Moritz Schlick
Encyclopedia
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick (April 14, 1882 – June 22, 1936) was a German
philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism
and the Vienna Circle
.
to a wealthy family, his father was Ernst Albert Schlick and his mother was Agnes Arndt. He studied physics
at Heidelberg
, Lausanne
, and, ultimately, the University of Berlin under Max Planck
. In 1904, he completed his dissertation essay, "Über die Reflexion des Lichts in einer inhomogenen Schicht" ("On the Reflection of Light in a Non-Homogeneous Medium"). In 1908, he published Lebensweisheit ("The Wisdom of Life"), a slim volume about eudaemonism, the theory that happiness is the highest ethical pursuit. His habilitation essay, "Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik" ("The Nature of Truth According to Modern Logic
"), was published in 1910 . Several essays about aesthetics
followed, whereupon Schlick turned his attention to problems of epistemology, the philosophy of science
, and more general questions about science
. In this last category, Schlick distinguished himself by publishing a paper in 1915 about Einstein
's special theory of relativity, a topic only ten years old. He also published Raum und Zeit in der gegenwärtigen Physik ("Space and Time in Modern Physics"), a more systematic treatment of post-Newtonian physics.
after two unsatisfying appointments in Rostock
and Kiel
. Schlick displayed an unusual success in organizing talented individuals in the philosophical and scientific spheres. In that same year of 1922 two events occurred that shaped the remainder of Schlick's life. First, a group of philosophers and scientists (including but not limited to Rudolf Carnap
, Herbert Feigl
, Kurt Gödel
, Hans Hahn
, Otto Neurath
, and Friedrich Waismann
) suggested to Schlick that they conduct regular meetings to discuss science and philosophy. They initially called themselves the Ernst Mach
Association, but forever after they have been known as the Vienna Circle
. The second great event of 1922 was the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein
's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
, a work of terse, lapidary brilliance that advanced, among other things, a logical theory of symbol
ism and a "picture" or "model" theory of language. Schlick and his group were overwhelmed by the work: they made it a topic for discussion at nearly every meeting. Schlick himself contacted Wittgenstein in 1924 and extolled the virtues of Wittgenstein's book vis-a-vis his immediate circle. Eventually Wittgenstein agreed to meet with Schlick and Waismann to discuss the Tractatus and other ideas. Through Schlick's influence, Wittgenstein was encouraged to consider a return to philosophy after some ten years away from the field. It is partly to Schlick's credit that Wittgenstein began to pen the reflections that make up large parts of Philosophical Investigations
. However, Wittgenstein came to feel that the circle chose to ignore transcendental assertions on his part, which he believed were essential to acknowledge, and that they would only consider that which confirmed their logical positivist agenda. This eventually became the prime reason that he refused to attend further meetings. Despite this, Schlick and Waismann's discussions with Wittgenstein continued until the latter felt that germinal ideas had been used without permission in an essay by Carnap. Wittgenstein continued discussions in letters to Schlick, but his formal association with the Vienna Circle ended in 1932.
in Germany and Austria, many of the Vienna Circle's members left for America and the United Kingdom. Schlick, however, stayed on at the University of Vienna. When visited by Herbert Feigl in 1935, he expressed dismay at events in Germany. On June 22, 1936, Schlick was ascending the steps of the University for a class when he was confronted by a former student, Johann Nelböck
, who killed Schlick with a pistol. Nelbock claimed that Schlick's philosophy had "interfered with his moral restraint" - by which he probably meant that under the encouragement of Schlick's philosophy he had indulged himself homosexually, and in a paranoid displacement blamed Schlick for his "defilement". In another version of the events, Nelböck was motivated by jealousy over his failed attachment to a female student, leading to a paranoid delusion about Schlick as his rival and persecutor. Nelböck was tried and sentenced, but the event became a distorted cause célèbre around which crystallized the growing nationalist and anti-Jewish sentiments in the city. (The fact that Schlick was not actually Jewish did not seem to matter to propagandists capitalizing on the crime.) Nelböck was paroled after serving 2 years of a 10 year sentence & shortly afterward became a member of the Austrian Nazi Party after the Anschluss
.
, in their excellent introduction to "General Theory of Knowledge," have written,
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
and the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...
.
Early life and works
Schlick was born in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to a wealthy family, his father was Ernst Albert Schlick and his mother was Agnes Arndt. He studied physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, and, ultimately, the University of Berlin under Max Planck
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...
. In 1904, he completed his dissertation essay, "Über die Reflexion des Lichts in einer inhomogenen Schicht" ("On the Reflection of Light in a Non-Homogeneous Medium"). In 1908, he published Lebensweisheit ("The Wisdom of Life"), a slim volume about eudaemonism, the theory that happiness is the highest ethical pursuit. His habilitation essay, "Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik" ("The Nature of Truth According to Modern Logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
"), was published in 1910 . Several essays about aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
followed, whereupon Schlick turned his attention to problems of epistemology, the philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, and more general questions about science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. In this last category, Schlick distinguished himself by publishing a paper in 1915 about Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's special theory of relativity, a topic only ten years old. He also published Raum und Zeit in der gegenwärtigen Physik ("Space and Time in Modern Physics"), a more systematic treatment of post-Newtonian physics.
The Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein
In 1922, Schlick became a professor in the philosophy of inductive sciences at the University of ViennaUniversity of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
after two unsatisfying appointments in Rostock
Rostock
Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...
and Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
. Schlick displayed an unusual success in organizing talented individuals in the philosophical and scientific spheres. In that same year of 1922 two events occurred that shaped the remainder of Schlick's life. First, a group of philosophers and scientists (including but not limited to Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap was an influential German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism....
, Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl
Herbert Feigl was an Austrian philosopher and a member of the Vienna Circle.-Biography:The son of a weaver, Feigl was born in Reichenberg , Bohemia, and matriculated at the University of Vienna in 1922...
, Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
, Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn
Hans Hahn was an Austrian mathematician who made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory.-Biography:...
, Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...
, and Friedrich Waismann
Friedrich Waismann
Friedrich Waismann was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle and one of the key theorists in logical positivism.-Birth & Early Interest in Philosophy:...
) suggested to Schlick that they conduct regular meetings to discuss science and philosophy. They initially called themselves the Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves...
Association, but forever after they have been known as the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...
. The second great event of 1922 was the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. It was an ambitious project: to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science...
, a work of terse, lapidary brilliance that advanced, among other things, a logical theory of symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ism and a "picture" or "model" theory of language. Schlick and his group were overwhelmed by the work: they made it a topic for discussion at nearly every meeting. Schlick himself contacted Wittgenstein in 1924 and extolled the virtues of Wittgenstein's book vis-a-vis his immediate circle. Eventually Wittgenstein agreed to meet with Schlick and Waismann to discuss the Tractatus and other ideas. Through Schlick's influence, Wittgenstein was encouraged to consider a return to philosophy after some ten years away from the field. It is partly to Schlick's credit that Wittgenstein began to pen the reflections that make up large parts of Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Investigations is, along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the most influential works by the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein...
. However, Wittgenstein came to feel that the circle chose to ignore transcendental assertions on his part, which he believed were essential to acknowledge, and that they would only consider that which confirmed their logical positivist agenda. This eventually became the prime reason that he refused to attend further meetings. Despite this, Schlick and Waismann's discussions with Wittgenstein continued until the latter felt that germinal ideas had been used without permission in an essay by Carnap. Wittgenstein continued discussions in letters to Schlick, but his formal association with the Vienna Circle ended in 1932.
General Theory of Knowledge and later works
Schlick had worked on his Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (General Theory of Knowledge) between 1918 and 1925, and, though later developments in his philosophy were to make various contentions of his epistemology untenable, the General Theory is perhaps his greatest work in its acute reasoning against synthetic a priori knowledge. This critique of synthetic a priori knowledge argues that the only truths which are self-evident to reason are statements which are true as a matter of definition, such as the statements of formal logic and mathematics. The truth of all other statements must be evaluated with reference to empirical evidence. If a statement is proposed which is not a matter of definition, and not capable of being confirmed or falsified by evidence, that statement is "metaphysical", which is synonymous with "meaningless", or "nonsense". This is the principle upon which members of the Vienna Circle were most clearly in agreement - with each other, as well as with Wittgenstein.Problems of Ethics
Between 1926 and 1930, Schlick labored to finish Fragen der Ethik (Problems of Ethics), in which he surprised some of his fellow Circlists by including ethics as a viable branch of philosophy. In his 1932-33 contribution to ErkenntnisIII, "Positivism and Realism", Schlick offered one of the most illuminating definitions of positivism as every view "which denies the possibility of metaphysics" (Schlick [1932-1933], p. 260). Accordingly he defined metaphysics as the doctrine of “true being”, “thing in itself” or “transcendental being”, a doctrine which obviously "presupposes that a non-true, lesser or apparent being stands opposed to it"(Ibid). Therefore in this work he bases the positivism on a kind of epistemology which holds that the only true beings are givens or constituents of experience. Also during this time, the Vienna Circle published The Scientific View of the World: The Vienna Circle as a homage to Schlick. Its strong anti-metaphysical stance crystallized the viewpoint of the group.Comment on Wittgenstein's Tractatus
Carnap, in his book Logical Syntax of Language, included a comment by Schlick on Wittgenstein 's Tractatus.Rise of National Socialism and assassination
With the rise of the NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
in Germany and Austria, many of the Vienna Circle's members left for America and the United Kingdom. Schlick, however, stayed on at the University of Vienna. When visited by Herbert Feigl in 1935, he expressed dismay at events in Germany. On June 22, 1936, Schlick was ascending the steps of the University for a class when he was confronted by a former student, Johann Nelböck
Johann Nelböck
Dr Johann Nelböck was an Austrian former student of Moritz Schlick, the founder of the group of philosophers and scientists known as the Vienna Circle....
, who killed Schlick with a pistol. Nelbock claimed that Schlick's philosophy had "interfered with his moral restraint" - by which he probably meant that under the encouragement of Schlick's philosophy he had indulged himself homosexually, and in a paranoid displacement blamed Schlick for his "defilement". In another version of the events, Nelböck was motivated by jealousy over his failed attachment to a female student, leading to a paranoid delusion about Schlick as his rival and persecutor. Nelböck was tried and sentenced, but the event became a distorted cause célèbre around which crystallized the growing nationalist and anti-Jewish sentiments in the city. (The fact that Schlick was not actually Jewish did not seem to matter to propagandists capitalizing on the crime.) Nelböck was paroled after serving 2 years of a 10 year sentence & shortly afterward became a member of the Austrian Nazi Party after the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
.
Legacy
Schlick's enduring contribution to the world of philosophy is as the fount of logical positivism. His humanity, good will, gentleness, and especially his encouragement have been documented by many of his peers. Herbert Feigl and Albert BlumbergAlbert Blumberg
Dr. Albert E. Blumberg was an American philosopher and political activist. He was an official of the Communist Party for several years before joining the Democratic Party as a district leader.-Early life:...
, in their excellent introduction to "General Theory of Knowledge," have written,