This article is intended as a contribution to the current debates about the relationship between politics and the philosophy of science in the Vienna Circle. I reconsider this issue by shifting the focus from philosophy of science as theory to philosophy of science as practice. From this perspective I take as a starting point the Vienna Circle's scientific world-conception and emphasize its practical nature: I reinterpret its tenets as a set of recommendations that express the particular epistemological attitude in which both the Vienna Circle's (doing) philosophy of science and its political engagement were rooted. Regarding politics, and referring to new primary sources, I reconstruct how the scientific world-conception placed the Vienna Circle within a neoliberal-socialist political network that pursued concrete political aims. In light of my reconstruction I shall argue that neither the Vienna Circle's alleged ethical noncognitivism nor its alleged adhesion to the Weberian ideal of a value-free science rules out the possibility of ascribing to the Vienna Circle a politically engaged philosophy of science: the case of the Vienna Circle shows how philosophy of science, as a public activity, can itself become a form of political engagement, even without necessarily entailing a theory of objective values.
...More
Book
Friedman, Michael;
Creath, Richard;
(2007)
The Cambridge Companion to Carnap
(/isis/citation/CBB000950228/)
Article
Richardson, Sarah S.;
(2009)
The Left Vienna Circle, Part 1. Carnap, Neurath, and the Left Vienna Circle Thesis
(/isis/citation/CBB000931165/)
Article
Richardson, Sarah S.;
(2009)
The Left Vienna Circle, Part 2. The Left Vienna Circle, Disciplinary History, and Feminist Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000932497/)
Book
Piero Martinetti;
Luca Natali;
(2018)
Le carte di Piero Martinetti
(/isis/citation/CBB915909435/)
Article
Sobolev, V. S.;
(2012)
“To assist scientific investigations...” (from the History of the Moscow Society for the Study and Advancement of the History of Science)
(/isis/citation/CBB001211414/)
Article
Uebel, Thomas;
(2008)
Writing a Revolution: On the Production and Early Reception of the Vienna Circle's Manifesto
(/isis/citation/CBB000831775/)
Thesis
Vossoughian, Nader;
(2004)
Facts and Artifacts: Otto Neurath and the Social Science of Socialization
(/isis/citation/CBB001560807/)
Article
Thomas Uebel;
(2020)
Intersubjective Accountability: Politics and Philosophy in the Left Vienna Circle
(/isis/citation/CBB294249168/)
Article
Francesco Luzzini;
(2018)
Bibliographical Distortions, Distortive Habits: Contextualizing Italian Publications in the History of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB924784770/)
Article
Francesco Luzzini;
(2019)
Distorsioni bibliografiche e storture etiche. Le pubblicazioni di storia della scienza nel contesto italiano
(/isis/citation/CBB996363028/)
Book
Stadler, Friedrich;
(2003)
Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism: Re-evaluation and Future Perspectives
(/isis/citation/CBB000641744/)
Article
Kennedy, Terence;
(2011)
From Paradigms to Paideia: Thomas S. Kuhn and Michael Polanyi in Conversation
(/isis/citation/CBB001034404/)
Book
Gaynesford, Maximilian de;
(2006)
Hilary Putnam
(/isis/citation/CBB000701271/)
Article
Irema, Nazim;
(2011)
Bergson and Politics: Ottoman-Turkish Encounters with Innovation
(/isis/citation/CBB001212429/)
Article
Young, Cristobal;
(2009)
The Emergence of Sociology from Political Economy in the United States: 1890 to 1940
(/isis/citation/CBB000932847/)
Article
Kraft, Alison;
Alberti, Samuel J. M. M.;
(2003)
“Equal Though Different”: Laboratories, Museums and the Institutional Development of Biology in Late-Victorian Northern England
(/isis/citation/CBB000340809/)
Book
Jeremy Shearmur;
Geoffrey Stokes;
(2016)
The Cambridge Companion to Popper
(/isis/citation/CBB403187266/)
Article
Rafael Huertas;
(2019)
Psychiatrists and mental health activism during the final phase of the Franco regime and the democratic transition
(/isis/citation/CBB717433027/)
Article
Laurenson, Helen;
Swartz, Sally;
(2011)
The Professionalization of Psychology within the Apartheid State 1948--1978
(/isis/citation/CBB001220666/)
Article
Freitas Campos, Regina Helena de;
(2006)
Scientific Psychology in Brazil in the 20th Century: The Dialogue with European Researchers, a Look at Brazilian Culture and a Successful Process of Professionalization
(/isis/citation/CBB001023628/)
Be the first to comment!