical semantics. Tarski recalled, in Paris, that it was Leśniewski,
in his own words a philosophical apostate, who first took full cognizance of
this confusion17 as far back as 1920. And yet, in Paris in 1935, Tarski began
his presentation with a broader definition of semantics, more fitting with the
epistemic approach of the Twardowski school as a whole. As I recalled earlier,
this definition includes the classical conception of truth, where “true” signifies
“corresponding to reality”.18
The hypothesis that the name of the school, i.e., the Lvov-Warsaw School,
is a reference to periodization implies the evolution of the philosophy initiated
by Twardowski towards the full logistics of Warsaw and implicitly diminishes
the importance of the School’s other achievements. Thus, for example, Tadeusz
17. Lesńiewski was probably the most formalist of all the Poles and, as he put it
himself, an apostate of philosophy.
18. [Tarski 1936, III.1]: “Als [...] [unter] Semantik werden wir die Gesamtheit der
Betrachtungen verstehen, die sich auf diejenigen Begriffe beziehen, in denen—frei
ausgesprochen—gewisse Zusammenhänge zwischen den Ausdrücken einer Sprache
und den durch sie angegebenen Gegenständen und Sachverhalten ihren Ausdruck
finden. Als typische Bespiele der semantischen Begriffe sind die Begriffe des
Bezeichnens, des Erfüllens, des Definierens anzuführen.”
114 Wioletta A. Miskiewicz
Acknowledgements
Translated by Christopher Stevens. All extracts quoted are translated by
W. A. Miskiewicz & Ch. Stevens.
Bibliography
Actes [1936], Actes du Congrès international de philosophie scientifique,
Sorbonne, Paris 1935, Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, 388–395, vol.
I–VIII, Paris: Hermann.
Bonnet, Christian & Wagner, Pierre (eds.) [2006], L’Âge d’or de l’empirisme
logique, Vienne-Berlin, Prague 1929-1936, a text of philosophy of science,
Paris: Gallimard.
Between Semantics and Logistics 115
Smith, Barry [2006], Why Polish philosophy does not exist, in: The
Lvov-Warsaw School – The new Generation, edited by J. Jadacki &
J. Przasniczek, Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 19–39.
Szaniawski, Klemens [1989], The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School,
Dordrecht; Boston; London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Annexe:
The Polish Delegation in Paris in 1935
I. Philosophie scientifique et empirisme logique
I.3. Physicalisme et critique de la métaphysique
(XV) Grundgedanken des Pansomatismus, par M. Tadeusz Kotarbinski
(XVI) Ueber Universalismus, Reismus, und Anti-Irrationalismus, par
M. Adam Wiegner
(XVII) La lutte contre l’idéalisme, par M. Léon Chwistek
V. Logique et expérience
V.1. Définition et expérience
(I) Die Definition, par M. Ajdukiewicz
V.2. Formalisation de l’expérience
(VII) Mengentheoretische Betrachtungsweise in der Chemie, par M. Eduard
Habermann
(VIII) Logisches zur Relativitaetstheorie, par M. Léon Chwistek
Gabriele Lolli
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Pisa (Italy)
Abstract: At the 1935 Congress for Scientific Philosophy, and at the launch
of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Federigo Enriques was
recognized by the leaders of neo-positivism as one of their founding fathers, not
to his complete agreement. In Paris, Enriques represented the Italian group of
philosophers of science and his name was associated with the important journal
Scientia, which was open to contributions by logical positivists. This latter
movement, which wanted to create a front composed of the opponents of the
prevailing idealistic and metaphysical philosophies, probably underestimated
the criticism of Enriques with respect to formal logic and the importance
of language. From the start of his involvement in philosophy in the first
years of the twentieth century, Enriques had stressed the necessity of a
psychological foundation for scientific concepts. He did not appreciate the
logical work of Giuseppe Peano, claiming that his formalism didn’t have the
right psychological basis. However, he defended the cognitive value of science
against the anti-rationalist movements of the time, and in the climate of mutual
appreciation differences were nuanced down.
The short paper by Enriques [Enriques 1936b] was almost entirely devoted
to offering cautionary advice against two forms of dogmatism. The first was
the neglect of the investigation into the process of the acquisition of knowledge;
he warned that “les préjugés empiristes ont induit en erreur notre penseur et
historien éminent [Mach], dans le domaine même de l’histoire de la pensée”
[Enriques 1936b, 25]. The second was logicism:
commonsensism and rationalism, since “the more the picture is colourful, the
more Enriques is pleased”.
Notwithstanding his fussiness, Enriques’s requests were always accommo-
dated, although the scientific esteem was not entirely unreserved and flattering;
in a letter to Frank [letter from Neurath to Frank, July 25, 1935] Neurath
declared that as far as history was concerned Enriques certainly wasn’t the
best choice.2
So why the courting? It is likely that, in terms of the new Encyclopedia,
Neurath’s strategy aimed to balance the preponderant logical tendency with
the historical one. Also, the fact that Enriques controlled the journal Scientia
could have been a factor. Over the previous years, the journal had become
a powerful instrument for the circulation and promotion of ideas.3 In
the correspondence, the questions regarding Enriques’s participation in the
activities of the Encyclopedia were mingled with those concerning Neurath’s
collaboration with the journal.
There were, moreover, certain affinities between Neurath and Enriques,
which probably made Neurath’s deference sincere; both acknowledged, for ex-
ample, the importance of scientific education for social and civic emancipation;
both felt the urge to organize cultural activities; neither viewed philosophy as
a discipline, not even epistemology, only science mattered to them; both had
read and enjoyed Wilhelm Wundt’s Logik [Wundt 1880-1883], where Neurath
had found a clear statement of the unity of knowledge (these affinities are
highlighted in [Simili 2000]).
By 1938, however, Enriques had to abandon his university position due to
the racial laws that had been enforced, and since he remained in Italy he was
precluded from engaging in any activity, except that which was undertaken
[Broad 1915, 95], “I am not perfectly sure that I understand this [...]” [Broad
1915, 97], and so on.
We will briefly describe Enriques’s philosophical thought through a
summary of three of his major works, the psychological foundations of
the postulates of geometry [Enriques 1901], the book Problems of Science
[Enriques 1914], and that on the history of logic [Enriques 1929] (what follows
is an abridged version of [Lolli 2012]).
these two representations it is necessary that the line be determined by any two
of its points, not only as a postulate, but from a physiological determination.
Enriques is convinced that the following is a sufficient explanation: looking
from A at point B, the segment AB is defined as the set of points whose
image falls in B; the same set is viewed from outside as a segment and from B
as a point. Hence, first of all, AB = BA. If C is on AB, then AC = AB for
the visual ray, and the same for another point D; in conclusion AB = CD,
that is, the line is determined by any two of its points.
The postulates of the line are the density axiom and the continuity axiom.
To perceive the density already requires more than sensations: the concept of
a line represents all possible successions of points; when two points are too
near to appear distinct to the senses, the thought uses a correspondence with
another line in which the two points are further off, so that in between a new
point can be inserted.
Richard Dedekind’s continuity postulate does not seem derivable from
representations of the line as a succession of points; according to Enriques
it could be based on two superimposed concepts, that of a corpuscle and that
of the infinite divisibility of the line.
The structure of the sciences for the Greeks displayed a naive realism, the
necessary character of the principles, no theory of definitions, and a concept
of deduction based on the meaning of the terms.
Enriques underlines some of Leibniz’s contributions to the reform of logic
at the beginning of the modern age: the idea that a concept is not tied to the
real but to the realm of the possible; the principle of sufficient reason, from
which the existent is singled out among the many possible.
Notwithstanding the break with the ancient tradition, the development of
logic up to the nineteenth century had not changed the traditional concept of
the structuring of demonstrative sciences. This task had to be accomplished
by mathematicians: several intellectual movements with different origins
concurred regarding the same reform. Enriques mentions projective and
non-Euclidean geometries, Riemann, Eugenio Beltrami’s models, the formal
algebra and logic in Great Britain, the arithmetization of analysis, the new
trend in physics towards the building of models. But only through the recent
critique of the principles of geometry “the mathematical thinkers acquire a
full conscience of a revolution harbored for centuries” [Enriques 1922, 132].
The final phase for Enriques begins with Joseph Diez Gergonne (1771-1859),
his notion of implicit definition and the duality principle as a principle of
substitutivity of concepts. It comes into full bloom with the geometric work of
Julius Plücker (1801-1868) and Karl von Staudt (1798-1867): with Plücker’s
coordinates, a unified treatment of correlated entities leads to one form of
intuition translating into other forms.
Enriques believed that multiple interpretations were an added benefit to
the axiomatic method ever since he began to reflect on the topic:
The importance that we attribute to Abstract Geometry is not [...]
in opposition to the importance attributed to intuition: rather,
it lies in the fact that Abstract Geometry can be interpreted in
infinite ways as a concrete (intuitive) Geometry by fixing the
nature of its elements: thus, Geometry can be assisted in its
development from infinite different forms of intuition. [Enriques
1894-1895, 9–10]
He then glorifies the method in light of this possibility:
Nothing is more fecund than the multiplication of our intuitive
powers as enhanced by this method: it is almost as though
to our bodily eyes—with which we examine a figure under a
certain perspective—a thousand spiritual eyes were to be added,
allowing us to contemplate several different transfigurations, while
the unity of the object is resplendent under the enriched reason.
[Enriques 1894-1895, 9–10]
The notion of abstract theory is thus presented as such: some primi-
tive concepts—A, B, C—are given; a postulate states a certain relation—
f (A, B, C)—among them; when we ask whether the relation is true or false
Enriques at the 1935 International Congress ... in Paris 131
for some new interpretation, the translation makes no sense if the relation f
depends on the intuitive meanings of A, B, C. Hence the formal nature of
mathematics. When two systems—R and S—are both possible interpretations
of the same abstract theory, if, to discover some consequences, we look at the
objects given with R, we must be careful that they do not depend on particular
intuitions that are falsified in S.
Enriques mentions Moritz Pasch (1843-1930) as one of the thinkers who
have contributed to the definition of the new structure of geometric theory,
along with David Hilbert (1862-1943) and Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932). In
[Enriques 1921], however, Enriques uses strong words of irony and contempt
against Peano’s ideography.
Enriques’s criticism focuses on the following technical idea, that there is
a fatal shortcoming in Peano’s logic in the impossibility of explaining the
following paradox: Peter was an Apostle, the Apostles were twelve, so Peter
was twelve. Peano’s way out consists in a distinction between membership
and inclusion, but this move is contrary to the use of “is” in common speech.
Enriques is strongly opposed to it; his own solution to the paradox is that the
middle term “Apostle” has a double status, appearing once as a class and once
as an abstract concept.
In the lemma “Mathematical logic” written for the Enciclopedia italiana
by Beppo Levi [Levi 1934], an unsigned appendix bearing the title “Meaning of
logic”, makes a comparison between Peano and Enriques; it can be confidently
surmised that the appendix was written by Enriques himself, who was in charge
of the mathematical entries of the Encyclopedia:
Giuseppe Peano and his followers see in the logical symbolism
an ideography well suited to the exposition of the ‘deductive and
mathematical sciences’; from the positive development of these
sciences they argue a sort of experimental revelation of the logical
schemes of reasoning, which logic is meant to analyze. No further
question on the meaning of reasoning, and hence on that of logic,
is considered by this school. To Enriques, logic is the study of the
operations of the exact thought and their laws, without reference
to anything outside the mind. [Levi 1934, 401]
There follows a short presentation of Enriques’s ideas on the logical process,
and finally Enriques’s critique of Peano’s distinction between membership and
inclusion is repeated:
a classroom conceived as a union of individuals is something
different from the abstract concept of the classroom: the union
of students, B, C . . . gives the school; from this, by abstraction,
one gets the student (of that school) [...]. Ordinary language
makes here a distinction that is impossible to translate in Peano’s
symbolism, and as a consequence he has to distinguish instead two
meanings in the copula of ordinary language. [Levi 1934, 401]
132 Gabriele Lolli
3 Conclusions
Enriques’s philosophical ideas were formed at the end of the nineteenth century
and didn’t evolve. He was a prolific writer, but he did not confront head on
the main new trends in philosophy and in logic.
One shouldn’t forget that most of Enriques’s activity was devoted to math-
ematics, and, after his juvenile years, especially to research and contributions
in mathematical education: in Rome he held a chair in a new discipline
conceived for teachers’ training; in 1921, he took on the dedicated journal
Periodico di matematiche, renewed and directed it till 1938, and wrote a lot of
textbooks (literally dozens) both about geometry and elementary algebra and
about higher mathematics. He was also actively involved in the discussions on
the reform of universities (as documented by [Giacardi 2012]).
I would like to share one fair, final assessment that was proposed by the
historian of mathematics Jeremy Gray :
It is harder for us today to accommodate his writing as a
philosopher or populariser. He held a subtle position, according
to which knowledge is inseparable from the means of knowing,
logic from psychology. This has long been unfashionable in the
sciences. It may be that cognitive psychology will reopen the
avenues Enriques explored; there are signs that it has reached at
least the philosophy of mathematics. [Gray 1996, 54]
Bibliography
Babbitt, Donald & Goodstein, Judith [2011], Federigo Enriques’s quest
to prove the “Completeness Theorem”, Notices American Mathematical
Society, 28(2), 240–249, URL http://www.ams.org/notices/201102/
rtx110200240p.pdf.
—— [1922], Per la storia della logica. I principi e l’ordine della scienza nel
concetto dei pensatori matematici, Bologna: Zanichelli.
Simili, Raffaella [2000], L’età degli eroi, introduction to Enriques, in: Federigo
Enriques: Per la scienza, Naples: Bibliopolis, 15–76.
Michel Armatte
Centre A. Koyré, EHESS-MNHN-CNRS
(UMR 8560), Paris (France)
Mines, bien connu sans doute des seuls ingénieurs économistes, pour avoir
proposé une loi des revenus dite loi de l’effet proportionnel et l’avoir appliquée
également à des questions hydrauliques. Sachant cela, que venait faire Robert
Gibrat dans un Congrès de philosophie scientifique, consacré à la philosophie
analytique, dont il n’avait pas fait état dans ses travaux ? C’est à démêler
ce puzzle, à évaluer les diverses réponses possibles à cette question que se
consacre cet article. Pour cela nous évoquerons successivement sa première
carrière scientifique comme ingénieur-économiste avant 1935, son rôle dans le
mouvement technocratique X-Crise, puis son cheminement voire sa carrière
politique dans la période troublée des décennies 1930 et 1940, et enfin sa
seconde carrière d’ingénieur conseil dans le secteur des énergies, cherchant
à comprendre chaque fois ce qui aurait pu l’amener à représenter pour les
philosophes une science économique réformée.
En 1931, il soutient à Lyon une thèse de doctorat de droit sur Les Inégalités
économiques [Gibrat 1931], sous la direction de René Gonnard, professeur
d’économie politique disciple de Gaëtan Pirou, et avec, dans son jury, le chargé
de cours François Perroux et le professeur Dulac de la faculté des sciences. Il
revient ensuite à Paris pour un poste de professeur à l’École des mines qu’il
occupera à partir de 1936. D’après le registre de l’École il aurait quitté celle-
ci en 1940 mais la bibliothèque contient encore un de ses cours d’électricité
industrielle pour l’année 1943-1944 et les dictionnaires Palgrave et d’Amat le
donnent professeur aux Mines jusqu’en 1968.
La thèse de Gibrat dénonce l’indigence des études de statistique écono-
mique fondées sur des représentations graphiques et des calculs de corrélation,
comme les baromètres économiques qui se proposaient de représenter et
anticiper le « mouvement cyclique des affaires » et qui donnèrent lieu dans
les années 1920 à la création de nombreux instituts de conjoncture en Europe,
URSS et Amérique, mais furent incapables de prédire et encore moins prévenir
la grande crise financière de 1929 et ses suites économiques. Gibrat se réclame
des travaux « d’économique rationnelle » de son maître François Divisia,
professeur aux trois institutions majeures que sont l’École polytechnique,
l’École des Ponts et le CNAM, qui tente d’articuler la vogue très récente des
modèles économiques aux faits que révèle la statistique économique.
Dans sa thèse, Gibrat se propose de développer un modèle d’ajustement
de toutes sortes de distributions de revenus par un « modèle » qui possède
Que représentait Robert Gibrat (1904-1980) au Congrès de 1935 ? 139
Figure 3 – La machine de Kapteyn (1903). Source [Aitchison & Brown 1957, 23,
2e édition, 1962].
1. Sur Kapteyn voir [Stamhuis & Seneta 2009]. Dans la machine de Kapteyn, le
coefficient de proportionnalité est avec des chances égales de +a et −a. Mais plus
généralement c’est une variable aléatoire de même loi, quelconque.
140 Michel Armatte
et les techniques ont quelque légitimité à guider les décisions des politiques.
Au principe de non contamination de la science pure par des questions
politiques nécessairement viciées par des idéologies et des intérêts financiers
succède un modèle d’expertise linéaire qui voit la science pure se décliner en
science appliquée puis en techniques d’intervention et pour finir en décision
publique ou privée et en innovation sous forme de dispositif social ou technique.
Mais ce schéma linéaire est non réversible car les scientifiques interdisent
toute pression en retour de la sphère politique sur l’agenda et le contenu de
leur recherche. L’économie politique qui, comme son nom l’indique, a déjà
pratiqué depuis longtemps le conseil et l’intervention à tous les niveaux de
la vie politique et sociale, se doit de combiner la mutation de son statut
d’une science morale à une science positive (qui se nomme économique
rationnelle dans les années 1930) sans abandonner par exemple les places
qu’occupent les libéraux à l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, dans
les universités et grandes écoles, dans la presse et l’édition. Elle s’inscrit donc
facilement dans ce modèle linéaire de l’expertise. Et les statuts du CPEE
ne manquent pas de préciser que
10. Cela ne plaît pas à tout le monde. Les jeunes équipes de Georges Valois
s’inquiètent : « Les théories de Monsieur Coutrot sont dangereuses. Son système (les
ententes industrielles) n’est applicable que moyennant une intervention autoritaire
constante du pouvoir central. C’est un véritable fascisme économique » [Ohayon 2011].
11. Ce que Loubet del Bayle nomme en 1969 « les non conformistes des années
trente ». Le mathématicien Claude Chevalley, membre d’Ordre Nouveau lui aussi,
était présent au Congrès international de philosophie scientifique mais nous n’avons
pas trouvé trace de ses échanges éventuels avec Robert Gibrat.
146 Michel Armatte
3 Gibrat et l’économétrie
Gibrat, pour revenir à lui, a un rôle important et une place assez centrale
dans les travaux du CPEE et cela depuis 1931. Il n’est pas seulement la voix
d’Ordre nouveau. Il est intronisé par le compte rendu de sa thèse par Divisia
comme représentant d’une science économique rationnelle, et bientôt comme
directeur du groupe économique. Il est membre du bureau de février 1935 à
novembre 193612 , et auteur de quelques communications fort discutées comme
par exemple un dialogue avec Coutrot sur « les philosophies de l’évolution
économique » [Gibrat & Coutrot 1935], qui revient sur les thèmes classiques
d’Ordre nouveau et tourne en controverse sur la possibilité même de construire
un plan pour une économie dont on ne connaît pas les lois. Gibrat y évoque
la dépendance des recherches théoriques vis-à-vis de la demande politique et
des moyens techniques, et ses réserves quant au rôle des mathématiques en
économie dont il est pourtant un thuriféraire, en s’appuyant sur les réflexions
matérialistes et dialectiques du mathématicien moscovite Colman13 : son
attrait pour la science prolétarienne a beau être tempéré, il se conjugue
parfaitement avec son désir d’un homme nouveau et d’une science dégagée
de la métaphysique. Voilà une combinaison intellectuelle complexe incluant
elle-même un certain regard ironique qui devait plaire à Louis Rougier.
Au titre de directeur du groupe économique, Gibrat est le rédacteur d’une
rubrique régulière sur l’économétrie à partir du no 17 (1934) jusqu’au no 31–
32 (1936). Cela n’est pas anodin dans le contexte des années 1930. En effet la
réaction technocratique des polytechniciens français à la faillite des élites s’est
inscrite dans un mouvement international des économistes mathématiciens :
16 d’entre eux14 réunis le 30 décembre 1930 à Cleveland à l’initiative de Irving
Fisher (1867-1947), professeur à Yale et Ragnar Frish (1895-1973), statisticien
et économiste norvégien, et futur premier « prix Nobel » d’économie avec
Tinbergen, créent la Société internationale d’économétrie (IES). Dès 1934,
la Société compte 468 membres dont 151 Américains et 41 Français (dont
12. Suite à une allégeance à Léon Blum trop explicite dans une publication, Bardet
démissionne de son poste de secrétaire général et Gibrat quitte le conseil.
13. Selon Colman, les 6 points faibles des mathématiques sont : 1o ) Elles
sont incapables de réaliser la synthèse entre le continu et le discontinu. (Seul
le matérialisme dialectique peut y arriver). 2o ) Un fossé immense et rempli de
métaphysique sépare le calcul des probabilités de tout le reste des mathématiques. 3o )
Le risque permanent est de perdre le lien avec le réel comme dans le cas des équations
qui perdent l’irréversibilité de certains phénomènes. 4o ) Il y a en mathématiques un
abîme entre le point de vue historique et le point de vue logique. 5o ) On observe le plus
grand écart entre les diverses théories et les procédés ou instruments de calcul. 6o )
Colman dénonce les visions idéalistes, mystiques et scolastiques de la mathématique
bourgeoise.
14. Frisch (Oslo), Hotelling (Columbia), Menger (Vienne), Mills (Columbia),
Ogburn (Chicago), Ore (Yale), Roos (A.A.A.S.), Rorty (ITT), Schumpeter (Bonn),
Schultz (Chicago), Shewart (Bell Lab.), Snyder (Banque Fédérale, N.Y.), Wedervang
(Oslo), Wiener (MIT), Wilson (Harvard).
Que représentait Robert Gibrat (1904-1980) au Congrès de 1935 ? 147
retient rien, mais en réaffirme les conditions, à savoir que cette unification soit
le produit de principes logiques comme ceux du Cercle de Vienne ou d’une
théorie de l’inférence inductive en complément de l’inférence déductive. C’est
cela qui est en jeu dans les années 1930 et que Neurath et Carnap discutent
dans une version syntaxique, qu’ils vont dépasser dans la version sémantique
issue des travaux de Tarski. Avec le recul, on peut penser de façon anachronique
que Gibrat aurait dû rendre compte des travaux de statistique mathématique
autour de l’inférence inductive par Ronald Fisher puis par Neyman, Pearson
et Wald et aussi des idées de Popper sur la falsification et la corroboration
d’une théorie qui furent la toile de fond des innovations économétriques et
un terrain d’échange entre économistes et philosophes analytiques. Quelques
années de recul supplémentaires et Gibrat aurait pu insister sur la convergence
importante entre deux versions de la notion de modèle, l’une très abstraite et
générale, discutée dans les travaux de Tarski et autres au Cercle de Vienne,
l’autre très empirique qui apparaît massivement comme le concept central de
la mathématisation de l’économie chez des constructeurs de petits modèles
comme les frères Guillaume, Jean Ullmo, Jan Tinbergen, tous inscrits dans
la mouvance de X-Crise et de l’Econometric Society, et en recherche d’une
nouvelle science économique qu’ils veulent rationnelle. L’irruption conjointe
dans ces deux univers du terme même de modèle est, après 1932, la trace la
plus manifeste de cette convergence. La référence parfois explicite au Cercle de
Vienne des hommes de la Cowles Commission qui inventeront la méthodologie
de la modélisation économétrique dans les années 1940 en est une autre trace.
5 Gibrat et Vichy
L’invitation lancée à Gibrat par Rougier est vraisemblablement plus politique
que scientifique. C’est du moins ce que l’avenir va révéler à travers la proximité
de leurs parcours. Il faut suivre les tribulations de Gibrat dans l’appareil d’État
dès la fin des années 1930 pour comprendre d’une part comment il a pu se
19. L’Énergie des marées [Gibrat 1966]. Et non pas « l’énergie des marais », comme
le dit le biographe d’Amat !
20. Voir sur le site http://www.shf-lhb.org les détails de cette histoire par
M. Banal.
154 Michel Armatte
7 Conclusions
Au-delà de ses incursions dans l’État vichyssois finalement très limitées,
mais qui lui valurent quelques déboires et ne furent que les conséquences
de ses amitiés sulfureuses et de ses positions idéologiques mal assurées,
Robert Gibrat, « technicien brillant mais tête politique irréfléchie » dira de
lui Claude Gruson (1996), fut un grand commis de l’État à la carrière
d’ingénieur économiste et énergéticien très prolifique. Rien de cela ne le
destinait cependant à intervenir au Congrès de philosophie scientifique de 1935,
si ce n’est ses toutes premières fréquentations de l’économétrie, laquelle a pu
paraître au moment fort des années 1930 et 1940, comme un cas exemplaire
d’une discipline prometteuse, rigoureuse dans sa démarche, sachant articuler
observations et théorie, et répondre au programme d’unification de la science
qui présidait à ce congrès, sans se soustraire à son utilité politique. Si ce
n’est aussi les qualités humaines de cet honnête homme, qui étaient bien au-
delà de l’idée que l’on se fait d’un technocrate, témoignant d’une insatiable
curiosité tous azimuts de l’ingénieur cultivé, du musicologue (« capable de
jouer à l’envers une partition écoutée à l’endroit », écrit Dontot), du voyageur
sportif et du linguiste qui pratiquait sept ou huit langues. Mais ces qualités ne
firent pas de lui le contributeur incontournable de la philosophie analytique
qui avait été invité à Paris par Louis Rougier. Celui-ci ne lui rendit par la suite
aucun hommage et Gibrat ne le suivit pas dans sa campagne ultérieure pour
le renouveau du libéralisme.
Bibliographie
Aitchison, John & Brown, James A. [1957], The Lognormal Distribution :
With Special Reference to its Uses in Economics, Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press.
Gibrat, Robert & Loustau, Robert [1934], Les problèmes du temps présent
dans la doctrine d’ordre nouveau : travail et machinisme, Bulletin CPEE/
X-Crise, 13, 6–23.
Mansfield, Edwin [1987], Gibrat, Robert René Louis, dans The New
Palgrave : A Dictionary of Economics, édité par J. Eatwell, M. Milgate
& P. K. Newman, New York : Palgrave.
Philippe de Rouilhan
Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des
techniques (UMR 8590, Université Paris 1 –
Panthéon-Sorbonne et CNRS) (France)
([Carnap 1934b, partie V], voir aussi [Carnap 1935]) l’idée de Carnap était,
plus précisément, qu’une partie de la philosophie traditionnelle méritait d’être
sauvée, celle dont on pouvait réinterpréter les phrases comme des pseudo-
phrases d’objet, exprimant sur le mode matériel, contentuel, métaphysique de
discours ce qui pouvait – et en toute rigueur devait – s’exprimer sur le mode
formel, métalinguistique 1 et être reconnu comme scientifique. La philosophie
scientifique était pour lui cette partie de la philosophie traditionnelle ainsi
devenue science, reprise à nouveaux frais et développée pour elle-même sous un
nouveau nom d’usage, au moins jusqu’à l’apparition de la sémantique en 1939,
la « logique de la science ».
Certes, que ce soit dans la Syntax ou dans l’article de 1935, il est bien
vrai que Carnap ne parle plus de « philosophie scientifique » comme il le
faisait auparavant, il parle plutôt de « logique de la science », mais il ne faut
pas s’y tromper, cela n’implique nullement qu’il ait abandonné l’idée de la
première au profit de la seconde, au contraire, l’idée de celle-ci est d’être une
réalisation de celle-là. Il n’y a donc pas à négliger, à s’étonner ou à regretter
que Carnap puisse utiliser l’expression de « philosophie scientifique » une fois
dans la Syntax, certes sur un mode indirect, mais sans rien y trouver à redire :
Les questions de logique, de théorie de la connaissance, de
philosophie naturelle, de philosophie de l’histoire, etc., sont
parfois désignées par ceux qui considèrent la métaphysique comme
non scientifique comme des questions de philosophie scientifique.
[Carnap 1934b, § 72, voir traduction anglaise, 279 ; je souligne,
je traduis]
ou qu’à la même époque, il puisse conclure son grand article « Testability
and meaning » en appelant de ses vœux « le développement d’une philosophie
de plus en plus scientifique » [Carnap 1937, 38, je souligne]. En fait, si le
terme de « science » désigne toujours, sous la plume de Carnap, la forme la
plus noble de connaissance, et celui de « métaphysique » la plus vile, le sort
du terme de « philosophie » reste indécis. Parfois, ce terme est pris comme
désignant la philosophie traditionnelle, la métaphysique ; parfois, il est pris en
un sens wittgensteinien, ne renvoyant plus à une théorie, mais à une méthode
thérapeutique, « la vraie méthode philosophique », décrite par Wittgenstein
à la fin du Tractatus comme consistant, « à chaque fois qu’un autre voudrait
1. Comme je l’ai déjà fait par ailleurs [Rouilhan 2009], j’écris les mots « langage »
et « syntaxe » et leurs dérivés en petites capitales quand je les utilise au sens
où Carnap les utilisait à l’époque considérée, et non au sens contemporain. Au
contraire d’un langage au sens usuel des logiciens contemporains, un langage n’est
pas déterminé par la seule donnée de règles de grammaire (règles de formation), il
ne l’est que par l’adjonction à ces règles-là d’axiomes et règles d’inférence (règles de
transformation) : aujourd’hui on parlerait plutôt de « système » ; quant à la syntaxe,
elle étudie les expressions d’un langage selon leur forme, hors de toute considération
sémantique ou pragmatique, tout comme le fait la syntaxe (au sens contemporain),
mais, au contraire de celle-ci, elle ne fixe aucune limite de principe aux moyens
mathématiques susceptibles d’être mis en œuvre pour ce faire.
Un dilemme pour Carnap 163
dire quelque chose de métaphysique, [à] lui démontrer qu’il n’a pas donné
de significations à certains signes dans ses propositions » [Wittgenstein 1921,
6.53] ; parfois enfin, le terme de « philosophie » vise comme un tout la méthode
en question désormais adossée à – ou mieux faisant corps avec – cette science
nouvelle, métalinguistique, que Wittgenstein tenait pour impossible. Il y a
bien de la « philosophie scientifique » aux yeux de Carnap à l’époque de la
Syntax, et c’est dans la philosophie au dernier sens mentionné ci-dessus, dans
la « logique de la science », qu’elle se trouve.
Carnap concevait la « logique de la science » comme l’étude logique, non
empirique, des formes possibles de langage de la science. À l’époque de
la Syntax, il concevait l’étude en question comme devant être exclusivement
syntaxique ; bientôt, sous l’influence de Tarski, il reconnaîtrait qu’elle pouvait
et devait se prolonger en une étude sémantique, à laquelle il contribuerait, de
façon toujours originale par rapport à celle de Tarski, par ses trois « Studies
in Semantics » [Carnap 1942, 1943, 1947], mais voir déjà [Carnap 1939] ;
il reconnaissait aussi la légitimité et la nécessité d’une étude pragmatique
[Carnap 1939, §§ 2–3], mais ne s’engagerait jamais dans des études pragma-
tiques comparables en importance à ses études syntaxiques ou sémantiques.
J’en resterai, pour simplifier, à la philosophie scientifique telle que Carnap
la concevait à l’époque de la Syntax, à savoir comme étude syntaxique
des formes possibles de langage de la science. Rien d’essentiel ne sera
pour autant perdu pour l’analyse et la sortie éventuelle du dilemme de la
philosophie scientifique, car, pour l’essentiel, il ne sera jamais nécessaire que la
philosophie scientifique se réduise à l’étude syntaxique de la science, il suffira
toujours qu’elle la contienne. L’étude syntaxique en question devait être pour
l’essentiel « logique », et non empirique, et c’est cette étude « logique » que
Carnap visait dans le titre même de la Syntax sous le nom de « syntaxe
logique ». Par souci de brièveté, c’est en ce sens que je parlerai de « syntaxe »
tout court.
L’une des grandes ambitions du Cercle de Vienne et de Carnap était
de reconstruire l’ensemble des sciences sous la forme d’une science unitaire.
L’unité visée de la science était ce que j’appelle une unité linguistique forte,
de caractère non seulement logique, mais aussi empirique, l’idée étant de
reconstruire toutes les sciences empiriques (physique, chimie, biologie, psycho-
logie, etc.) dans les termes de l’une d’entre elles tenue pour fondamentale, dont
le langage deviendrait ainsi « le langage de la science ». Le singulier n’avait
rien d’absolu, ledit langage de la science n’était qu’un langage choisi parmi
d’autres possibles pour tenir ce rôle, et les raisons ultimes de ce choix n’étaient
pas purement théoriques, elles étaient purement pragmatiques, et c’était en
ce sens un libre choix. La logique du langage de la science2 devait-elle être
intuitionniste, classique ou autre chose encore ? C’est une3 logique classique qui
fut choisie. La science fondamentale devait-elle être la physique, la psychologie
ou autre chose encore ? C’est la physique qui fut choisie. Ce furent de libres
choix, dont la liberté fut consacrée par le Principe de tolérance :
Notre affaire n’est pas d’établir des interdits, c’est de parvenir à
des conventions. [Carnap 1934b, 51–52]
La seule unité impliquée dans le dilemme pour la philosophie scientifique
de Carnap sera ce que j’appelle une unité linguistique faible, de caractère
logique et peut-être seulement logique4 . La théorie extensionnelle des types
simple (dans l’une quelconque de ses versions usuelles5 ) étant supposée choisie
pour le rôle de logique du Langage de la science, définissons une sous-logique
n’ai utilisé jusqu’ici l’expression carnapienne consacrée qu’entourée de guillemets,
cinq fois dans le corps du texte et une sixième dans la présente note, et, que ce soit
avec ou sans guillemets, il n’y en aura pas d’autres.
3. Avant Gödel, on pouvait croire que la logique classique tout entière au sens
absolu, non relatif à un langage supposé de la science, pouvait être formalisée sans
inconsistance dans un même langage satisfaisant certaines conditions d’effectivité ;
et, dans la Syntax, Carnap prend acte de la découverte de Gödel qu’une telle
formalisation de la logique – ou mathématique – classique est impossible [Carnap
1934b, éd. angl., § 60d, in fine]. On ne saurait donc choisir pour logique du langage
de la science la logique classique tout entière au sens absolu, mais seulement telle ou
telle partie convenable de celle-ci qu’on puisse tenir pour une (une) logique classique
digne de ce nom. Mais même avant la découverte de Gödel, on aurait pu remarquer
que, pour une reconstruction de la science intégrant une logique classique, il n’y avait
aucune raison pour exiger d’avance que cette logique fût le plus riche possible.
4. L’unité linguistique faible n’exclut donc pas l’unité linguistique forte, celle-ci
est un cas particulier de celle-là.
5. Mentionnons la version la plus simple et la plus pauvre de la théorie extension-
nelle des types simple, avec ses variables d’individu, ses variables de classe d’individus,
ses variables de classe de classes d’individus, etc., telle qu’on pouvait la présenter avant
l’invention par Church du lambda calcul [Church 1940] ; et la version la plus complexe
et la plus riche, présentée par Church et intégrant un lambda-calcul [Church 1941].
On sait depuis Russell et Wiener que, et en quel sens, les versions plus riches sont
réductibles aux versions moins riches ; on sait aussi qu’à chaque variable est associé
un ordre, nombre naturel ≥ 1 facilement calculable en fonction de son type (par
exemple 1 pour les variables d’individu ; 2 pour les variables de classe d’individus,
pour les variables de relation dyadique entre individus, etc. ; 3 pour les variables
de classe de classes d’individus, etc.). Pour l’essentiel, la logique du langage II de
la Syntax est une théorie extensionnelle des types simple avec variables d’individu,
variables de classe, de relation, ou de fonction de tel ou tel type, sans opérateur
lambda, et avec pour individus des entités bien particulières. Ces individus sont les
numérals et la logique du langage II possède corrélativement des notions primitives
et axiomes adaptés de l’arithmétique de Peano permettant de traiter ces numérals
comme si c’étaient les nombres naturels eux-mêmes, au lieu que les individus de la
théorie extensionnelle des types simple restent de nature indéterminée, que leur classe
n’est soumise qu’à l’exigence d’être infinie et que l’arithmétique de Peano peut alors
y être reconstruite à la Frege-Russell, sans aucune adjonction de notions primitives
et axiomes proprement arithmétiques. Le choix de telle ou telle version de la théorie
extensionnelle des types simple ou de la logique du langage II de la Syntax est
Un dilemme pour Carnap 165
de cette logique comme étant cette logique même ou celle qu’on obtient à
partir d’elle en supprimant certains types de variable de caractère prédicatif ou
fonctoriel de manière que, si un type de variable de ce caractère est conservé,
il en est de même des types correspondants de variable d’argument ou de
valeur ; disons qu’un langage est une extension admissible d’une sous-logique
de cette logique si, et seulement si, il est obtenu à partir d’elle par adjonction
de constantes logiques ou empiriques en nombre fini dont chacune est un terme
singulier, un prédicat ou un foncteur dont les expressions d’argument (dans
le cas des prédicats et des foncteurs) et les expressions de valeur (dans le
cas des foncteurs) sont de catégories déjà représentées par des variables de
cette logique ; et disons qu’un langage entre dans le cadre de cette logique
si, et seulement si, c’est une extension admissible d’une sous-logique de cette
logique. Avec cette terminologie, la seule unité de la science impliquée dans le
dilemme pour la philosophie scientifique est facile à décrire : les langages des
sciences empiriques seront supposés entrer dans le cadre d’une seule et même
logique (unité logique) et réunis, ne serait-ce que par simple juxtaposition, en
une seule et même extension admissible de cette logique (unité linguistique
faible), constituant le langage de la science.
Carnap exigeait que toute explication digne de ce nom d’une notion
syntaxique pour un langage pût être mise sous la forme la plus exigeante,
celle d’une définition (explicite) de cette notion dans la syntaxe de ce
langage, et qu’ainsi l’expression introduite par cette explication fût, en
chacune de ses occurrences, éliminable. Une simple « définition implicite »,
comme on dit par abus de langage (en fait un simple système d’axiomes), qui
n’eût pas été convertible en une définition proprement dite (ou en un axiome
définitionnel) n’aurait pas eu à ses yeux la valeur d’une explication complète.
À vrai dire, pour apprécier cette exigence à sa juste valeur, il faudrait tenir
compte de ce que Carnap se fondait sur une version arithmétiquement codée
de la partie élémentaire de la syntaxe en question ; on verra bientôt que ce
n’est pas mon cas. Quoi qu’il en soit, parmi les notions syntaxiques pour un
langage, celle de conséquence logique (entendue au sens très large de relation
entre une classe finie ou infinie de formules de ce langage en position de
prémisses et une formule en position de conclusion), en termes de laquelle
les autres notions importantes, notamment celle d’analyticité (de formule6 ),
pouvaient être facilement définies, était pour Carnap celle dont la définition
importait le plus.
Examinons donc ce que devient le dilemme de la philosophie scientifique
lorsque le langage de la science est une extension admissible d’une version
de usuelle de la théorie extensionnelle des types simple ou de la logique du
langage II de la Syntax. Il apparaîtra le moment venu, et ce sera alors
dûment souligné, que l’hypothèse d’admissibilité doit être renforcée en une
sans importance pour l’analyse et la sortie éventuelle du dilemme de la philosophie
scientifique.
6. Une formule analytique peut être définie comme étant une conséquence logique
de toute classe de formules, ou, aussi bien, de la classe vide de formules.
166 Philippe de Rouilhan
2 Théorème d’indéfinissabilité de
l’analyticité, esquisse d’explication
et de démonstration sans codage
Au cours d’une nuit mémorable de fiévreuse insomnie (nuit du 21 au 22 janvier
1931), transgressant l’interdit wittgensteinien de tout métalangage, Carnap
avait déjà eu l’idée de la syntaxe logique du langage des sciences empiriques
et avait cru que, par le procédé d’arithmétisation découvert par Gödel, cette
syntaxe pouvait être intégrée dans ce langage même. Il avait soumis à Gödel
ses premières avancées dans la réalisation de ce programme, notamment une
tentative de définition de la notion d’analyticité pour ce langage dans ce
langage même. Hélas, dans sa réponse du 11 septembre 1932, Gödel lui avait
montré que sa définition était circulaire, indiqué comment cette circularité
pouvait être évitée, et affirmé en substance qu’une définition adéquate de
l’analyticité pour ce langage dans ce langage même était impossible
(sous-entendu : sauf inconsistance de ce langage) [Gödel 1986-2003, vol. V,
Correspondance A-G, lettre de Gödel à Carnap du 11/09/1932]. Ce dont
Carnap avait été bientôt convaincu.
Si Carnap avait atteint son but, non seulement pour la notion d’analyticité,
mais pour celle de conséquence logique au sens où il l’entendrait dans la Syntax,
on pourrait dire, dans la perspective de notre dilemme, qui n’était pas la sienne,
que, levant l’inquiétude exprimée dans la première branche, il serait sorti de
ce dilemme par le haut ; mais cette entreprise ayant échoué, on peut dire, dans
la même perspective, que, se retrouvant sur la seconde branche, il était sorti
du dilemme par le bas.
À la question de savoir si une définition adéquate de la conséquence
logique pour le langage de la science dans ce langage même est possible,
je retiendrai donc la réponse négative, savante et incontestée sous la forme
quelque peu inhabituelle du théorème suivant d’indéfinissabilité de l’analyticité
(et donc de la conséquence logique), dont je proposerai d’un même mouvement
explication et esquisse de démonstration sans codage, je veux dire sans
arithmétisation de la syntaxe élémentaire9 .
9. Le lecteur instruit des choses de la logique s’attendait sans doute ici à
l’invocation de la possibilité de coder, de façon arithmétique ou autre, la syntaxe
élémentaire d’un langage dans lui-même, pour peu que ce langage ne soit pas
en dessous d’un certain seuil de pauvreté expressive et de faiblesse démonstrative.
Si j’exploitais cette possibilité en supposant fixé un codage convenable dans L de
sa propre syntaxe élémentaire, le théorème à démontrer serait : « Soient L une
extension suradmissible de la théorie extensionnelle des types simple ou de la logique
sous-jacente au langage II de la Syntax. Il est impossible de donner une définition
interne de la (version codée de) la notion de conséquence logique pour L qui soit
adéquate d’après la convention A, à moins que L ne soit inconsistant. » Mais, pour
ne pas sidérer inutilement le lecteur inexpérimenté par l’invocation et l’exploitation
d’une telle possibilité, je me contenterai d’esquisser une présentation axiomatique de
168 Philippe de Rouilhan
appelle le plus souvent syntaxe élémentaire, mais que, pour le besoin d’adjectif
et d’adverbe, j’appellerai protosyntaxe12 .
Notons Λ une logique identique à la théorie extensionnelle des types
simple dans l’une quelconque de ses versions usuelles ou à la logique du
langage II de la Syntax, et partons d’une extension admissible13 , L, de Λ
ne contenant aucune constante syntaxique et supposée être le langage de
la science non philosophique. Notons L+ l’extension obtenue à partir de L par
adjonction des constantes primitives de sa protosyntaxe et d’axiomes pour en
gouverner adéquatement l’usage. On peut compléter le stock des constantes
protosyntaxiques additionnelles et adapter corrélativement les axiomes les
concernant pour obtenir l’extension protosyntaxique, L++ , de L+ 14 . Et ainsi
de suite à l’infini. Tous les termes de la suite L, L+ , L++ , etc., sont des
extensions admissibles de Λ et il en va de même de leur union. Sauf maladresse
dans la construction, cette union contient sa propre protosyntaxe, disons
qu’elle est protosyntaxiquement close, appelons-la clôture protosyntaxique
de L et notons-la L⊕ .
Remarque. – Un résultat de consistance relative nous assure que le passage de
L à L⊕ ne donne lieu par lui-même à aucun paradoxe, autrement dit que L⊕
est consistant relativement à L. On l’obtient facilement en réinterprétant les
signes protosyntaxiques de L⊕ en termes de L de manière que les axiomes
protosyntaxiques de L⊕ deviennent des théorèmes de L.
Deuxième étape – S’il nous fallait construire une explication sous forme
de définition externe de l’analyticité pour L dans quelque métalangage, M,
contenant L+ et une logique aussi riche que de besoin, l’élucidation (explication
informelle, heuristique) préalable pourrait être la suivante :
Élucidation A pour L et M (élucidation préalable à une définition
externe de l’analyticité pour L dans M). – Une formule est analytique
si, et seulement si, sa clôture universelle est vraie indépendamment de
l’interprétation des constantes empiriques qui y figurent.
Remarque. – En particulier, un énoncé purement logique est analytique si, et
seulement si, il est vrai.
Il serait alors raisonnable de convenir du critère suivant d’adéquation pour
une définition externe de l’analyticité pour L dans M (« convention A »),
12. Terme librement emprunté à Quine [Quine 1940, §§ 55 et suiv.].
13. Seulement admissible, en attendant le moment où l’hypothèse de suradmissibi-
lité s’imposera naturellement.
14. Si les signes additionnels de L+ par rapport L sont le foncteur de concaténation,
le point séparateur, et les noms canoniques des signes primitifs de L, alors le
complément se réduit à de nouveaux noms canoniques censés désigner ces noms
canoniques-là. Les axiomes qui gouvernaient l’usage des signes additionnels de L+
par rapport à L voient leur domaine de juridiction étendu aux signes additionnels
de L++ par rapport à L. Le signe de concaténation et le point séparateur ne
changent pas.
170 Philippe de Rouilhan
hιi
« “x1 est hétérologique*” est hétérologique* » est analytique
si, et seulement si,
hιi
« x1 est hétérologique* » est hétérologique*.
Remerciements
Merci à Pierre Wagner, grand connaisseur de Carnap, dont les commentaires
approfondis d’une version antérieure de ce papier m’ont convaincu qu’aux
paragraphes 1 et 3, il me fallait encore enfoncer quelques clous, si je voulais
être compris.
Un dilemme pour Carnap 177
Bibliographie
Carnap, Rudolf [1934a], Die Antinomien und die Unvollständigkeit der
Mathematik, Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 41(1), 263–284, doi :
10.1007/BF01697862.
—— [1935], Philosophy and Logical Syntax, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner &
Co.
Ansten Klev
Czech Academy of Sciences (Czechia)
Paris Congress is his introduction of the so-called thing language as a basis for
the language of science. This thing language had been hinted at in some of
Carnap’s earlier writings, but it is only around the time of the Paris Congress
that Carnap came to realize that it may serve as a basis for the whole language
of unified science.
Carnap’s turn to the thing language was definitive, not renounced in
later work; and it was important for several reasons. As I shall argue in
section 2 below, the thing language, as well as any language built up from it,
readily allows for the confrontation of its sentences with experience. It will
be shown in section 1 that whether such confrontation is at all possible had
been put into doubt by Neurath and was not obvious from Carnap’s account
of the language of unified science during his “syntactic period”. Moreover,
as a protocol language the thing language is intersubjective, in contrast to
the protocol language assumed by Carnap previously, which was “solipsistic”
(section 3). Adopting the thing language, finally, facilitates an account of how
the quantitative concepts of physics are formed on the basis of the qualitative
concepts of our everyday “life-world” (section 4).2
perceptions of those writing it. It is an obvious fact, Carnap says there, that
a subject can test a given sentence in the last instance only on the basis of its
own perceptions [Carnap 1932c, 227].8 The kernel of truth in “methodological
solipsism”, he says further, is “the fact that testing rests on the perceptions
of the tester” [Carnap 1932c, 227].9 These pronouncements would seem to
entail the view that in deciding whether a given protocol sentence is to be
included in the protocol one has to test it against one’s own experience.
Precisely this view is expressed in § 82 of Carnap’s book Logische Syntax
der Sprache, where one reads that it is the task of the “physicist making
observations” to decide which sentences are part of the protocol at any given
time [Carnap 1934, 244].10 The physicists determine the make-up of the
protocol: that was Carnap’s expressed view already in his response to Zilsel.
Two years later, in Syntax, he adds that physicists formulate their protocols
on the basis of their observations.
Carnap seems indeed never to have shared Neurath’s conviction that
the idea of comparing a sentence with a state of affairs is tantamount to
metaphysics. Carnap thought that his distinction between the formal and
material mode of speech justified the Neurathian standpoint concerning the
idea of comparing language and world. The problem with the material mode
of speech was, however, not that it as such was a metaphysical mode of speech,
but rather that it easily could lead to pseudo-problems and other confusions [cf.
Carnap 1931a, 456].11 In the material mode of speech a connection between
language and world is, however, presupposed, for in this mode one speaks
of non-linguistic objects and their properties. Hence, simply drawing the
distinction between the material and the formal mode of speech does not mean
that one thinks that the idea of comparing language and world is non-sensical.
That it is possible—and indeed necessary for anyone wishing to call
himself an empiricist—to speak of a comparison, or rather a confrontation, of
language and world is perhaps the main message of Carnap’s Paris contribution
“Wahrheit und Bewährung” [Carnap 1936d]. In this paper Carnap is as explicit
as one can be that for at least some sentences it makes sense to talk about
their direct confrontation with a world through observation. One does need a
notion of the confirmation of a sentence as its coherence with sentences already
taken to be sufficiently confirmed. But to hold that this is the only viable
Like sailors are we, who must rebuild their ship on the open sea. . .
[Neurath 1932, 206]
There is no dry land of protocol sentences for the ship to stand on during
a restoration of it. In “Über Protokollsätze” Carnap granted this point,
noting indeed that the belief in irrefutable protocol sentences was a remnant
of “absolutism”, of a kind with what Carnap calls the realist absolutism of
objects and the idealist and positivist absolutism of the given [Carnap 1932c,
228]. That the protocol may be revised was then explicitly assumed in the
account of the physical language in Syntax [Carnap 1934, § 82]: if a sentence
derivable from a set of physical laws contradicts a sentence of the protocol, then
not only the physical theory—including its logical fragment—may be revised,
but also the protocol [Carnap 1934, 245–246].14 Paired with the view that the
protocol rests on experience, the revisability of the protocol may be taken to
reflect the fallibility of experience; and it is certainly consistent to hold that
experience, understood as the totality of our knowledge of the natural world,
is fallible. The further course of one’s experience may speak against what one
previously took to be one’s experience and wrote down in the protocol. What
one thought one observed was in fact not what one observed. One’s experience
was deceptive, the protocol requires revision.
12. Cf. the similar remark of B. Russell: “This doctrine [sc. Neurath’s], it is evident,
is a complete abandonment of empiricism, of which the very essence is that only
experiences can determine the truth or falsehood of non-tautologous propositions”
[Russell 1940, 148].
13. Coffa [Coffa 1991, chap. 19] seems to presuppose otherwise, since he speaks of
the position that the protocol is cut off from experience as fallibilist.
14. It is here worth recalling that the author of Two Dogmas of Empiricism, while
visiting Prague in the winter of 1933, “read his [Carnap’s] Logische Syntax page by
page as it issued from Ina Carnap’s typewriter” [Quine 1976, 41].
Carnap’s Turn to the Thing Language 185
15. An explanation along these lines is offered by, e.g., [Coffa 1991, 370–374], [Carus
1999, 22–23], and [Uebel 2007, 335–340].
16. “Von der Definition für ‘wahr’ muß man nicht erwarten, daß sie uns ein
Bewährungskriterium liefert, wie wir es in erkenntnistheoretischen Überlegungen
suchen.”
17. “Eine nähere Untersuchung würde zeigen, daß es dabei nicht darauf ankommt,
ob man die physikalische Sprache auf die schon im Alltagsleben verwendeten
Ausdrücke beschränkt oder ob man die in der wissenschaftlichen Physik verwendeten
Ausdrücke mit hinzunimmt, da nämlich diese Ausdrücke auf jene reduziert werden
können.” See also the first sentence of [Carnap 1936b, 68].
186 Ansten Klev
entirely clear how to understand the relation between this purely quantitative
language and experience.18 Carnap’s description of the thing language, by
contrast, leaves no doubt that he takes its basic sentences to be confirmed or
disconfirmed through their direct confrontation with experience. And if the
thing language thus rests on experience, so will a language of unified science
built on the basis of the thing language also rest on experience.
As an initial characterization of the thing language Carnap calls it “the
language which we use in everyday life in speaking about the perceptible things
surrounding us” [Carnap 1936a, 466]. The two central formal characteristics
of the thing language are: it is a first-order language whose variables range
over space-time points; and its predicates are required to be what Carnap
calls observable. It is by virtue of this property of observability that the
atomic sentences of the thing language may be confronted with experience. A
predicate P is observable for a subject if for some arguments, among them, say,
a, the subject “is able under suitable circumstances to come to a decision with
the help of a few observations about a full sentence, P (a), i.e., to a confirmation
of either P (a) or ¬P (a)” [Carnap 1936a, 455]. Here it is important that only a
few observations are required. Simply by looking at the cover of a book in front
of me, I can determine that “blue” is true of a certain space-time point; and by
taking an ice cube in my hand I can determine that “cold” is true of a space-
time point. These are therefore observable predicates. By contrast, neither
“temperature” nor “weight” are observable predicates (or, functions), since
determining whether any of these holds of a given space-time point (or, what
their values are at a given point) requires measurement by an instrument, and
the use of instruments requires that we have made preliminary observations;
in particular, more than “a few” observations are necessary in order to
determine whether these predicates are true of a given space-time point.
That only a few observations should be necessary for judging whether an
observable predicate P is true of a space-time point a is in effect to say that one
should be able to confront the relevant sentence P (a) directly with experience;
thus Carnap glosses “observable” as “can be directly tested by perceptions”
[Carnap 1937, 9].
The programme (or at least one of the programmes) Carnap carries out in
“Testability and meaning” is to show that the language of unified science may
take the thing language as a basis. All predicates of the scientific language
may be introduced on the basis of the thing language through a series of
explicit definitions and so-called reduction sentences. The notion of reduction
sentence was first introduced by Carnap in one of his other Paris contributions,
“Über die Einheitssprache der Wissenschaft” [Carnap 1936b]. Together with
the thing language the notion of reduction sentence forms the main novelty
in Carnap’s account of unified science in “Testability and meaning”. Carnap
argues that not all concepts of science, in particular not dispositional concepts,
18. Cf. the discussion of the relation between the protocol language and the
language of physics in [Klev 2016, 60–63].
Carnap’s Turn to the Thing Language 187
∀x(Rx ⇐⇒ ϕ(x)),
19. More precisely, a sentence of this form is called a bilateral reduction sentence
for R [Carnap 1936a, 443]. The more general concept is that of a reduction pair for
R, which is a pair of sentences of the form
∀x(ψ1 (x) ⊃ (φ1 (x) ⊃ R(x))) ∀x(ψ2 (x) ⊃ (φ2 (x) ⊃ ¬R(x))).
20. More details on Carnap’s changing conceptions of the thesis of unified science
can be found in [Klev 2016].
188 Ansten Klev
21. See [Uebel 2007, chap. 8–9] for a detailed account of this stage of the protocol
sentence debate.
22. This latter term is used in [Carnap 1963, 869].
23. See [Richardson 1998, chap. 3] for a discussion of Carnap’s two accounts of
intersubjectivity.
24. “Wie aber ist ‘Einheitswissenschaft’ möglich? Damit die Sätze der Wissenschaft
intersubjektiv übertragbar sind, müssen als Grundbegriffe die physikalischen Begriffe
genommen werden. Alle andern Wissenschaftsbegriffe sind aus diesen ableitbar.”
Carnap’s Turn to the Thing Language 189
A solipsistic basis for the language of unified science was thus excluded; the
basis had to be intersubjectively accessible. As may be inferred from the
quoted passage Carnap appears first to have held that only the physical
language is intersubjective. In “Universalsprache” Carnap in fact asserted
that “besides the physical language (and its sublanguages), no intersubjective
language is known” [Carnap 1931a, 448]. By the time of “Testability
and meaning”, however, Carnap holds that also the thing language—a
qualitative language in contrast to the purely quantitative physical language—
is intersubjective [Carnap 1937, 12].25 That a language of unified science built
on the thing language will itself be intersubjective seems clear enough.
In Carnap’s new account of unified science, the thing language plays the
role of a protocol language. The thing language is the ultimate arbiter in
questions of confirmation and meaningfulness. Indeed, what may be the
earliest attestation of the thing language in Carnap’s writings occurs in a
list he gives of the various forms that the protocol language can take.26 In the
material mode of speech the protocol language is said to speak about the given,
or the immediate contents of experience. Different forms of protocol language
will therefore result from different answers to the question of what should be
regarded as the given. Carnap provides three answers to this question, to each
of which there therefore corresponds a protocol language. The first answer is
the answer of Machian positivism, according to which sense data constitute
the given; the second answer is the answer of the Aufbau, according to which
elementary experiences constitute the given; according to the third answer
ordinary things as such constitute the given. The thing language should, to my
mind, be regarded as the protocol language corresponding to this conception of
the given as ordinary things as such. The thing language is, after all, precisely
a language that speaks about the ordinary things we perceive around us.
As an intersubjective language the thing language differs from the protocol
language that Carnap had assumed in his earlier work. In “Universalsprache”
and “Psychologie” the protocol language assumed corresponds to the second
answer above, namely to the conception of the given as elementary experiences.
This protocol language is therefore of a kind with the language of the Aufbau,
whose first-order variables ranged over elementary experiences. Since the
protocol was to serve “as the basis for the entire construction of science”
[Carnap 1931a, 461], a certain solipsistic element thus remained in Carnap’s
conception of unified science also after his turn to physicalism. Carnap
himself must have been aware of this, for he suggests calling the conception
of the scientific language as based on the protocol language “methodological
solipsism” [Carnap 1931a, 461].
25. Cf. [Carnap 1963, 869]: “It is an essential characteristic of the phenomenal
language that it is an absolutely private language which can only be used for soliloquy,
but not for common communication between two persons. In contrast, the reistic [i.e.,
the thing-] and the physical languages are intersubjective.”
26. See [Carnap 1931b, 222–223], and, in more detail, [Carnap 1931a, 439].
190 Ansten Klev
It seems clear that physical concept formation along these lines can be
phrased in terms of reduction sentences. For instance, the relation ∼ for
length above may be introduced by
where P (x, y) is read “the designated edges of x are in contact with y” and
Q(x, y) is read “the designated edges of x and y coincide”. It is reasonable
to assume the relations P and Q to be observable, or else explicitly definable
from observable predicates; assuming this, it follows that the relation ∼ can be
reduced to observable predicates. The relation < may be introduced likewise,
and the definition of µ should not present further difficulties. For instance,
where a is the standard meter, we set
The relation z = x ⊕ y (which one may read as “this thing z is the body
got by ‘gluing’ together x and y”) is observable, or explicitly definable from
observable predicates, whence we may further specify
Thus utilizing Carnap’s model of physical concept formation we can see how,
through explicit definitions and reduction sentences, the quantitative concepts
of physics can be arrived at from the thing language.30
It was noted above that the thing language, once Carnap adopts it, plays
the role of a protocol language. When the language of unified science is thought
of as built up from the thing language, the protocol language thus becomes
part and parcel of the language of unified science. In “Universalsprache” and
Syntax the relation between the protocol language and the physical language
is quite differently conceived. The physical language is there not thought of
as emanating from the protocol language; rather, the physical language and
the protocol language are two separate languages, and the relation between
them is established by translation: the protocol language can be translated
into the physical language, and vice versa.31 By virtue of such a translation
the physical language gains whatever meaning it has and, moreover, becomes
an intersubjective language.
30. Hempel [Hempel 1952, 31–32] claims that no quantitative terms can be
introduced through reduction sentences from observation terms; but the above
considerations would seem to show that quantitative concepts arrived at according
to Carnap’s model can also be introduced through reduction sentences.
31. In Syntax, Carnap speaks as if the protocol language were a part of the physical
language [Carnap 1934, § 82]. It is, however, difficult to reconcile such talk with how
the physical language is described in [Carnap 1934, §§ 40, 82], namely as a purely
quantitative language, built up from functions and predicates over real numbers. The
protocol language, by contrast, contains qualitative predicates; it speaks, for instance,
of colours, heat, heaviness and lightness. In the purely quantitative physical language
there is no room for such predicates.
194 Ansten Klev
5 Concluding remarks
Carnap appears to have come to doubt shortly after the publication of
“Testability and meaning”, whether in fact the whole of physics can be built
on the slender basis of the thing language by means of explicit definitions
and reduction sentences. In Foundations of Logic and Mathematics [Carnap
1939, § 24] this conception of the physical language is juxtaposed with another
conception, closer to that found in Syntax. According to this other conception
the terms of the physical language are not to be derived from the thing
language through definition and reduction. Rather, the fundamental terms
of physics are to be introduced as primitive and uninterpreted terms, in
the manner in which Hilbert introduced the fundamental terms of geometry
[Hilbert 1899]. By means of chains of explicit definitions terms intuitively
signifying more specific concepts are reached from these primitive terms.
These chains of definitions eventually issue in terms that can be interpreted
by means of observable phenomena. Through the interpretation of these
more specific terms, all terms involved in the relevant chains of definition are
thought to acquire meaning. The meaningfulness or otherwise of the—initially
uninterpreted—terms of physics is thus to be gauged by their impact on a
language describing observable phenomena, in effect the protocol language,
which Carnap now calls the observation language. Hempel [Hempel 1950]
noted that only this second conception of the physical language could find a
place for abstract physical concepts such as electric field and wave-function.
Carnap reached a similar conclusion and spells out his new conception of
the physical language in his later article, “The methodological character of
theoretical concepts” [Carnap 1956].
The details of this new account of the language of physics and the question
of how this account relates to those found in Syntax and “Testability and
meaning” will not concern us here. In closing this paper I wish only to
emphasize that the thing language continues to play the role of the protocol
language in Carnap’s account. Carnap does not in describing his new
conception use the term “thing language”,33 but the primitive predicates of
the protocol language—which, again, he now calls the observation language—
designate “observable properties of events of things (e.g., ‘blue’, ‘hot’, ‘large’,
etc.) or observable relations between them (e.g., ‘x is warmer than y’, ‘x is
contiguous to y’, etc.)”; and its first-order variables range over “observable
events (including thing-moments)” [Carnap 1956, 40–41]. This protocol
language is therefore the thing language, rather than the solipsistic language
assumed in “Universalsprache” and Syntax. What has changed in Carnap’s
33. The term is used in [Carnap 1950], and in [Carnap 1963, 868–871]. In these
places the context is different, namely a discussion of ontology, but the meaning of
the term is the same; e.g., in the latter place the thing language (there also called the
reistic language) is said to “describe intersubjectively observable, spatio-temporally
localized things or events”.
196 Ansten Klev
conception of the language of science is thus not his view of the make-up of
the protocol language—the protocol language is, as before, the thing language;
what has changed is rather his view of the relation between the protocol
language and the physical language. Carnap’s turn to the thing language
around the time of the Paris Congress was thus a definitive turn, a turn he
would not later renounce.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Michel Bourdeau for inviting me to the very pleasant Cerisy
conference. For comments on, and discussion of, earlier drafts of the paper
I am indebted to Olga Andreeva, Michel Bourdeau, and Zoe McConaughey.
Bibliography
Carnap, Rudolf [1926], Physikalische Begriffsbildung, Karlsruhe: G. Braun.
Carus, A. W. [1999], Carnap, syntax, and truth, in: Truth and Its Nature (if
Any), edited by J. Peregrin, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 15–35, doi:
10.1007/978-94-015-9233-8_2.
Coffa, Alberto [1991], The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap. To the
Vienna Station, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quine, Willard Van Orman [1976], The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2nd edn.
Uebel, Thomas [2007], Empiricism at the Crossroads, New York: Open Court.
Jan Woleński
University of Information, Technology
and Management, Rzezsow (Poland)
Résumé : Les débats qui ont eu lieu, lors du Congrès de philosophie scien-
tifique de 1935, sur la sémantique et sa portée philosophique présentent un
grand intérêt historique pour deux raisons. Tout d’abord, on s’accorde à y
reconnaître un des évènements majeurs du congrès. En second lieu, et de
façon plus substantielle, ils ont joué un rôle décisif dans le développement
de la sémantique comme discipline philosophique. C’est Carnap qui en a pris
l’initiative en invitant Tarski à donner deux conférences. Ce sont eux qui, avec
Kokoszyńska, deviendront les porte-parole de la sémantique. Neurath, qui a
préparé le résumé de la discussion, avait plusieurs objections contre la séman-
tique à la Tarski. En particulier, il craignait que la sémantique n’introduise la
métaphysique (au sens que les Viennois donnaient au mot) dans la philosophie.
La suite a montré que les partisans de la sémantique ont gagné.
citing any exact reference) that Peirce used the word “semantic” in his
studies on modes of denotation of expressions [see Quine 1990, 68]. For
Bréal, semantics constituted a branch of general linguistics that studied
changes in the lexical meaning of words, whereas Peirce was more interested
in philosophical aspects of the study of semantics in relation to meaning
and reference—an issue that would be sharpened by Frege when he put
forward his famous distinction between Sinn [sense, meaning] and Bedeutung
[reference, denotation, nominatum]. However, German linguists as well as
many German-speaking philosophers continue to use the second word as
synonymous with meaning.
Frege’s distinction brought about a duality in the understanding of
semantics since, on one account, this field comprises the study of meaning
sensu largo—that is, including referential uses of expressions—whereas another
approach tends to restrict semantics to dealing with reference only. This
difference was summarized by Quine in the following terms:
[T]he problems of what is loosely called semantics become sep-
arated into two provinces so fundamentally distinct as to not
deserve a joint application at all. They may be called the theory
of meaning and the theory of reference. “Semantics” would be a
good name for the theory of meaning, were it not for the fact that
some of the best works in so-called semantics, notably Tarski’s,
belong to the theory of reference. The main concepts in the
theory of meaning, apart from meaning itself, are synonymy [the
sameness of meaning], significance [or possession of meaning], and
analyticity [or truth by virtue of meaning]. Another is entailment,
or analyticity of the conditional. The main concepts in the theory
of reference are naming, truth, denotation (or truth-of), and
extension. Another is the notion of values of variables. [Quine
1953, 130]
Incidentally, the above passage confirms my earlier remark that not everything
in semantics goes back to Königsberg. Tarski himself anticipated Quine’s
characterization. He wrote:
The word “semantics” is used here in a narrower sense than usual.
We shall understand by semantics the totality of considerations
concerning those concepts which, roughly speaking, express some
connections between the expressions of a language and the objects
and states of affairs referred to by these expressions. As typical
examples of semantic concepts we can mention the concepts of
denotation, satisfaction and definition [...]. The concept of truth—
and this is not commonly recognized—is to be included here, at
least in classical interpretation, according to which “true” signifies
the same as “corresponding with reality”. [Tarski 1936a, 401, page
reference to English translation; this paper is based on Tarski’s
lecture delivered at the Paris Congress]
202 Jan Woleński
However, it should be noted that, for Tarski, there was not a complete
separation of meaning and reference, even in formalized languages. He always
emphasized that semantic concepts (in the sense outlined in the above quoted
passage) reside in definite interpretations given in a suitable metalanguage.
Although Tarski never attempted to define what meaning is, he assumed that
the expressions of languages investigated in logical semantics always had a clear
and intuitive meaning. I used the adjective “logical” in the last sentence quite
consciously: in fact, semantics as taught in Poland was (and still is) counted
as a branch of logic sensu largo (alongside formal logic and the methodology
of sciences), and covers issues of meaning as well as reference. On this view,
there is no compelling reason to exclude the theory of meaning from logical
semantics. Clearly, problems concerning meaning as a semantic category are
much more difficult than questions pertaining to reference, but they are part
of a separate agenda.
Still, two preliminary remarks are in order here, concerning the label
“the linguistic turn” and the concept of meaning. Roughly speaking, this
appellation refers to metaphilosophical views in which language is considered
to be the sole or at least the main object of the philosophical enterprise.
This was the leading idea of the Vienna Circle and of ordinary language
philosophy. But how is the linguistic turn related to the semantic tradition?
The answer is that every instance of the former belongs to the latter, but the
reverse is not the case. For instance, Bolzano (semantics mediates between
us and meanings an sich), Frege (semantics links senses with references),
Russell (semantics corrects commonsense grammar), Kotarbiński (semantics
is a mirror of ontology), Ajdukiewicz (semantics is a key for epistemology),
and Quine (semantics exhibits ontology) belong to the semantic tradition,
but a purely linguistic interpretation of their philosophy would be a serious
oversimplification. There are also more controversial cases. Early Wittgenstein
provides perhaps the most important example of interpretative difficulties
related to the place of language as the object of philosophizing. Although
he said that every philosophy is a critique of language (leaving aside the
qualification “not in Mauthner’s sense”), his Tractatus is frequently regarded
as a treatise on ontology. Clearly, the linguistic turn in philosophy consists in
the analysis of the meaning of expressions.
Since I mentioned ordinary language philosophy, the question arises of
how meaning is understood in this school. Let us agree that meaning is
manifested in the ways in which words and complexes of words are used.
An important contribution of ordinary language philosophers was to point
out that formal logic has almost nothing to do with the meanings of those
linguistic items relevant for doing philosophy. Even if we were to speak of
the logic of ordinary language, it would be something different from logic in
Frege’s or Russell’s sense. This position results in lending further ambiguity to
the word “semantics,” because in addition to the duality of sense and reference
pointed out by Quine, semantics can also be treated as the study of meaning
as use. My remarks from this point on, however, concern semantics as related
The Semantics Controversy at the 1935 Paris Congress 203
to formal logic. This means that the tradition of semantics associated with
ordinary language philosophy will be entirely neglected.
To pick up again from my earlier remarks, many thinkers of the past, from
Plato onward, have recognized the significance of language for philosophy;
but the typical view was that the analysis of words and expressions was a
preparatory work for philosophy. The semantic tradition (in Coffa’s sense)
would gradually alter this position. Perhaps the following words of Russell’s
may be regarded as characteristic of the new attitude:
The study of grammar in my opinion is capable of throwing far
more light on philosophical questions than is commonly supposed
by philosophers. [Russell 1903, 42]
By “grammar” Russell understood what is nowadays regarded as philosophical
and/or logical semantics. Russell’s view became classic in analytic philosophy
(see [Coffa 1991] for further historical information; Beaney provides the most
extensive history of the analytic movement and of what Coffa called the
semantic tradition [Beaney 2013]). Let me just mention here that a Russellian
view was accepted by Polish analytic philosophy (the Lvov-Warsaw School,
established by Twardowski at the end of the nineteenth century), in particular
by Ajdukiewicz, Kotarbiński, Leśniewski, and Łukasiewicz. Tarski, therefore,
as a member of this school (Kotarbiński, Leśniewski and Łukasiewicz were his
teachers), developed within a decidedly pro-semantic environment.
Philosophers belonging to the Vienna Circle and related communities,
particularly the Berlin group (“logical empiricism” and “logical positivism”
are non-geographical denominations) occupied a distinguished position among
friends of semantics (sensu largo) in philosophy. Leaving aside a number
of details and potential matters of interpretation, they were influenced by
traditional positivism with its strong anti-metaphysical attitude, Frege’s and
Russell’s logical theories, Wittgenstein’s dicta that, firstly, philosophy consists
in the analysis of language and, and that, secondly, it is meaningless as such,
and Hilbert’s formalism, which considered mathematics as a formalized game
of symbols. Logical empiricism in the 1920s (more of a prehistory of this
movement in fact, at least up until 1929 when its famous manifesto was
published) and the early 1930s had a conception of truly scientific philosophy
as a logical syntax of language combined with physicalism as the general theory
of reality. Schlick, Neurath, and Carnap had fundamental reservations about
semantics both as the theory of meaning (since sense cannot be accounted
for in physicalist terms) and as the theory of reference (since we cannot
compare language and reality without falling into metaphysical speculation;
the same verdict as was passed against the correspondence account of truth).
Consequently, according to early logical positivism (up to the mid-1930s),
semantics, apart from syntax, had to be rejected since it inevitably leads
to meaningless pseudo-problems. According to this view, syntax is fairly
exceptional, because it deals with expressions understood as concrete shapes,
and is therefore tolerated by physicalism.
204 Jan Woleński
The fear of semantic paradoxes such as the Liar antinomy was another rea-
son for the reluctant attitude toward semantics and its applications in formal
logic. Even though logicians (such as Hilbert or Gödel) employed semantic
concepts including satisfaction, truth, or model, they did so informally, using
them as heuristic devices (they were, for instance, very important in Gödel’s
discovery of the incompleteness of arithmetic), and insisted that informal
semantic considerations should be replaced by purely syntactic ones. Perhaps
the claim that the concept of proof might replace the notion of truth provides
a good illustration of how differently semantics and syntax were valued. As
Church noted in his introductory textbook to mathematical logic:
In concluding this Introduction let us observe that much of what
we have been saying has been concerned with the relation between
linguistic expressions and their meaning, and therefore belongs to
semantics. [...] From time to time in the following chapters we
shall interrupt the rigorous treatment of a logistic system in order
to make an informal semantical aside. [Church 1956, 67]
These words may even seem somewhat shocking if we take into account their
date (about thirty years after logicians and philosophers converted to the
semantic faith).
The 1935 Paris Congress was to become a very important event in changing
the above-described reluctant attitude to semantics, at least in the case of
most logical empiricists. However, the path toward this change began a few
years earlier, namely when Tarski visited Vienna in 1930 and Carnap came to
Warsaw in the same year. According to Carnap’s recollections:
Even before the publication of Tarski’s article [on truth—J.W.]
I had realized, chiefly in conversations with Tarski and Gödel,
that there must be a mode, different from the syntactical one, in
which to speak about language. Since it is obviously admissible
to speak about facts, and, on the other hand, notwithstanding
Wittgenstein, about expressions of a language, it cannot be
inadmissible to do both in the same language [...]. In the
metalanguage of semantics, it is possible to make statements
about the relation of designation and about truth. [...]. When
Tarski told me for the first time that he had constructed a
definition of truth, I assumed that he had in mind a syntactical
definition of logical truth or provability. I was surprised when
he said that he meant truth in the customary sense, including
contingent factual truth. [Carnap 1963, 60]
It should be observed, however, that Tarski succeeded in the formal con-
struction of a truth-definition, whereas Gödel’s remarks were a matter of an
“informal aside” made in order to use Church’s narrative. Yet it became
evident to Carnap that semantic ideas, albeit informal, were behind Gödel’s
celebrated incompleteness results.
The Semantics Controversy at the 1935 Paris Congress 205
Owing to Tarski’s contact with the Vienna Circle and other Viennese
philosophers (see [Coffa 1991, 280–282]; [Burdman-Feferman & Feferman
2004, 94–108]), his semantic ideas, and more specifically his theory of truth,
became more and more positively and even enthusiastically welcomed, not
only by Carnap but also by Popper. A German translation of [Tarski 1933]
appeared in 1936 [Tarski 1936a]. Preparations for the translation of this
important work began in 1934 [see Woleński s.d., for details]. Since Carnap
and Popper acted as consultants for the final text, they knew the details of
Tarski’s constructions. Moreover, Tarski visited Vienna in the years 1933–
1935 and informed his Viennese colleagues (whom he also met in Prague
in 1934) of his ideas and his results. Although they were not accessible to
Western readers in written form, and were available only in Polish, their
circulation was sufficient to boost interest in semantics. Carnap himself
became more and more convinced that semantics in the narrow sense presented
something of considerable philosophical interest. In particular, he maintained
that semantics could help in elaborating a more liberal version of logical
empiricism, to replace the original position which Carnap considered too
radical a philosophy, for instance, to cope with difficulties with the problem of
testability (neither verifiability nor falsifiability fulfilled the required criteria
for empirical conformability).
With preparations for the 1935 Paris Congress reaching their final stages,
Carnap proposed that Tarski deliver a talk about semantics:
Tarski agreed to Carnap’s proposal and delivered two talks, one dedicated
to general semantic issues [Tarski 1936a], the other on the concept of logical
consequence [Tarski 1936b]. One point in Tarski’s presentation of semantics
in his first talk deserves special attention. His discussions with Carnap prior
to the Paris Congress must certainly have touched on the problem of how
anticipated objections from the proponents of physicalism could be answered.
Tarski distinguished two ways in which to introduce the concept of truth:
axiomatically, and by definition. He remarked that, although the former is
possible, the latter is better from the physicalist point of view.
Carnap continues his recollections as follows:
206 Jan Woleński
justified from the point of view of scientific practice. Neurath himself opposed
this view and defended radical physicalism as the proper linguistic environment
for science. Neurath’s more extensive remarks concern the semantic concept
of truth defended by Tarski and Kokoszyńska. Their papers were discussed by
several commentators (I list them in the order that they appear in [Neurath
1935]): Grelling asked for the solution of the logical paradoxes, Ajdukiewicz
and Carnap remarked on the concept of meaning involved in the definition of
truth, Ayer defended the so-called redundancy concept of truth and argued
that it suffices for science, Bernays stressed the importance of metalanguage
and metalogic (a point also touched on by Carnap), Popper and Chevalley
hoped that semantics would not produce a bad metaphysics, Neurath and
Hempel contrasted the semantic definition of truth with the coherence theory
of truth, and both defended the latter by recalling Schlick’s argument that
we cannot compare sentences with reality. In his reply, Tarski distinguished
several issues, logical and philosophical, concerning semantics, and pointed out
that the problem of its relation to physicalism is only one among many. The
discussion was summarized by Rougier, who pointed out that the extremely
formal approach to language characteristic of the Vienna Circle would have to
change owing to the influence of semantics.
The debate at the Congress suggests that Carnap’s appraisal of the event
should be somewhat tempered. The discussion was rich and many-sided.
Although Neurath was an opponent, he said that most voices agreed with
the defenders of semantics. I quote the original text:
Die Darstellungen TARSKIS und LUTMAN-KOKOSZYŃSKA
fanden in grossem Ausmass Zustimmung. [Neurath 1981, 666]
Ayer, who also was very skeptical about the significance of the semantic
definition of truth in science, wrote, many years later, that Tarski’s paper
(he had in mind [Tarski 1935]) was the highlight of the Congress [see Ayer
1977, 118].
Ayer’s evaluation agrees with that of Zawirski, who observed:
It was found on the next day, that the culmination of the Congress
was not the lectures on many-valued logic and probability, but the
papers dealing with semantics, among which the most outstanding
was the paper by Tarski, which was generally admitted to be the
most important event of the Congress. It dealt with the idea of
truth as the fundamental idea of semantics. To the lecture of
Tarski was linked the directly following lecture of Mrs. Lutman-
Kokoszyńska who told the Vienna Circle what Tarski failed to add.
[Zawirski 1935, 106–109; page reference to English translation]
There are several other sources that document the controversy over semantics
and the semantic definition of truth, with Tarski, Carnap, and Neurath as the
principal dramatis personae. The Neurath Archives in Haarlem and Konstanz
hold (inter alia) the correspondence between Neurath and Carnap, Neurath
208 Jan Woleński
Bibliography
Ayer, Alfred Jules [1977], A Part of My Life, London: Collins.
Beaney, Michael (ed.) [2013], The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic
Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carnap, Rudolf [1936], Wahrheit und Bewährung, in: Actes du Congrès inter-
national de philosophie scientifique, Paris: Hermann, Actualités scientifiques
et industrielles, 391, vol. IV: Induction et probabilité, 18–23, cited after
English expanded version [Carnap 1949, 119–127].
Coffa, Alberto [1991], The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap. To the
Vienna Station, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beiträge zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Wiener Kreises, edited by H.-J.
Dahms, Berlin; New-York: de Gruyter, 276–290.
Quine, Willard Van Orman [1953], Notes on the theory of reference, in: From
a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 130–
138.
—— [1990], Lectures on Carnap, in: Dear Carnap, Dear Van. The Quine-
Carnap Correspondence and Related Work, edited by R. Creath, Berkeley;
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 47–103.
211
—— [1936b], Über den Begriff der logischen Folgerung, in: Actes du Congrès
international de philosophie scientifique, Paris: Hermann, Actualités scien-
tifiques et industrielles, 394, vol. VII: Logique, 1–8.
Abstract: The First International Congress for the Unity of Science (Congrès
international de philosophie scientifique) held in Paris in 1935 hosted two
sessions devoted to “Induction” and “Probability” respectively. Outstanding
representatives of the movement for scientific philosophy read papers in
those sessions: the one on Induction hosted papers by Hans Reichenbach,
Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap, while the one on Probability hosted
papers by Reichenbach, Bruno de Finetti, Zygmunt Zawirski, Schlick, and
Janina Hosiasson—in that order. The topics addressed concern the nature
of scientific laws, the problem of meaning, and the principle of empiricism,
together with the related issue of confirmation of scientific hypotheses. The
nature of probability was also addressed, covering all major interpretations,
namely logicism, frequentism, and subjectivism. The possibility of building a
probability logic was also explored. In this paper, the contributions delivered
at the sessions on Induction and Probability are surveyed, based on the version
published in the fourth volume of the proceedings.
2 Schlick’s contributions
that “the validity of a convention is of our own making” [Schlick 1936a, 438].
He then clarifies that the question whether laws are conventions concerns
natural laws, not the laws we encounter in logic and mathematics:
For in logic and mathematics the symbols have precisely the mean-
ing which is bestowed upon them by what is expressly written
down or formulated in some other fashion. Mathematics and logic
do not point beyond themselves; they do not transcend their own
realm of symbols; here there is no fundamental difference between
theorem and definition. [Schlick 1936a, 441]
The difference between logic and mathematics on the one hand and the
empirical sciences on the other rests on the distinction between sentence [Satz]
and proposition [Aussage], which plays a key role within Schlick’s conception
of a natural law. In Schlick’s words: “we shall mean by ‘sentence’ a sequence
of linguistic signs with the help of which something can be asserted” [Schlick
1936a, 441]; by contrast, “we shall mean by a ‘proposition’ such a sentence
together with its meaning” where the “meaning” of a sentence is “the set
of rules which are stipulated for the actual application of the sentence, that
is, for the practical use of the sentence in the representation of facts. In
short, a ‘proposition’ is a ‘sentence’ insofar as it actually fulfils the function of
communication” [Schlick 1936a, 441–442].
Having drawn this distinction and made clear the difference between the
laws belonging to the formal sciences and those occurring in the empirical
sciences, Schlick examines in some detail two examples, the “energy principle”
and Galileo’s “law of inertia”, arguing that they cannot be regarded as either
definitions or sentences. On the one hand, they are not definitions because only
facts can confirm or refute them; on the other, they are not sentences because
their applicability to facts requires some meaning to be attached to them. The
equations of physics, like the axioms of geometry, are “mere sentences”: “each
by itself is subject to arbitrary changes in formulation” [Schlick 1936a, 443].
By contrast
[...] the proper content of a natural law may be seen in the
fact that to certain grammatical rules (for instance, a geometry)
some quite definite propositions correspond as true descriptions
of reality. And this fact is completely invariant with respect to
any arbitrary changes in notation. [Schlick 1936a, 443]
In conclusion, the meaning of scientific laws is given by the rules that state
how they are to be used to describe facts, but while such rules are conventions,
natural laws are not.
As Schlick emphasized,
[...] all genuine propositions, as for instance natural laws, are
something objective, something invariant with respect to the
manner of representation, and not dependent in any way upon
216 Maria Carla Galavotti
This claim goes hand in hand with the conviction, put forward at the end of
the paper, that “in science, as in knowledge generally, we search for nothing
but the truth” [Schlick 1936a, 444]. Since only propositions, not sentences,
can be true or false, natural laws, being propositions, can fulfil the ultimate
goal of science.
To sum up, Schlick’s rebuttal of conventionalism is grounded in the claim
that at the core of scientific knowledge, there exists a set of propositions that
are not chosen at will, but have an objective character deriving from the fact
that they are supported by experience.
[...] the two methods do not differ in principle. For in the last
resort all our general statements about reality go back to the
fact that we often or always observed certain sequences. [Schlick
1936b, 453]
After having observed frequencies in the past, we take them as an indication
of the fact that the hypothesis we formulated stands with the possibilities
open to it in the same ratio as that given by observed frequencies. On this
ground, Schlick claims that the logical definition suggested by Bolzano and
the definition in terms of frequencies can be brought together. However, it
is worth noting that when making such claim, Schlick does not have in mind
the frequency approach developed by Richard von Mises and Reichenbach,
but merely the idea that information about frequencies guides the assessment
of probabilities in the way described above. In his article “Causality in con-
temporary physics”, Schlick explicitly rejects von Mises’s and Reichenbach’s
frequency interpretation, on account of the fact that according to such an
interpretation, “it would everywhere be necessary to proceed to the limit for
infinitely many cases—which for empiricism is naturally a senseless statement”
[Schlick 1931, 201]. In the same article, Schlick adds that “The only usable
method for defining probabilities is, in fact, that which utilizes logical ranges
(Bolzano, von Kries, Wittgenstein, Waismann)” [Schlick 1931, 201].
Schlick is no less critical of the subjective view of probability, and his Paris
paper maintains that:
probability statements have a perfectly objective meaning, and
are not, say, an expression of subjective states of expectations.
They say something about the relation of two or more propositions
to one another in respect of their truth; they have no concern
with whether or not we believe in the truth of those propositions.
[Schlick 1936b, 454]
Schlick rejects the idea that the probability calculus can be conceived as a
generalized logic, extensively discussed during the Paris Congress. Probability,
he claims, is not
[...] a mean between truth and falsity. Every statement is either
true or false [...] and probability is something that attaches to
the statement beyond this, namely in relation to other statements.
Truth and falsity are not the upper and lower limits of probability,
for if they were so, it would have to be a contradiction to
attribute truth and probability simultaneously to one and the
same proposition. [Schlick 1936b, 454–455].
The conclusion reached at the end of the paper is that the two questions
posed in the beginning boil down to one and the same, because the first can
be reduced to the second. To substantiate this claim, Schlick compares the
notion of probability with the basic concepts of geometry, holding that there
218 Maria Carla Galavotti
is a strong analogy between them, for “in both cases it is a matter of setting
up such definitions as enable us to arrive at maximally convenient descriptions
and prognoses of facts” [Schlick 1936b, 455]. It should not pass unnoticed that
the last claim provides a connection between the two papers delivered in the
Paris Congress sessions on Induction and Probability.
the 1949 paper claims disagreement with Felix Kaufmann, Otto Neurath and
Reichenbach, who
[...] are of the opinion that the semantical concept of truth, at
least in its application to synthetic sentences concerning physical
things, ought to be abandoned because it can never be decided
with absolute certainty for any given sentence whether it is true
or not. I agree [so the passage continues] that it can never be
decided. But is the inference valid which leads from this result to
the conclusion that the concept of truth is inadmissible? [Carnap
1936b, 122–123]
In order to allow for a negative answer to this question, a liberalized version
of the principle of empiricism had to be adopted. In “Truth and confirmation”
such a weaker principle of empiricism P* is stated as follows:
A term (predicate) is a legitimate scientific term (has cognitive
content, is empirically meaningful) if and only if a sentence
applying the term to a given instance can possibly be confirmed
to at least some degree. [Carnap 1936b, 123]
Carnap points out that “possibly” should be taken to mean “if certain
specifiable observations occur”, and “to some degree” should not be “meant
as necessarily implying a numerical evaluation”. He also clarifies that
P* is a simplified formulation of the “requirement of confirmabil-
ity” [reference in footnote to “Testability and meaning”] which,
I think, is essentially in agreement with Reichenbach’s “first
principle of the probabilistic theory of meaning” [reference in
footnote to “Experience and Prediction”], both being liberalized
versions of the older requirement of verifiability as stated by
C. S. Peirce, Wittgenstein, and others. [Carnap 1936b, 123]
The agreement with Reichenbach pronounced in the above-mentioned
passage sounds puzzling because Carnap and Reichenbach had quite different
ways of dealing with the theory of meaning. If there is agreement, it does
not go beyond the conviction they both shared that the strict principle of
empiricism should be abandoned in favour of a liberalized principle. On the
one hand, Carnap was one of the chief proponents of the principle of strict
empiricism, but did not hesitate to revise it as soon as he became aware of its
difficulties. A comparison between the paper published in the proceedings and
its revised 1949 version gives evidence of this shift, which presumably started
soon after the Paris Congress.
On the other hand, Reichenbach—who had been working on probability
in connection with the interpretation of contemporary science since the mid-
twenties—was always critical of verifiability and soon urged the need to go
beyond it. He emphasized the close ties between the significance of scientific
statements and their predictive character, which is a condition for their
220 Maria Carla Galavotti
blind posits and goes on to formulate appraised posits that become part of a
complex system.2
The self-corrective character of the procedure provides the grounds for
its justification, and more generally for the justification of induction. The
argument put forward by Reichenbach focusses on the rule of induction, which
is the building block of his method of concatenated inductions. Starting
from the tenet that induction cannot be justified on logical grounds, as
convincingly argued by David Hume, Reichenbach seeks a justification on
pragmatical grounds, and argues that inductive inference, and more in
particular the rule of induction, can be justified on the basis of its predictive
success, which makes it the best possible guide to the future. This is so
precisely because of its self-corrective character. The argument is stated in
The Theory of Probability as follows:
2. For more on Reichenbach’s inductivism see [Galavotti 2011], see also [Glymour
& Eberhardt 2016].
3. Chapter 10 of Reichenbach’s The Theory of Probability spells out the topic in
some detail [Reichenbach 1949, chap. 10].
The Sessions on Induction and Probability 223
5 About Hosiasson
The paper delivered by Hosiasson during the Paris Congress, bearing the title
“La théorie des probabilités est-elle une logique généralisée? Analyse critique”
[Hosiasson 1936], is entirely devoted to a criticism of Reichenbach’s probability
logic, her main thesis being that the theory of probability cannot be considered
a generalization of the logic of statements, whatever meaning is assigned to
the notion of “generalization”. Hosiasson’s paper also moves some objections
against Zygmunt Zawirski, who in an article published in 1934 (in Polish) had
also made an attempt to treat probability as many-valued logic. Zawirski took
part in the Paris Congress delivering a paper titled “Les rapports de la logique
polyvalente avec le calcul des probabilités” [Zawirski 1936], which contains a
revision of his earlier position, partly provoked by some objections moved by
Hosiasson in former debate. Attempts to build probability logic conceived as
a generalization of two-valued logic were in tune with the spirit of the time,
imbued with a deep trust in the power of logic and axiomatization, and received
great impulse from the work of Jan Łukasiewicz, Hugh MacColl and others.
However, the programme of dealing with probability within the framework of
many-valued logic did not last long, and the attempts in that direction made
by authors like Reichenbach and Zawirski did not impact much on subsequent
literature. For this reason, and given the technical character of the topic, it
will not be examined in depth herein.
Instead, it does not seem out of place to mention that Janina Hosiasson
was an original thinker, unduly overlooked by subsequent literature. A
representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School active before the Second World
4. On the different interpretations of probability see [Galavotti 2005].
224 Maria Carla Galavotti
This is a remarkable claim, bringing evidence that Hosiasson was among the
first to embrace a subjective view of probability.
Hosiasson’s conception of knowledge also bears strong resemblance to that
upheld by Ramsey. According to her definition, knowledge is “an aggregate of
opinions justified, actual and connected—in an adequate degree” [Hosiasson
1948, 253]. The similarity with Ramsey’s view of knowledge as “obtained by
a reliable process” is striking [see Ramsey 1990, 110–111, note “Knowledge”
(1927)]. Moreover, like Ramsey, Hosiasson regarded knowledge as belief of a
special sort, not just entertained by individuals, but apt to be shared by the
11. This result, already found by de Finetti in 1928, is spelled out in some detail
in [de Finetti 1937].
228 Maria Carla Galavotti
with a very large number of negative observed results. For instance, a very
long sequence of throws of a coin where the frequency of tails tends to ½ as the
number of trials increases, is compatible with the fact that the first 10,000 trials
give tails, but in such a case no experimenter would assign probability 12
to heads/tails. For de Finetti probability is about single events rather than
indefinitely long sequences of repeatable events, and their evaluation is more
complex than envisaged by frequentists, as it depends on myriad ingredients,
partly empirical and partly subjective.
7 Concluding remarks
On the whole, the papers delivered during the two sessions on Induction
and Probability at the Paris Congress testify to the richness of the debate
held during the meeting. A major focus of attention at that stage of
the development of scientific philosophy was the confirmation of scientific
hypotheses, together with the related issue of the principle of empiricism. In
that connection, Schlick and Carnap’s papers were in line with the mainstream
attitude embraced by logical empiricists. However, soon after the Paris
Congress Carnap’s thought underwent major changes, and one can speculate
that the Paris debate fostered such a shift.
Given the logical empiricists’ deep trust in the clarifying power of logic,
which made them regard it as the ideal tool for the realization of the unity of
science and the construction of scientific philosophy, it is not surprising that
at the time of the Paris Congress, so much effort was devoted to the project of
building a logic of probability. As observed earlier, subsequent developments
have shown such a project was short-lived, so that in retrospect the critical
remarks raised by Hosiasson in her Paris paper look decidedly far-sighted.
The interpretation of probability was widely debated in Paris. Schlick
took sides with the logical theory against frequentism and subjectivism,
while Reichenbach argued in favour of the frequency view and described
in some detail his own approach, which strays in several ways from that
upheld by von Mises.12 In particular, Reichenbach’s paper outlines the
“method of concatenated inductions”, spelled out in more detail in Experience
and Prediction [Reichenbach 1938]. By the time of the Paris Congress,
Reichenbach had published the first edition of The Theory of Probability,
namely Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre [Reichenbach 1935] which does not contain
the distinction between primitive and advanced knowledge, nor the prag-
matic argument for the justification of induction. The fact that his Paris
paper addresses such topics shows that for Reichenbach, the year 1935
marks a time of transition.
Neither Carnap nor Hosiasson address the issue of the nature of probability
in their Paris papers. At the time, Hosiasson had already embraced the
12. See [Galavotti 2011] for more on this.
The Sessions on Induction and Probability 229
subjective approach in her previous work, while Carnap was on the verge of
turning to probability in order to deal with confirmation, but his first papers
on probability date back to the mid-forties.
In 1935, de Finetti had already developed his subjective theory of
probability together with his “representation theorem”, which are described
in his contribution to the Paris Congress. In addition, the latter contains an
exposition of his logic of trievents, which revealed its potential many years
later, in connection with the logic of conditionals. This adds to the interest
of his paper, and more in general of the sessions on Induction and Probability
held in Paris during the Congress of Scientific Philosophy.
Bibliography
Actes [1936], Actes du Congrès international de philosophie scientifique,
Sorbonne, Paris 1935, Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, 388–395, vol.
I–VIII, Paris: Hermann.
Mura, Alberto [2009], Probability and the logic of de Finetti’s trievents, in:
Bruno de Finetti, Radical Probabilist, edited by M. C. Galavotti, London:
College Publications, 201–242.
Gereon Wolters
University of Konstanz (Germany)
philosophy of biology; (3o ) this prevented them from dealing with actual
problems of biological science. Between the various sections of the paper,
I insert “intermezzos” that present several conference participants within a
wider historical context (i.e., the Great War, persecution, language).
1 Introduction1
J’estime que nous avons plus que personne des raisons d’être
reconnaissants à nos amis français d’avoir organisé ce congrès.
With these words Philipp Frank began his Allocution inaugurale to the Congrès
international de philosophie scientifique on September 15, 1935 in the Palais-
Royal in Paris.2
I think they also fit well eighty years later for the commemorative event at
Château de Cerisy, and I would like to thank the organizers of the conference,
as well as the editors of this volume, for all the work they have done, not least
for graciously coping with the high bureaucratic standards of the marvelous
Château de Cerisy.
This paper is a revised edition of one published in 1999 [Wolters 1999].
In the meantime, many things have changed. Its central thesis, however, has
essentially remained the same: the logical empiricist philosophy of biology is
not exactly a success story—quite different from logical empiricism in general.
In my earlier paper, I called it a case of “wrongful life”. “Wrongful life” is one of
the peculiarities of the American legal system that cannot be digested without
difficulty for many people who grew up in Europe. Here is what Wikipedia
tells us:
1. The “intermezzos” serve to place our topic within a wider historical context
that the participants were most probably well aware of.
2. “I believe we have more reasons than anyone to be grateful to our French friends
for having organized this conference” [Frank 1936a, 13].
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_life, accessed February 28, 2016.
In Germany (and probably in other European countries), tort for wrongful life legal
actions are unconstitutional because they imply that the life of a disabled child is less
valuable than the life of a healthy one. This does not exclude, however, claims for
damages that result from elevated costs for the disabled child, in case of the doctors
or hospitals providing incorrect information.
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 235
4. “Preparatory Congress for the First International Congress for the Unity of
Science”, [Erkenntnis 1936a].
5. A good overview can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_
Conference (accessed June 4, 2018).
6. [Erkenntnis 1935c, 2]. There we also find the other names mentioned here, with
the exception of Karl Popper.
236 Gereon Wolters
Nicely enough, Carnap also notes those whom he had not invited:
Åke Petzäll and his wife, [Karl] Menger, Neider, Ms Fraenkel [wife
of Abraham Fraenkel], [Paul] Hertz, [Ernest] Nagel, Dürr, Morris
(but he was invited earlier), Smith, Zilsel, Popper (met him for
lunch), [Leo] Strauss, [Walter] Hollitscher (met him before briefly
in an afternoon), Meiner, [Arne] Naess.8
Unfortunately, Carnap does not reveal what his invitation criteria were.
We meet almost all of the Prague people and many more a year later in Paris.
Have a look at the Paris participant list (in alphabetical order) [Erkenntnis
1935b], [Stadler 2015, 366–371]
7. Karl Popper reports that he took the page proof of the Logik der Forschung
(rewritten in English by the author as The Logic of Scientific Discovery) with him to
Prague [Popper 2012, 126]. There he discussed his rejection of induction, particularly
with Janina Hosiasson, who “could not believe that anybody could seriously argue
against induction”. The contributions of Hosiasson, Ernest Nagel and Moritz Schlick
at the International Congress of Philosophy that followed the Vorkonferenz were
published in Erkenntnis 5 (1935), together with the papers of the Vorkonferenz.
8. “Mo, 10.09.1934. Endlich Ruhetag [...] Bei Gelegenheit des Kongresses waren
bei uns eingeladen und gekommen: Łukasiewicz und Frau, Neurath, Hempel und
Eva, Jørgensen und Frau, Ajdukiewicz, Tarski, Hosiasson, Frau Kokoschińska, Kaila,
Schlick, Kaufmann und Frau, Grelling. – eingeladen, aber nicht gekommen: Franks,
Rougier, Reichenbach, Jacobson. – nicht eingeladen: Petzäll und Frau, Menger,
Neider, Frau Fraenkel, Hertz, Nagel, Dürr, Morris (aber früher), Smith, Zilsel, Popper
(aber vorher mittags), Strauß, Hollitscher (vorher einen Nachmittag kurz), Meiner,
Naess” [PAUK, RC 025-75-12]. [Unless otherwise stated, all translations of quotes
that appear within this essay are my own.]
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 237
(* The papers of Brunswik and Schlick were read to the audience, because
the authors “were unable to appear personally”). [Erkenntnis 1935d, 379]
Have you heard of any big conference in the philosophy of science with
some eighty speakers, and so many first-rate people among them? Or, to put
it differently, can you imagine a meeting commemorating the commemorative
conference at Cerisy eighty years from now, in 2095. Would people be likely
to know one quarter to half of the participants at Cerisy through their own
work?
This is the end of Intermezzo I. We will now return to wrongful life and
the first congenital defect of logical empiricism’s philosophy of biology.
9. At the hard core of the Circle, I count from Vienna: Rudolf Carnap, Herbert
Feigl, Philipp Frank, Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick, and Edgar Zilsel; from Berlin:
Carl G. Hempel and Hans Reichenbach, and several of the Polish allies, among them
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Janina Hosiasson, and Alfred Tarski. One should note,
however, that the Berliners had, remarkably, opened up to people from medicine
and psychology [cf. Stadler 2015, xxvii].
10. There is a rather bewildering criticism of my 1999 paper in [Nicholson & Gawne
2015]. On the one hand, the authors, who have a favorable view of organicism, claim
“to show that logical empiricism and vitalism were of minimal importance to the
philosophy of biology during the first half of the twentieth century” [Nicholson &
Gawne 2015, 347]. On the other hand, they quote me as a “representative example”
of the following view: “early philosophy of biology has regularly been dismissed as
futile because it has been associated with [...] a discredited research program [i.e.,
logical empiricism]” [Nicholson & Gawne 2015, 348]. In my 1999 paper as well as in
the present one, I show, indeed, that logical empiricism was of minimal importance
to the philosophy of biology. However, I do not speak out about “early philosophy of
biology in general, nor do I associate “early philosophy of biology” exclusively with
logical empiricism. I simply give a critique of the logical-empiricist approach and
nothing else. I am grateful to Jean Gayon (Paris) for pointing out the [Nicholson &
Gawne 2015] paper to me.
11. Strangely enough, there was a section called “Physics, Probability, Biology” [cf.
Stadler 2015, 357]. Zilsel’s “Jordan’s Attempt to Save Vitalism through Quantum
Mechanics” was probably regarded as belonging to “Biology”.
12. “Die logischen Grundlagen des Gesamtgebietes der Wissenschaften sollten
behandelt werden, nicht nur die der Mathematik und Physik” [Erkenntnis 1935c,
1].
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 239
13. “The Five” were: Carnap, Frank, Neurath, Reichenbach, and Rougier
[Erkenntnis 1935a, 299].
14. “Es wäre wichtig, Biologen usw. zu bekommen, Woodger, usw.” [PAUK,
RC 029-11-75].
15. “Bitte setze Dich mit Dr. J. H. Woodger [...] wegen seines Biologievortrags in
Verbindung. Er hat sich dazu bereit erklärt” [PAUK, RC-029-09-56].
16. “Morris meint, mehr Biologen und Soziologen erwünscht im großen Komitee.
Er schlägt vor J. H. Woodger (Er wird einen Vortrag halten!!!!). J. B. S. Haldane,
Joseph Needham” [PAUK, RC 029-09-51].
17. “Im Ganzen müssen wir uns bemühen, die konkreteren Probleme in den
Vordergrund zu schieben. Frank klagt sehr, dass so wenig Einzelwissenschaftliches
kommt, usw. Nicht einmal Physik. Daher soll Woodger vorn sein und gemeinsam [?].
Das ist – wenn Woodger tüchtig ist – endlich mal was Neues. Biologie in logistischer
Aufmachung. Das darf noch [doch?] nicht in einer Sektion untergehn” [PAUK,
RC029-09-24].
240 Gereon Wolters
18. Cf. [Stadler 1997, 406–412]. Stadler reproduces the program as given in the
tables of contents of the volumes of the [Actes 1936]. Strangely enough, the important
talk of Joseph Henry Woodger is missing there. It is mentioned, however, in both
the program that Neurath published before the Congress and in his report about it
in [Erkenntnis 1935b,d, 295, 385].
19. Read in French: “L’abîme entre les sciences physiques et biologiques, vu à la
lumière des théories physiques modernes.”
20. Also read in French: “Sur l’unité de la méthode dans les sciences physiques et
biologiques comparées.”
21. Cf. [Stadler 2015, 372 ff.]. A collection of talks and summaries is in [Erkenntnis
1936a, 275–450].
22. Published in [Actes 1936, 41–49].
23. “Untersuchung [...] bei der Artillerie angenommen” [PAUK, RC 025-71-06].
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 241
In the evening in the “Brown Stag” again all lieutenants; feel very
well among them, cordially grant them their good fortune, are
nice to me. But I cannot get rid of the secondary object that I,
too, could be where they are.25
The ill feeling about the other lieutenants has gone, but I feel very
unsatisfied. [...] It’s high time that I get to the battlefield.26
What people with a healthy sense put off with respect to the
effects of this education system is the inner untruthfulness that it
nurses in young people, the dishonesty of the judgment about the
problems of modern politics and the social life, the self-conceit
of true national feeling that does not consist in crying hurrahs
and in the glorification of militarism. Rather it tries to express
itself in going to the bottom and in deepening the culture that
is characteristic of one’s own people. [...] Poor youth that throw
away, for playing soldier, the most beautiful right of young people,
i.e., having the possibility to live in a completely humane way!29
28. [PAUK: RC 089-72-04, 15]: “Die Geistesverfassung Europas, die den Weltkrieg
unvermeidbar und dann seine Beendigung bisher unmöglich machte, hat ihren
Hauptnährboden in Deutschland. [...] Ich kann hier nur kurz hinweisen auf
Deutschlands Haltung bei den Haager Conferenzen und den Hass der anderen Völker
als Folge davon; auf die Gleichgültigkeit und den Spott unserer öffentlichen Meinung
gegenüber dem, was im Haag geschah, im Vergleich zu den anderen Völkern; auf
die Wochen vor Ausbruch des Krieges, auf den Anfang des Jahres 1917, als eine
schon begonnene Anbahnung zum Frieden durch den U-Bootkrieg zunichte gemacht
wurde; auf den Januar 1918 mit den Ereignissen des Wilson’schen Friedensprogramms
und der Berliner Militärherrschaft. Spätestens jetzt bei den Verfassungsreformen
dieser Tage müssen doch jedem die Augen darüber aufgehen, wie sehr bei uns der
kriegerische Gesichtspunkt dem politischen übergeordnet war.”
29. [Reichenbach 1914, 1237 ff.]: “Was den gesund Empfindenden an der Wirkung
dieses Erziehungssystems abschrecken muss, das ist die innere Unwahrhaftigkeit,
die hier in der Jugend großgezogen wird, die Unehrlichkeit des Urteils über die
Probleme der modernen Politik und des sozialen Lebens, die Verblendung des wahren
Nationalgefühls, das nicht in Hurrageschrei und Verherrlichung des Militarismus
besteht, sondern in der Ergründung und Vertiefung der dem Volke eigenartigen Kultur
seinen Ausdruck sucht. [...] Arme Jugend! Die das schönste Recht der Jugend, ganz
Mensch sein zu dürfen, hergibt, um Soldat zu spielen!”
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 243
August 3, 1914—among the first civilian victims of war. The French Wikipedia
notes: “his vehicle was hit, indeed, by a vehicle that carried the mobilization
orders of the French army.”33 By 1915, Russell had, in fact, already given a
short evaluation of the Great War that I find to be the best I have ever seen:
This war is trivial, for all its vastness. No great principle is at
stake, no great human purpose is involved on either side.
[Hoeres 2004]
Imagine the idea that ten years from now about 20 percent of the
participants at the Cerisy conference were to become emigrants and some
were to be murdered.
37. Carnap notes: “Heute Referat von Frank: ‘Was bedeuten die neueren Theorien
der Physik für die Grenzfragen zwischen Physik und Biologie?’ Frank trägt gut vor”
[PAUK, RC 025-75-13]. – [“Today Frank’s talk: ‘What do the new theories of physics
mean?’ Frank performs well”].
38. “Aufgabe der Biologie: Erklärung der Vorgänge an lebenden Körpern durch
Aufstellung der biologischen Gesetze [... d.h.] Gesetze, die zu den physikalischen
hinzukommen werden müssen, um die Vorgänge an lebenden Körpern zu erklären”
[PAUK, RC 110-07-07].
39. “Beziehung zwischen Biologie und Physik = Beziehung zwischen biologischen
und physikalischen Gesetzen” [PAUK, RC 110-07-07].
40. “[...] alle biologischen Begriffe sind durch Definitionen zurückführbar auf
physikalische Begriffe. [...] also: alle konkreten Sätze und alle Gesetze der Biologie
sind formulierbar in einer physikalistischen Sprache” [PAUK, RC 110-07-07].
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 247
41. “Heute nicht möglich: eigene biologische Gesetze. Ob später einmal möglich,
wissen wir nicht” [PAUK, RC 110-07-07].
42. “Auf die terminologische Frage (‘Biologie ist Zweig der Physik’) will ich nicht
Wert legen [...] Meine These ist nur: Verhältnis der Biologie zur Physik des
Nicht-Belebten analog dem Verhältnis der Elektrizitätslehre zur Physik des Nicht-
Elektrischen” [PAUK, RC 110-07-07].
43. “Mo, 27.05.1935 Zahnarzt. 5 Vorlesung. 7:15 – 9:30 Colloquium. Mein
Vortrag ‘Die Beziehungen zwischen Biologie und Physik, vom Standpunkt der
Wissenschaftslogik’. Pringsheim und Pascher sind im ganzen einverstanden.
Gicklhorn hat Bedenken wegen ‘zu viel Physik’, formuliert sie aber sehr unklar”
[PAUK, RC25-75-13].
248 Gereon Wolters
not published, and not even summarized in the proceedings of the Paris
Congress.49
Overall, the promise, given in Prague, to deal with “the logical founda-
tions” of biology as well, was far from being fully kept in Paris.
Off to Copenhagen again! Were things there better for the philosophy of
biology? The short answer is, yes, to some extent. As mentioned already, there
were three talks in the biology section at Copenhagen: J. B. S. Haldane (1892-
1964), Nicolas Rashevsky (1899-1972), and Georges Matisse (1874-1961). Let
us start with Matisse. He could not come to the Congress, but his talk was
read to the audience. It aimed at rejecting finalistic approaches in biology by
pointing to the fact that in inorganic systems one already finds what Matisse
calls “structures orientées”. Here is one of his examples:
49. J. H. Woodger [Woodger 1937] probably gives a good idea of what he said in
Paris. [Nicholson & Gawne 2014] quote me as assuming Woodger’s “allegiance to
logical empiricism” [Nicholson & Gawne 2014, 247]. The only thing I say about
Woodger in my older paper is: “Woodger also can be regarded as related [my
emphasis] to logical empiricism. His Axiomatic Method in Biology [Woodger 1937]
certainly is an impressive piece of scholarly work, and it was praised in a review in
Erkenntnis. But it is unclear to me if Woodger’s rigorous axiomatization contributes
to a deeper understanding of real biological science” [Wolters 1999, 199]. That
Woodger, in some sense, was related to logical empiricism is clear. “Being related”
to something or someone is, at least according to my understanding as a non-native
speaker of English, different from “allegiance” to something or someone.
50. “Quand un courant électrique traverse une solution, tous les ions métalliques
d’un sel minéral dissous se dirigent vers la cathode et les radicaux vers l’anode”
[Matisse 1936, 370].
51. This is almost a translation of Carl Gustav Hempel’s summary in [Hempel
1936, 374]: “Der Verf. selbst vertritt die Auffassung, dass die Lebenserscheinungen
auf Grund einer Theorie der Systeme mit struktureller Organisation (d.h. mit
regelmäßiger Ordnung ihrer materiellen Bestandteile und häufig mit besonderer
Gerichtetheit der in ihnen stattfindenden Elementarprozesse) zu erklären seien.”
250 Gereon Wolters
Intermezzo IV – Languages
We read about Paris in the report in Erkenntnis, probably written by Otto
Neurath:
Congress languages were German, English, and French. Single
speakers tended to use one congress language in one instance,
and another in a different instance. Others acted as translators
of their own talks. Bertrand Russell gave his warm obituary for
[Gottlob] Frege in German. For the rest, the talks were translated
in excerpt form as necessary, and only occasionally parts of the
discussion also.54
52. Cf. [Haldane 1936], [Rashevsky 1936]. Veronika Hofer praises Haldane’s
paper as “a paradigmatically clear paper about the use of mathematical models in
population genetics” [Hofer 2013, 354]. I have been unable to identify such models.
What one can find at best is the presentation in simple matrices of empirical results
about the connection of a certain property (e.g., intelligence) with certain genotypes
and environments.
53. [Frank 1936b, 448]: “Auf dem Kongress hat Haldane über Vererbungslehre
gesprochen, Rashevski über Anwendung mathematisch-physikalischer Gesichtspunkte
in der Biologie. Wir haben diese beiden Forscher eingeladen, um neue Anregungen
für das Suchen nach der logischen Struktur der Wissenschaft zu gewinnen, die man
in jeder rein wissenschaftlichen, von Metaphysik freien Theorie finden kann.”
54. “Kongresssprachen waren Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, einzelne Redner
bedienten sich bald der einen bald der anderen Kongresssprache, einzelne traten als
Übersetzer ihrer eigenen Reden auf. Bertrand Russell hielt seinen warm empfundenen
Nachruf auf Frege in deutscher Sprache. Im übrigen wurden die Vorträge nach Bedarf
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 251
Eighty years later, at the commemorative event at Cerisy, two of the Paris
languages have remained, while German has gone. At most other international
conferences nowadays, English is the only language. This is certainly a positive
development. Having a lingua franca is a great asset, and there can be no
doubt that English is the chosen language. In 1935, things were different.
On the European continent, at least in Germany, more people had a certain
knowledge of French than of English. After Prague, in late September/early
October 1934, Carnap made his first trip to England. His short notes in his
diary often relate to language: September 27, 1934: “Things are going very
well, linguistically. I speak quite slowly, however.” On October 2, 1934 he notes
about a lunch with the Woodgers and Russell: “Russell, occasionally, speaks
very good German. He proposes that I speak German and he English.” – A
bit later: “Partially very vivid conversation [of Russell] with Ms. Woodger,
too fast, so that I cannot quite follow.” – October 8, 1934: “My first talk
5:15 to 6:15. [...] In the beginning I read very slowly, look in-between at
the audience. Only at the blackboard, I speak briefly without notes. I make
an effort to pronounce distinctly; but it was possibly too slow.”55 —People at
Paris, Prague, and Copenhagen were almost certainly in Carnap’s linguistic
position with respect to one or two of the congress languages.
The problems Carnap describes here are just one of the disadvantages
that English as a lingua franca carries with it for most people who do not
have English as their mother tongue. My paper here is just another proof of
this. Many more asymmetries result from the fact that, unlike Latin in the
Middle Ages, the academic lingua franca of our time is the first language in
a number of countries.56 I would like to make a counterfactual hypothesis:
if, these days, a philosophical movement like logical empiricism were to arise
outside the Anglophone world, in a language other than English, it would not
surface on the international level, because Anglophone, particularly American,
philosophy determines the topics of the international agenda, and—as a rule—
takes no notice of publications in other languages. This was different in
the 1930s, when Anglophone philosophers still knew foreign languages and
read publications in those languages. In addition, the tireless organizational
efforts of Neurath on an international scale, and, sadly, the emigration of the
leading minds to the U.S., made it possible for logical empiricism to flourish
internationally, not least in the U.S.
5 Conclusion
Prague, Paris, and Copenhagen show the achievements (or, more precisely,
non-achievements) of logical-empiricist philosophy of biology. In Erkenntnis,
for example, one finds a great number of outstanding and now classical papers
on philosophy of science. The only outstanding contribution to the philosophy
of biology, however, is in my view Kurt Lewin’s classic “The transition of the
Aristotelian to the Galilean mode of thinking in biology and psychology” [Der
Übergang von der aristotelischen zur galileischen Denkweise in Biologie und
Psychologie]. Ironically, right from the outset, this paper takes exception to
one of the pillars of logical-empiricist philosophy of biology:
57. “Ich habe nicht die Absicht, aus der Geschichte der Physik deduktiv zu
schließen, was die Biologie tun ‘soll’. Denn ich bin nicht der Meinung, daß es
letzten Endes nur eine einzige Wissenschaft, die Physik, gibt, auf die alle übrigen
zurückgehen” [Lewin 1930, 423].
58. [Lewin 1930, 423]: “In den klaren Arbeiten von Carnap zur mathema-
tischen Logik wird eine These über die ‘Einheitswissenschaft’ vertreten, die [...]
ähnlich wie die älteren Gedankengänge einen durchaus spekulativen Charakter
trägt und den Anforderungen einer ‘empirischen’ Berücksichtigung der faktis-
chen Wissenschaftsentwicklung ebensowenig genügt wie den Anforderungen der
Mathematik.”
59. This turn might arguably be connected with Morton Beckner’s [Beckner 1959].
I would like to thank my friend Peter Machamer (Pittsburgh) for calling my attention
to Beckner.
Logical Empiricism’s Philosophy of Biology 253
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Brigitte Parakenings of the Philosophisches Archiv
der Universität Konstanz (PAUK) for providing me with transcriptions of
shorthand diaries and other relevant archival material.
Bibliography
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Sorbonne, Paris 1935, Actualités scientifiques et industrielles, 388–395, vol.
I–VIII, Paris: Hermann.
Hoeres, Peter [2004], Krieg der Philosophen. Die deutsche und die britische
Philosophie im Ersten Weltkrieg, Paderborn: Schöningh.
Lecomte du Noüy, Pierre [1936], Sur l’unité de la méthode dans les sciences
physiques et biologiques comparées, in: Actes du Congrès international
de philosophie scientifique, Paris: Hermann, Actualités scientifiques et
industrielles, 389, vol. II: Unité de la science, 4–14.
Lewin, Kurt [1930], Der übergang von der aristotelischen zur galileischen
Denkweise in Biologie und Psychologie, Erkenntnis, 1(1), 421–466, doi:
10.1007/BF00208633.
Matisse, Georges [1915], Aux Allemands: pourquoi n’êtes-vous pas aimés dans
le monde?, Lausanne: Ruedi.
Oliver Schlaudt
Philosophisches Seminar, Universität Heidelberg (Germany),
Archives Henri-Poincaré – Philosophie et Recherches
sur les Sciences et les Technologies,
Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg,
CNRS, Nancy (France)
last century’s best hope for a serious, politically engaged philosophy of science
in North America” [Reisch 2009, 193].
Reisch is not out on a limb with this agenda. On the contrary, it seems
that there are many US scholars who share his sense of loss. In a comment on
Reisch’s work, Don Howard expresses a fairly similar view:
knowledge and a tool to enlighten the public, improve modern life and
secure modernity” [Reisch 2005, 58–59];
2. the socialist left
exemplified by the journals Partisan Review (and in particular William
Gruen, who introduced logical empiricism to its readers) and Philosophy
of Science; “generally more committed to Marxism (in some form), they
took central themes of Marxism, such as class struggle and social and
economic planning, to be crucial concerns for any adequate philosophy
of science” [Reisch 2005, 59];
3. the radical academic left
exemplified by the journal Science & Society; scientists, philosophers
and historians “more convinced of the basic truth of Marxist theory”,
who consider science to be “a powerful, potential tool for social
progress” if “coupled to socialist politics and a metaphysics of dialectical
materialism”; “[m]any, therefore, could not abide logical empiricism’s
rejection of metaphysics” [Reisch 2005, 60];
4. the communist left
exemplified by The Communist; the “most extreme group of philoso-
phers on the left”, united by their orthodox reading of Marx, Engels
and Lenin and their rejection of any “creative interpretation on the
part of intellectuals”; these figures identified philosophical practice with
communist party life [Reisch 2005, 61].
Circle. Nonetheless it was, of course, highly influential and thus crucial to the
fate of Marxism in the 20th century. Furthermore, it probably also played
an important role in the reception of the Vienna Circle in the US, given its
influence on both the “radical academic left” and the “communist left” in
Reisch’s classification.
The remaining two types on the above list, however, can be said to span
the range of alternatives which are crucial for understanding the relation
between philosophy and politics in the left-wing Vienna Circle: On the one
hand Hegelian Marxism (e.g., Lukács in the 1920s, early critical theory,
Herbert Marcuse) which put an emphasis on the critique of ideology with
a view to setting off revolutionary change; on the other hand ethical socialism
(Karl Vorländer at Marburg) and Austro-Marxism (Max Adler at Vienna)
which adhered to historical determinism and thus favoured a more positivist
reading of historical materialism, but had the problem of reconciling the
determinist conviction with the idea of political intervention (hence especially
the importance of the fact-value dichotomy which permitted Vorländer to
reduce the Marxist conviction to an “ethical attitude”).
Hegelian Marxism and Austro-Marxism can be thought of as crystallizing
around two divergent notions of “practice”. “Practice”, indeed, is a central
notion in the early writings of Karl Marx, which were published posthumously
in the late 19th and early 20th century. These posthumous editions were of
utmost importance to heterodox Marxist currents of the 1920s, for they seemed
to unveil aspects of Marx that were barely compatible with the orthodox
reading of the Second International: the early Marx seemed to show a stronger
ethical attitude and placed greater emphasis on the phenomenon of alienation.
In his Theses on Feuerbach from 1845, published for the first time in 1888
[Marx 1888], Marx outlined an approach to knowledge that challenges any
clear distinction between “theory” and “practice”. In The German Ideology [cf.
in particular Marx & Engels 1926], co-authored by Marx and Engels in 1846
and firstly published between 1905 and 1932, the authors suggested a reading
of history as determined by material and economic “practice”. Rather than
elaborating on the countless attempts to spell out both theories, I shall merely
indicate two different and even opposing meanings of the term “practice”
presented in these writings, namely
The first sense prevails in the Theses on Feuerbach, while the latter one
dominates the quite empirical and empiricist approach of The German
Ideology. Starting from this ambiguity it is possible to develop a schematic
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 265
– empiricism;
– mathematical logic as a privileged analytical tool;
– rejection of metaphysics and the endeavour to rethink traditional
problems of philosophy;
– a kind of neutral monism, i.e., the construction of matter and mind out
of neutral elements, to be analysed with the help of mathematical logic.
(Zilsel quotes as models Ernst Mach, Bertrand Russell and Carnap [cf.
Zilsel 1931a,b].)
Let me mention, by the way, that the social sense also resists
the asymmetry of the earlier position adopted by Carnap. It is
curious: what is antisocial always proves, through careful analysis,
to also be scientifically contestable.7
In his review of Neurath he uses the very same words, only replacing
“antisocial” [unsozial] with “anti-socialist” [unsozialistisch], [Zilsel 1932b, 93].
In this proposition Zilsel seems himself to affirm a link between politics and
science. Let me sketch the lines of thought in which this phrase appears.
In his comment on Carnap, Zilsel endorses an important conceptual
shift that distinguishes Carnap’s approach in Scheinprobleme der Philosophie
[Carnap 1928b] from that in Der logische Aufbau der Welt [Carnap 1928a]: In
Scheinprobleme, Carnap, in a solipsistic manner, takes “das Eigenpsychische”
[i.e., elementary impressions occurring in one’s own mind] as his point
of departure and, on this basis, seeks to reconstruct knowledge of “das
Fremdpsychische” [i.e., impressions occurring in other’s minds]; this would
eventually enable the reconstruction of knowledge of “geistige Gegenstände”
[intellectual objects], i.e., “Kulturgebilde”. In Aufbau, however, Carnap revises
this view and claims that actually both kinds of occurrences, those in one’s
own mind and those in the minds of others, should be described in a purely
physical language by so-called “protocol sentences”. It is in this context that
Zilsel makes the remark quoted above, which hence refers only to the solipsistic
approach of Scheinprobleme. Nevertheless, he also had some critical remarks
to make regarding the physicalist approach of Aufbau which are interesting for
us as well. The debate about protocol sentences per se is highly relevant to our
topic here, because Carnap himself retrospectively linked it to the formation
of a “left wing” within the Vienna Circle [cf. Uebel 2004].8
Subsequent to his initial critique of Carnap, Zilsel additionally expresses
severe criticism of Carnap’s attempt to reconstruct all knowledge on the basis
of protocol sentences. From the latter’s explicit statement that protocol
sentences, while providing a foundation for scientific theory, themselves lack
any foundation, Zilsel inferred that protocol sentences as such were arbitrary.
He then raises the question of how to distinguish “real” protocol sentences,
7. [My translation] “Es sei übrigens erwähnt, daß sich gegen die Ungleichmäßigkeit
des älteren Standpunkts Carnaps auch das soziale Gefühl sträubt. Es ist merkwürdig:
was unsozial ist, erweist sich bei sorgfältiger Analyse immer auch als wissenschaftlich
anfechtbar” [Zilsel 1932a].
8. In his autobiography Carnap wrote quoted from [Uebel 2004]: “The next step in
the development of our conception concerned the nature of the knowledge of singular
facts in the physical world. Neurath had always rejected the alleged rock bottom
of knowledge. [...] Thus some of us, especially Neurath, Hahn and I, came to
the conclusion that we had to look for a more liberal criterion of significance than
verifiability. This group was sometimes called the left wing of the Vienna Circle,
in contrast to the more conservative right wing, chiefly represented by Schlick and
Waismann, who remained in personal contact with Wittgenstein and were inclined
to maintain his views and formulations” [Carnap 1963, 57].
270 Oliver Schlaudt
which describe our actual world, from other sets of protocol sentences. He
proposes that this could ultimately be done only by admitting what is strictly
excluded by Carnap’s approach: “das Unsagbare” [that which cannot be said],
as he says, “Erlebnisinhalte” [actual experiences] or “das Quale”, as Carnap
translates it [Carnap 1932, 181].
Carnap responded to this objection in the same volume of Erkenntnis
[Carnap 1932]. He accepts the task of identifying the “real” set of protocol
sentences and also grants that “pure semantics”, i.e., the syntax of sentences
as structural elements, does not in fact provide a criterion for doing so.
“Descriptive semantics”, however, being concerned with “real” sentences in
the sense of physical tokens (spoken words, traces of ink on paper, etc.),
does so; it allows us to identify the “real” protocol sentences as those uttered by
competent speakers of the respective language. There is, then, a criterion for a
“real” protocol sentence—albeit not a formal criterion or an explicit rule, since
the acquisition of language does not happen according to “explicit instructions”
[nach formulierten Vorschriften] but “through practical methods of influence”
[durch Beeinflussung mit praktischen Maßnahmen]. Carnap thus succeeded
quite easily in refuting Zilsel’s objection. It is worth noting, however, that
his response to Zilsel contains one important concession: Carnap referred to
the acquisition of language and thereby implicitly assumed a social context in
which the competent speaker was trained. The method of protocol sentences
thus relies on a social conception of knowledge.
It seems that Carnap himself was unaware of this, as can be inferred from
his exchange with Zilsel. The latter persisted in his critique, making one
important point which is directly related to his remark about the relationship
between politics and science. Zilsel noted that one presupposition of “real”
protocol sentences is indeed intersubjectivity, and that Carnap was not able
to account for intersubjectivity. If in 1928 Carnap seemed to overcome the
asymmetry and the solipsism of his early approach in Scheinprobleme, he
did so only by adopting a more fundamental physical language where the
original problem of intersubjectivity reappears. We have already seen that
Carnap had the conceptual resources for responding to Zilsel’s objection. If
“real” protocol sentences are those uttered by competent speakers, and if in
turn competent speakers can have acquired language only in social interaction,
then real protocol sentences certainly are intersubjective. But Carnap seems
not to have been aware of this: in his reply to Zilsel, he merely repeated
what he had already said on this subject in Scheinprobleme, namely, that
the intersubjectivity of protocol sentences must be taken as a mere empirical
fact—as a “lucky chance”, as he repeatedly said [Carnap 1931, 447], [Carnap
1932, 180]. This cannot be regarded as a satisfying response, however.
In his comment on Carnap, Zilsel confined himself to critical remarks
and did not offer an alternative account that might have made it possible
to explain the intersubjectivity of protocol sentences. But he at least offers
some interesting clues in his review of Neurath’s Empirische Soziologie, which
he wrote at the same time. In this text, his concern about intersubjectivity
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 271
Zilsel is certainly aware that, in this case, unlike his criticism of Carnap, he
is not pointing out a theoretical shortcoming but only a moral disadvantage.
Zilsel gave his argument an epistemic turn, though, when he outlined how
psychological terms might nevertheless be integrated into the behaviourist
framework of Neurath’s sociology. He drew an analogy to physics, where
it is absolutely legitimate to refer to “forces” and “energy”, even if these
terms occasioned “metaphysical misuse” at times. It is sufficient for their
use that utterances containing these terms can be translated into sentences
about indicators of measuring instruments. (In 1932, of course, Zilsel could
neither use the notion “theoretical term” nor engage in a discussion of whether
these really are reducible to a purely observational vocabulary.) Similarly,
as Zilsel suggested, “inner states” can be admitted within behaviourist
social sciences [Zilsel 1932b, 92–93]. Although this remark is short and
remains purely suggestive, some twenty years later Wilfrid Sellars proved the
fruitfulness of such an approach, doing so, incidentally, precisely with a view
to understanding the intersubjectivity of inner states and sense impressions.9
9. In his slightly later influential paper “Empiricism and the philosophy of mind”,
Wilfrid Sellars also proposed that “inner episodes” such as “thoughts” and “sense
impressions” be introduced into behaviourist vocabulary as theoretical terms. Much
more, though, he developed this idea and gave it a surprising turn, linking it again to
the problem of intersubjectivity. Sellars suggested “that the ability to have thoughts
is acquired in the process of acquiring overt speech” [Sellars 1956, 319]. According
to the story Sellars tells, terms like “thoughts” or “sense impressions” are originally
introduced into language as theoretical terms enabling a person to theorize about the
behaviour of others and are only subsequently applied reflexively by the speaker to
himself. “[T]his story helps us understand,” he explicates, “that concepts pertaining
to such inner episodes as thoughts are primarily and essentially intersubjective, as
intersubjective as the concept of a positron, and that the reporting role of these
concepts—the fact that each of us has a privileged access to his thoughts—constitutes
a dimension of the use of these concepts which is built on and presupposes this
intersubjective status” [Sellars 1956, 320–321]. Sellars thus turns the approach of
Scheinprobleme upside down. Instead of reconstructing knowledge of “Kulturgebilde”
from elementary personal sense impressions, Sellars shows that only by participating
in culture and being socialized by our fellow human beings are we as individuals
enabled to “have thoughts, sense impressions” and other kinds of “inner episodes”.
272 Oliver Schlaudt
3.3.1 Empiricism
The first aspect to be noted is that Zilsel quite clearly adheres to a Humean-
style empiricist account of the laws of nature. That is, he admits nothing but
“facts of experience and the fact of experience itself” [Zilsel 1916, § 68] and
then reduces the empirical content of laws to empirical correlations of empirical
facts. It is noteworthy that from the very beginning he broadens the notion
of fact to embrace social and psychological facts as well. He therefore defines
laws as correlations between completely unspecified entities like “conditions”,
“events”, or “qualities”:
Every law asserts subsistence of current association or regular
connection of certain conditions and events. [Zilsel 2003, 200]
The naturalist observes recurrent associations of certain events or
qualities. [Zilsel 2003, 96]
In his 1926 study of the concept of genius, he explicitly applies this account
to the sociology of knowledge which seeks to identify “regular links between
ideas and certain states of human society”.10
10. [Zilsel 1926, 2]: “regelmaessige Verknuepfungen von Vorstellungen mit gewissen
Zustaenden der menschlichen Gesellschaft”.
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 273
What does Zilsel mean when he refers to the “controversy about the
‘materialist’ view of history”? In my estimation, he is not referring to the
question of whether there are historical laws (he explicitly assumes their
existence in the first phrase, after all), but is rather hinting at a controversy
about the interpretation of these laws within a Marxist framework. Identifying
the economic structure alone as the independent variable would amount to
an orthodox reading of Marx, entailing unidirectional causation from the
economic basis to the superstructure. Dependent and independent variables
become harder to distinguish to the extent that reciprocal action between them
is admitted. This would correspond to a refined, more dialectical reading of
Marx, of which Zilsel seems to approve in the quotation given above.
Besides the theory of scales, Zilsel also lends psychological and heuristic
support to the idea of historical laws: he occasionally quotes the fact that
Kepler not only gave an exact mathematical expression to a known regularity
of nature but “succeeded in discovering the regularities in apparently most
irregular phenomena” [Zilsel 2003, 112]—something which, as Zilsel intends
the reader to infer, applies to society. History, as Zilsel stresses in his
“Philosophische Bemerkungen” from 1929, is the most “complicated” of all
lawful natural processes.12 The task of identifying laws might thus be
particularly difficult for historians, yet this difficulty differs only in degree
from that of the natural sciences.
The most careful treatment of historical laws can be found in Zilsel’s
work on the foundations of physics, especially of statistical mechanics. For
Zilsel, who identifies societies with macro-ensembles of individuals, there is
12. [Zilsel 1929, 186]: “An dem marxistischen Sozialismus [...] kann man lernen,
daß die Geschichte unter allen gesetzmäßigen Naturvorgängen der verwickelste und
auch Naturwissenschaft gesellschaftlich bedingt ist.”
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 275
1. “Temporal laws”
– In isolated historical systems, tribal organization precedes the
beginnings of the state;
– Individualized art and poetry are preceded by anonymous folk-art
and poetry, signed paintings and sculptures by non-signed works;
– Free artists gradually develop from craftsmen.
2. “Simultaneity laws” (time absent)
– Wherever learned priests are entrusted with the task of teaching
candidates for the priesthood, they systematize the vague and
contradictory mythological traditions of the past and develop
rational systems of distinction, classification, and enumeration as
scientific methods.
3.3.3 Pragmatism
We now come to the last and most difficult aspect of Zilsel’s concept of law:
pragmatism. This aspect is difficult because in Zilsel we find two conflicting
accounts of the meaning and nature of laws. On the one hand he takes a
historical approach, favouring a pragmatist notion of laws as operational rules,
while on the other he displays a systematic approach more in the spirit of
logical empiricism, favouring a structural and formalist notion of law. Zilsel
seems not to have made any attempt to resolve the tension that exists between
these two approaches. Our task here is to do so in his stead.
Let me first spell out why I think Zilsel might have adhered to a pragmatist
notion of law. There are two reasons for this. We can see some initial stirrings
of a pragmatic notion of science in general in Zilsel’s anthropological diagnosis
that human beings interact with natural objects in a mechanical way, which
may explain why, in his view, mechanics is the most fundamental of all the
subdisciplines of physics:
13. [Lukács 1928, 300]: “sehr formal und dringen deshalb in das Konkret-sinnliche
der Erscheinungen nicht so tief ein, wie das bei Gesetzen des sozialen Lebens der Fall
sein müsste.”
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 277
14. [Zilsel 1928, 114]: “unser Weltbild ist nicht mehr als ein Netz gesetzmaessig
verknuepfter Zahlen.”
278 Oliver Schlaudt
At first sight, it seems clear that in this quotation Zilsel is conveying a view
based on historical research regarding modern societies rather than his own
personal view. I want to suggest, however, that Zilsel himself subscribed to
the view he describes in the above passage. There is already evidence for this
interpretation in his PhD thesis Das Anwendungsproblem [Zilsel 1916], where
15. [My translation] [Zilsel 1926, 311]: “Die Erweiterung der Erkenntnis, der Erwerb
von Wissen hat für das menschliche Triebleben wohl eine doppelte Bedeutung:
das Wissen vergrößert und vermannigfacht einerseits die Reaktionsbereitschaft des
Menschen und macht ihn zur Beherrschung der Umwelt tauglicher. Herrscht diese
Seite des Wissens vor, dann wird die Gesellschaft darauf ausgehen, die Beziehung
ihrer Mitglieder zueinander und zur Natur zu rationalisieren, sie wird eine Technik
der Natur- und Gesellschaftsbeeinflussung entwickeln, ihr Interesse wird vorwiegend
auf die Zukunft sich richten, ihre Wissenschaften werden vor allem allgemeine Gesetze
aufzusuchen bemüht sein, die ja auch für die Zukunft gelten und den praktischen
Reaktionen die Wege vorzeichnen.”
A Political Meaning of “Scientific Philosophy”? The Case of Zilsel 279
derived sense at best.16 It may be the case that Zilsel’s philosophy was based
on political premises, but he did not put forward any political implications
of his work in the sense indicated by Howard. He never sought to derive
any normative statement of public concern from philosophical or sociological
considerations, or to intervene qua philosopher in public debate. It is clear that
the fact-value dichotomy, which Zilsel explicitly and repeatedly endorsed,17
hindered him from doing so. George Reisch interprets the fact-value dichotomy
as a strategy used by the right wing of logical empiricism to theorize its
own depoliticization [Reisch 2005, 355, 364, 381]. This sounds plausible and
might well be the case for Reichenbach, but it can hardly be generalized.
In fact, the far left-wingers of logical empiricism had already endorsed the
dichotomy prior to their emigration and were thus hindered from ever being
truly political (unlike adherents to critical theory). Historically, this can
be regarded as a neo-Kantian legacy within Austro-Marxism and ethical
socialism, in the context of which the views of the left-wing members of the
Vienna Circle had been forged.
There is one final interesting point to be made. As I stressed above,
it is absolutely true that, probably due to his political convictions, Zilsel
was interested in science in its social context. But it is worth mentioning
that on a fundamental level his approach is incompatible with contemporary
theorizing on the same topic by scholars concerned about the public relevance
of philosophy and history of science. For Zilsel, the interconnections
between science and society were subject to sociological investigation. In the
sociological explanations he offers in his articles (e.g., in his famous thesis that
the rise of science was enabled by the breakdown of the social barrier between
“hands and tongue” (experimental and intellectual skills) in early capitalism),
he refers solely to the “social and economic conditions” necessary for the rise
of science, i.e., to structural determinants.18 Robert K. Merton explicated
the distinction between structural determinants and motives as explanations
of behaviour when he defended his and Boris Hessen’s view that technology
and technological problems determined the fields of interest of scientists in
16. Sarah Richardson came to a similar conclusion for Carnap [Richardson 2009a,
19].
17. Emphatically in [Zilsel 1918, 196–197], and also in [Zilsel 1931b], where Zilsel
put the dichotomy in an astonishingly practical context: One consequence of the fact-
value dichotomy is that Marxism as an ethical conviction and historical materialism
as an empirical approach are also no longer conceived as forming a whole. Zilsel
underlines the utility of this distinction for the socialist party which, accordingly,
can also embrace those who only share the ethical conviction but do not endorse
materialism, as is the case with catholic socialists.
18. I know of only one exception in Zilsel’s work, namely, his early study Die
Geniereligion from 1918, in which Zilsel also considers psychological factors in his
explanation of the emergence of the cult of the genius [Zilsel 1918, 64]. In his
later work on the social origins of science he concentrates exclusively on “social and
economic conditions”, understood as necessary conditions for the rise of science [cf.
Zilsel 2003, 3].
282 Oliver Schlaudt
17th-century England. Their thesis was intended to convey the idea that
technological problems acted as structural determinants on the behaviour
of scientists, both opening up and limiting the horizon of scientific inquiry
[Freudenthal & McLaughlin 2009, 21]. They did not intend to say that solving
technical problems was a primary motivation of scientists. In his defense of
Hessen, Merton stresses the irrelevance of motives and personal values for the
sociological explanation of behaviour:
Merton later generalized this point in his sociological approach to the study
of the scientific community, now drawing a more specific contrast between
motives and “distinctive patterns of institutional control” as the relevant
structural determinants:
forces with ‘bias’ ” [Longino 2002, 54–56]. For Zilsel on the contrary, the “social
context of science” could only be found in society itself, not in individuals and
their motives and values. If it is true that society may sometimes occlude the
scientist’s view, it was in any case evident to Zilsel that the complementary
thesis also holds: if a scientist is able at all to view an object, then this is due
not to his inherent characteristics and qualities but to society which furnishes
him with all the epistemic tools he requires. For Zilsel, social forces cannot be
reduced to bias or occluding factors but also comprise the factors that enable
a scientist to see.
Without addressing the question of whether one should refer to motives
or to structural determinants instead, we can nonetheless draw the following
conclusion: even if some varieties of early logical empiricism provided a model
of a politically engaged philosophy of science (a notion I have contested in this
paper), contemporary scholars keen to engage in public debate do not follow
this model but have instead adopted an approach fundamentally opposed to
the sociological one of the left-wing logical empiricists. This conclusion does
not contradict Reisch’s depoliticization thesis, however. Rather, it confirms
his thesis by showing how far the discourse of philosophy and history of science
has actually drifted away from its origins in logical empiricism. And it also
confirms Sarah Richardson’s verdict that “L[eft] V[ienna] C[ircle] scholarship
carries forward a narrow framing of ‘philosophy of science’ ” and tends to
marginalize other models of politically engaged scholarship [Richardson 2009b,
170, 172].
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disciplinary history, and feminist philosophy of science, Studies in History
and Philosophy of Science Part A, 40(2), 167–174, doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.
2009.03.010.
Uebel, Thomas [2004], Carnap, the Left Vienna Circle, and neopositivist
antimetaphysics, in: Carnap Brought Home: The View from Jena, edited
by S. Awodey & C. Klein, Chicago: Open Court, 247–277.
—— [1927], Über die Asymmetrie der Kausalität und die Einsinnigkeit der
Zeit, Naturwissenschaften, 15(12), 280–286, doi: 10.1007/BF01506258.
Hans-Joachim Dahms
Institut Wiener Kreis, Universität Wien (Austria)
Abstract: 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.
1 Introduction1
Let me start this paper by explaining its title. Its presupposition is that unified
science and logical empiricism had a definite aim. But did unified science have
a mission at all? And if so, what was it? Was its aim something that was
actually possible to accomplish at a given time? Or was it something that is
a permanent task?
As a relatively easy basis upon which the first question can be answered,
I will focus on the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (IEUS), a
project that was initiated at the 1935 Paris Congress for Unified Science. From
this point of view, the answer to the first question is yes—at least in the sense
that its most important promoter and later on chief editor, Otto Neurath, had
a sense of such a mission, namely to achieve in his own time what the promoters
of the Grande Encyclopédie of the Enlightenment, Diderot and d’Alembert,
had achieved in theirs. It would be interesting to know when and how Neurath
conceived the idea of such an ambitious task, and what the other editors and
contributors of the IEUS thought of it.
And then of course we have to look at what became of the project: what
was the original scope of its ambition, and how much of it was achieved over
the following decades? From this point of view, my answer to the question
“Mission accomplished?” will be a largely negative one: very little of the
original plan was carried out. Of course, shortly after the publication began,
the war started, and some envisaged contributors found themselves with other
duties and/or priorities. But perhaps there were some intrinsic impediments
to the success of the project as well.
1. I have tried to preserve the lively style of the oral presentation delivered in
Cerisy, and have added toward the end some short remarks on the current political
developments (such as Brexit in the UK, and the election of Trump) of 2016, when
the article was submitted for publication. I thank the English translator for the very
valuable help in transforming my text into readable English
Unified Science at the 1935 Paris Congress and Afterwards 291
So, if the mission was not accomplished, then perhaps the movement of
unified science and its logical empiricism—taken as a whole—succeeded in
achieving what the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science did not.
It is of course difficult to answer this rather global question, and one has
to look for a suitable starting point from which to tackle it. I will take
as my starting point a definitively negative answer that was being given
already between the first and second Paris Congresses of 1935 and 1937
respectively—that of the exiled Frankfurt School (including thinkers such as
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno), who, up until that point, had
been on surprisingly friendly terms with the logical empiricists [Dahms 1994a,
21–68]. I will list the most important points of criticism formulated at the
time 2 and discuss some of them, paying special attention to the peculiar
methodological approach chosen by the critical theorists. My conclusion will
then be that their criticism was largely unjustified, and that logical empiricism
fared better as a force of progressive thinking than its most outspoken critics
thought it would. In other words, logical empiricism did indeed succeed in an
important part of its mission.
2. There was a kind of revival of some of the arguments in the so-called positivism
dispute of the 1960s in German sociology [see Dahms 1994a].
292 Hans-Joachim Dahms
A copy of this letter is indeed preserved in the Einstein papers, and Neurath
used it more than once (not only in his correspondence with Morris, but also,
for instance, with UCP), and, I am sure, brought it out whenever he was trying
to convince people of the importance and usefulness of the project.
The plan for a people’s library need not detain us here—some ideas were
formulated, some possible contributors named, but nothing came of it, in part
as a consequence of the economic crisis of the early twenties in Central Europe;
but also because Einstein declined to become editor for the overall project.
Later on, in 1928 the plan was taken up again. And here it might be
useful to say a little about the aims and structure of that project, now called a
reading dictionary (Leselexikon [for details see Dahms 2005, 108])—that is, an
encyclopedia not ordered alphabetically (like the French Encyclopédie), but
designed as a series of short pamphlets on special subjects to be read from
beginning to end, but with a register of all of them so as to serve also as a
dictionary in the usual sense. The overall aim was to give a general overview
of the contemporary state of knowledge in all scientific disciplines. Again the
parallel to the Grande Encyclopédie is drawn, which means that Neurath had
absorbed the idea from Einstein’s letter of a link to that tradition, into his own
thinking. Although the Leselexikon should be “free from all politics” in the
narrower sense, it should be empiricist and anti-metaphysical, unlike some of
the leading dictionaries of this time such as, in Germany, the Catholic Herder’s
Lexikon, or “the Brockhaus and Meyers Lexikons, with their nationalist and
reactionary tendencies” [Dahms 2005, 110].
The contents list of the Leselexikon was as follows:
4. It was from this hill that Prince Eugen of Savoy led his army to drive back the
Turks who had besieged Vienna.
294 Hans-Joachim Dahms
The remark about the different reading public is certainly true. But it seems
that Morris was in addition skeptical about the Enlightenment ambitions of the
project. So it seems that, from the start, there were some minor divergences
concerning the envisaged aims and functions of the IEUS, even among its
editors. Nevertheless one might ask whether what was achieved in the end
fulfilled Neurath’s grander (or Morris’s more modest) ambitions. This is the
question I will try to answer now.
I start with the overall plan with which the IEUS began. According to
Morris’s report [Morris 1969], four large sections were planned:
Quite a list! I will make only some brief remarks on the first two
items. Logical empiricism was indeed largely unhistorical, and sometimes anti-
historical. We need only think of the Programmschrift of the Vienna Circle,
Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis. There we read that the
members of the circle are glad to remove “the metaphysical and theological
debris of millennia” [Stadler & Uebel 2012, 89] and set out into a bright new
empiricist and anti-metaphysical future. As if the philosophical tradition was
comprised mostly of rubble! I doubt that any of them read a single page
of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (unlike the Polish logicians, of course). But this
Viennese anti-historical attitude is something that we find in contemporary
Middle-Europe in many progressive circles, both inside and outside philosophy.
I find especially telling the juxtapositions in the famous design journals Das
neue Frankfurt and Die Form, where photographs of good modern designs, say
of furniture and everyday utilities, are shown alongside counterparts loaded
with outdated superfluous and ugly ornaments. The latter are not criticized
or commented upon, they are simply crossed out with big red lines!
Likewise for the lack of ethics and morals! It has always been an
astonishing fact to me that philosophically brave empiricists and politically
brave socialists such as Carnap, Frank, Neurath, Zilsel, and others adhered
to a noncognitivist meta-ethics (whether in the Carnap-Ayer-Stevenson form
of emotivism or in the less well-known Dubislav-Reichenbach-fashion of
prescriptivism [Reichenbach 1951, 276 ff.]) at a time when not only democracy,
but humankind as a whole was in danger [Dahms 1994b, 342–346]. It is
worrying in this respect that the logical empiricists were absent—almost
demonstratively so—in the numerous sections on the Crisis of Democracy at
the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy in Prague in 1934 [Dahms
2016, 150–151], one year after the Nazi “seizure of power”. It was probably
their non-cognitivism that hindered them from engagement in these themes.
But that can only serve as a factual explanation. In my opinion it is logically
at the same time a sort of reductio ad absurdum of their (noncognitivist) meta-
ethical standpoint.
This also, it must be added, goes back to a time when logical empiricism
as such did not exist at all. Reichenbach, who advocated it in The Rise of
Scientific Philosophy [Reichenbach 1951], had already, at the beginning of the
First World War, written an angry open letter (together with Walter Benjamin,
incidentally) to a leader of the German youth movement, Gustav Wyneken:
300 Hans-Joachim Dahms
But whatever the roots of the anti-historical and noncognitivist attitude of the
logical empiricists may be, their standpoint was and is wrong in these respects.
But what about the distinction between essence and appearance, which
marked the difference between the logical empiricists’ and the critical theorists’
conceptions of experience? I concentrate on these aspects because the way in
which Horkheimer and his school discuss these problems is very interesting;
but they completely fail in their attempt to show that a logical empiricist
attitude is unable to tackle the pressing problems of their time.
Horkheimer singles out three historical examples for the test of logical
empiricism:
What these examples have in common is that they put logical empiricism
to the test in especially precarious, dangerous, and deadly circumstances. Otto
Neurath would have approved of such an approach, given his major unfinished
manuscript on “Prejudice and Prosecution”. Except that his evaluation of the
test was (in one case) and would have been (in the other cases, I am sure) very
different.
Take the first example, vivisection: here Horkheimer describes a histori-
cally testified visit of an organized group of people against the vivisection of
animals to a biological institute. The group was deceived by the director of
the institute about the pain the animals had to bear because, as Horkheimer
cites from the report of that visit, “a simple transection of their vocal cords
had deprived the animals of the ability to give voice to their suffering”. He
continues with the following commentary:
But this example tells us nothing about the value or non-value of empiricism.
Both the voices of the animals and the removal of their means of expressing
their pain are empirical occurrences. As Neurath remarked in his long and
Unified Science at the 1935 Paris Congress and Afterwards 301
8. Pombo [Pombo 2011] and especially Barck [Barck 2011]; the authors and editors
of that volume suggest that they made this “trouvaille” recently, although it was
already described and discussed at some length in [Dahms 1994a, 166—173].
302 Hans-Joachim Dahms
Bibliography
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Adresses des auteurs
Philippe de Rouilhan
Hans-Joachim Dahms
IHPST
Institut Wiener Kreis CNRS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Universität Wien UMR 8590
Spitalgasse 2–4 13, rue du Four
1090 Wien – Austria 75006 Paris – France
hans-joachim.dahms@univie.ac.at
rouilhan@orange.fr
Jan Woleński
Mickiewicza 26
34-200 Such Beskidzka – Poland
jan.wolenski@uj.edu.pl
Gereon Wolters
Fachbereich Philosophie
Universität Konstanz
FB Philosophie, Fach D 15
D-78457 Konstanz – Deutschland
gereon.wolters@uni-konstanz.de
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