Herbert Feigl Research Articles

Methodological Behaviorism: Historical Origins of a Problematic Concept (1923-1973).

"Methodological behaviorism" is a term that frequently appears in the behavioristic literature, but one accompanied by considerable semantic confusion: the term is used to denote very different theoretical positions and the authors classified as methodological behaviorists are many and various. In order to understand the polysemic character of this term, we propose a historical analysis of its origins and development in the literature from the 50 years following its first appearance in 1923. The results reveal that it has been used by authors as diverse as Karl Lashley, B. F. Skinner, Herbert Feigl, and Gustav Bergmann. Moreover, it has been defined in terms of two central features (one a methodological assumption and the other a metaphysical one) and used to demarcate positive and negative forms of behaviorism, depending on how each author has understood those features and forms. We conclude that the term's polysemic character and different uses can be traced back to its roots in the 1920s, which helps us to understand the semantic confusion in the contemporary literature.

“Logical Positivism”—“Logical Empiricism”: What's in a Name?

Do the terms “logical positivism” and “logical empiricism” mark a philosophically real and signiacant distinction? There is, of course, no doubt that the arst term designates the group of philosophers known as the Vienna Circle, headed by Moritz Schlick and including Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Friedrich Waismann and others. What is debatable, however, is whether the name “logical positivism” correctly distinguishes their doctrines from related ones called “logical empiricism” that emerged from the Berlin Society for Scientiac Philosophy around Hans Reichenbach which included Walter Dubislav, Kurt Grelling, Kurt Lewin and a young Carl Gustav Hempel. The person who called the co-referentiality of the two terms into question was Reichenbach himself. He did so in two publications of the second half of the 1930s—in an article in Journal of Philosophy (1936) and in his Experience and Prediction (1938)—in order to alert readers to important differences between his own philosophy and that of the Vienna Circle. Reichenbach’s distinction was taken up by his former student Wesley Salmon. Not only did Salmon restate it, but he also asserted, categorically and very much in Reichenbach’s spirit, that “our chief inheritance from logical positivism” is “logical empiricism” ([1985] 2005, p. 7). The story of this inheritance is the story of “twentieth-century scientiac philosophy”:

Occasions for an Empirical History of Philosophy of Science: American Philosophers of Science at Work in the 1950s and 1960s

The text- and argument-focused histories of philosophy that we have are mainly interested in teasing out the details of the positions taken on philosophical issues by individual philosophers. But this is a long way from having a historical explanation of the larger-scale trajectory of philosophical development. An empirical history of philosophy, however, examines the institutionalized places and venues for philosophical work that provide a rich, shared structure for the promotion of particular sorts of work. Mid-twentieth-century philosophers of science such as Herbert Feigl and Philipp Frank knew what they were doing—they were creating the space to promote certain sorts of work in venues such as the Institute for the Unity of Science and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and, ultimately, in publication venues such as Daedalus and the Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science. Here the engine of progress is the institution-building activity of committed philosophers making a space within th...

Invariance, Structure, Measurement – Eino Kaila and the History of Logical Empiricism

AbstractEino Kaila's thought occupies a curious position within the logical empiricist movement. Along with Hans Reichenbach, Herbert Feigl, and the early Moritz Schlick, Kaila advocates a realist approach towards science and the project of a “scientific world conception”. This realist approach was chiefly directed at both Kantianism and Poincaréan conventionalism. The case in point was the theory of measurement. According to Kaila, the foundations of physical reality are characterized by the existence of invariant systems of relations, which he called structures. In a certain sense, these invariant structures, he maintained, are constituted in the act of measuring. By “constitution”, however, Kaila meant neither the dependency of the objects of measurement on a priori concepts (or Kantian categories) nor their being effected by conventional stipulations in a Poincaréan sense. He held that invariant structures are, quite literally, real: they exist prior to and independently of our theoretical capacity. By executing measurements, invariant structures are detected and objectively determinable by laws of nature.

Laying the cornerstone of construct validity theory: Herbert Feigl’s influence on early specifications

Although the theoretical foundations of construct validity theory have been fairly well described, there remains equivocation over what should properly be taken to be its philosophical underpinnings, with some characterizing it as an essentially positivist enterprise, others identifying a realist philosophy underlying the theory, and others still characterizing its foundations as containing elements of both positivist and realist thinking. This paper summarizes recent work representing each of these three different stances on the philosophical foundations of construct validity theory. Explicit connections are drawn between the work of Herbert Feigl—who pioneered a philosophy of science whose roots lay in logical positivism, but which contained notably realist overtones—and early specifications of construct validity theory. Finally, an appeal is made for a realist interpretation of construct validity theory based both on the connections between early articulations of the theory and key Feiglian ideas and also on Cronbach and Meehl’s later reflections on the origins of their influential work.

Exploring the Brain, Looking for Thoughts: On Asimov's Second Fantastic Voyage

The aim of this paper is to investigate various concerns which appear in Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. I will disregard his first voyage inside a human body in Fantastic Voyage I, which the author disavows as not being his own work. In contrast, the second voyage is intricate, suggesting problems drawn from a variety of sources. In a nutshell, Asimov's explorers enter the body of a comatose man in order to read his thoughts. The story can be related both to philosophical thought-experiments, such as those of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and of Herbert Feigl, as well as to personal anxieties peculiar to Asimov.

Choosing the realist framework

There has been an empiricist tradition in the core of Logical Positivism/Empiricism, starting with Moritz Schlick and ending in Herbert Feigl (via Hans Reichenbach), according to which the world of empiricism need not be a barren place devoid of all the explanatory entities posited by scientific theories. The aim of this paper is to articulate this tradition and to explore ways in which its key elements can find a place in the contemporary debate over scientific realism. It presents a way empiricism can go for scientific realism without metaphysical anxiety, by developing an indispensability argument for the adoption of the realist framework. This argument, unlike current realist arguments, has a pragmatic ring to it: there is no ultimate argument for the adoption of the realist framework.

VIRTUAL REPATRIATION: THE PITTSBURGH–KONSTANZ ARCHIVAL PARTNERSHIP

During the 1920s and 1930s, a group of German and Austrian thinkers pioneered an approach to philosophy that shaped much of the discipline's subsequent development. These thinkers were “inspired by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revolutions in logic, mathematics and mathematical physics” and “aimed to create a similarly revolutionary scientific philosophy purged of the endless controversies”1 that had traditionally occupied philosophers. The result was a style of doing philosophy known as logical positivism. Berlin and Vienna were its main centers. The proponents of logical positivism included, among others, Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Carl Carl Hempel, and Hans Reichenbach. The logical . . .

Ockham's Theory of Natural Signification

289 Franciscan Studies 63 (2005) OCKHAM’S THEORY OF NATURAL SIGNIFICATION I. Ockham’s Ontology William of Ockham’s1 nominalist2 ontology is undoubtedly his most significant contribution to the history of philosophy. Yet, this ontology 1 William of Ockham (also Occam; ca. 1285-ca. 1349), a Franciscan theologian born near London, is most famous for the nominalist doctrine that universals are names for singular things in the world, and for the term “Ockham’s Razor,” which actually refers to an Aristotelian doctrine (that simpler explanations are preferable to more complicated explanations or, as Ockham puts it, that assumptions should not be multiplied without necessity) used by many medieval philosophers prior to Ockham. Primary sources used in this article are Guillielmi de Ockham, Opera Phiosophica et Theologica, eds. Gedeon Gál, Stephen Brown, et al. (St. Bonaventure: The Franciscan Institute, 1967-1985). Specific works include: Expositio in librum Perihermeneias Aristotelis (PH), OPIII; Reportatio (books II-IV of Ockham’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences), OTV-VIII; and Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum (Ordinatio), OTIV, Girard Etzkorn and Francis Kelly, eds. (St. Bonaventure University, 1979). I also use Summa Logicae, ed. Philotheus Boehner (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1951). Translations and dual language texts include: Ockham’s Theory of Terms: Part I of the Summa Logicae, trans. and intro. Michael J. Loux (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame Press, 1974) (including “The Ontology of William of Ockham,” 1-22 and “Ockham on Generality,” 23-46); Quodlibetal Questions, vol.1, 1-4, trans. Alfred J. Freddoso and Francis E. Kelley (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Philosophical Writings: A Selection/ William of Ockham (PW), trans. Philotheus Boehner, tr. rev. Stephen F. Brown. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990); and Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals: Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns Scotus, Ockham, trans. and ed. by Paul Vincent Spade (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). In some cases, I have relied on translations cited in secondary sources; however, in many cases, I have either amended extant translations or provided my own translations. 2 W.V.O. Quine describes the position of nominalism in this way: denying the existence of abstract entities, the nominalist would say “that there is no such thing as appendicitis ,” because the word is not a name of any entity in its own right, and . . . it is a noun at all only because of a regrettable strain of realism which pervades our own particular language . . . he will say that there is not merely no such thing as a unicorn but also no such thing as unicorn – no abstract entity, so-called property, such as this word has been said to designate. He keeps the word “unicorn” merely as a contextually meaningful word like “up” – a syncategorematic expression which names nothing, abstract or concrete (W.V.O. Quine, “Designation and Existence,” 44-51, in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars, eds. (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1949), 46-7. JOSHUA RAYMAN 290 posits a dualism wholly incompatible with his mature theory of reference . In denying the mind-independent existence of universals and thereby asserting a real difference between universal thought and singular things, he effaces the ontological ground of mental reference to extramental things, namely, adequation or similarity. But if Ockham retains a traditional view of reference as similitude, as Claude Panaccio argues3 then Ockham’s transformed ontology can coexist with his mechanism of reference solely on the level of intramental reference, the reference of mental concepts to other concepts or to themselves; there can be no extramental reference. Although Panaccio does not consider Ockham’s application of similitude to a nominalist ontology problematic , it is unclear not only how there can be reference under these ontological conditions, but what Ockham’s mechanism of reference is. In this paper, I examine the descriptive and philosophical failure of previous accounts of Ockham’s theory of reference, correct these accounts, and show that Ockham’s own theory of reference fails to solve the problem created by his nominalist ontology. Ockham’s “anti-realism,” his elimination of extramental universals,4 is much more problematic for his theory of reference than his program of ontological reductionism. Paul Vincent Spade describes his antiuniversalism and his ontological reductionism...

Conscious experience, reduction and identity: many explanatory gaps, one solution

This paper considers the so‐called explanatory gap between brain activity and conscious experience. A number of different, though closely related, explanatory gaps are distinguished and a monistic account of conscious experience, a version of Herbert Feigl's “dual‐access theory,” is advocated as a solution to the problems they are taken to pose for physicalist accounts of mind. Although dual‐access theory is a version of the mind‐body identity thesis, it in no way “eliminates” conscious experience; rather, it provides a parsimonious and explanatorily fruitful theory of the consciousness‐body relation which faithfully preserves the nature of conscious experience while going quite far in “bridging” the various explanatory gaps distinguished below.

Reappraising Positivism and Education: The Arguments of Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl

This paper documents some of the `bad press' that Positivism has received inscience education; it delineates the varied, and sometimes contradictory, waysin which educationalists characterize positivism; it indicates that Constructivismshares the same philosophical commitments as the instrumentalist tradition inpositivism; and it suggests that there is considerable educational gain in reconsideringthe philosophical and educational commitments of the non-instrumentalist, logicalempiricist, tradition in positivism. The paper proceeds by examining and elaboratingupon two educational papers of Vienna Circle members Philipp Frank and HerbertFeigl. It is argued that a number of the philosophical and educational `principles' ofthese foundational positivists are of value to educators facing a worldwide drift fromnatural sciences in schools and universities, and an increasingly strident anti-sciencelobby in universities and society. There are at least some positivist babies that shouldnot be thrown out with the educational bathwater.

Rescuing Two Positivist “Babies” from the Educational Bathwater

This situation represents a dramatic turn in philosophical and educational fashion. In the 1920s, adherents of the newly formulated positivism, or the “Scientific Conception of the World,” were social and educational progressives in a reactionary central-European milieu. In the 1950s and 1960s the logical empiricist variant of positivism dominated philosophy of science and monopolized the “nature of science” chapters of science textbooks. Most serious educational researchers measured their work against positivist norms of rigor, clarity, objectivity, repeatability, and so on. The change in intellectual fashion was dramatic: from comfortable bath to defenestration in just the time it took to say “Thomas Kuhn.” But how well based is the educational rejection of positivism? What can be rescued from the bathwater? This paper will answer the question by going back to the sources and examining the philosophical and educational views of two of the founding Vienna Circle positivists — Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl — and arguing that they at least should be rescued from the bathwater; and further that most of their orientation to science, philosophy and education should be rescued along with them. Both Frank and Feigl followed in the scientific and philosophical footsteps of Ernst Mach, who also had deep and robust educational views.

Max Black. Introduction. A reprint of XVI 298(1). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 1–13. - Alice Ambrose. The problem of linguistic inadequacy. A reprint of XVI 298(2). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 14–35. - A. J. Ayer. Basic

Max Black. Introduction. A reprint of XVI 298(1). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 1–13. - Alice Ambrose. The problem of linguistic inadequacy. A reprint of XVI 298(2). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 14–35. - A. J. Ayer. Basic propositions. A reprint of XVI 299(1). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 57–70. - Roderick M. Chisholm. The theory of appearing. A reprint of XVI 299(2). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 97–112. - Herbert Feigl. De principiis non disputandum...? On the meaning and the limits of justification. A reprint of XVI 299(3). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 113–147. - Morris Lazerowitz. Substratum. A reprint of XVI 299(4). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 166–182. - C. Lewy. Entailment and necessary propositions. A reprint of XVI 299(5). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 183–197. - Norman Malcolm. The verification argument. A reprint of XVI 300(1). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 229–279. - Paul Marhenke. Phenomenalism. A reprint of XVI 300(2). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 280–301. - Gilbert Ryle. “If,” “so,” and “because.” A reprint of XVI 300(3). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 302–318. - Frederick L. Will. Generalization and evidence. A reprint of XVI 300(4). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 359–386. - John Wisdom. A note on probability. A reprint of XVI 301(1). Philosophical analysis, A collection of essays, edited by Max Black, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963, pp. 387–393. - Volume 31 Issue 4

Bibliography of the writings of herbert feigl

Bibliography of the writings of herbert feigl

Obituary for Herbert Feigl

Obituary for Herbert Feigl

Herbert Feigl: 1902-1988

Herbert Feigl was born December 14, 1902 in Reichenberg, Austria, and he died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 1,1988. His wife, Maria, followed him in death on February 13,1989. He is survived by a son, Eric O. Feigl, who is professor of physiology at the University of Washington.Feigl's parents were Jewish but not religious; indeed, his father was an outspoken atheist. His father was a weaver and later an influential textile manufacturer, who would have preferred the son to become an industrial chemist. His mother was a devotee of the arts and an amateur pianist, who would play Beethoven sonatas over and over at the young son's request. His high school interests were philosophy, science fiction, physics, and chemistry (which was his major). Moritz Schlick became his favorite philosopher after he read the latter's Allgemeine Erkenntnisslehre. His chief intellectual hero was Einstein.

Herbert Feigl

Herbert Feigl was one of the most admirable people I have known. I was fortunate to have him a a friend and as a teacher (he directed my PhD dissertation). He was a very special friend and a very special teacher. To round out what is being said here, I want to share my impressions of him as a teacher and as a person.I don't think I ever took a course from Herbert; he taught me informally as a thesis director and as a helpful older friend. When he guided me through the writing of my thesis, I was almost unaware fo the teaching he was doing. It is only in recent years that I have come to appreciate how important it was for me.In comparison with other teachers, Herbert was extremely permissive—the opposite of coercive. For him, nothing was off-limits.

Review Article - Vienna Circle Collection, Vol. 14. Edited by Robert S. Cohen Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981

Review Article - <i><b>Vienna Circle Collection</b></i>, Vol. 14. Edited by Robert S. Cohen Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981

The scientific world-perspective and other essays, 1931–1963, by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. Edited and with an introduction by Jerzy Giedymin. Synthese library, vol. 108. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht and Boston1978, LIII + 378 pp. - Jerzy Giedymin. Editor's preface. Pp. IX–XII. - Jerzy Giedymin. Ajdukiewicz's life and personality. Pp. XIII–XVI. - Jerzy Giedymin. Radical conventionalism, its background and evolution: Poincaré, LeRoy,

The scientific world-perspective and other essays, 1931–1963, by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. Edited and with an introduction by Jerzy Giedymin. Synthese library, vol. 108. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht and Boston1978, LIII + 378 pp. - Jerzy Giedymin. Editor's preface. Pp. IX–XII. - Jerzy Giedymin. Ajdukiewicz's life and personality. Pp. XIII–XVI. - Jerzy Giedymin. Radical conventionalism, its background and evolution: Poincaré, LeRoy,

Philosophical Analysis and Human Values. Selected Essays from Six Decades (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 367 "feet"? Should faithfulness to the original be ignored in such cases? But then decisions would have to be made as to just which cases. Or should the whole phrase be listed? And how many such phrases? Similar, and far less trivial, examples abound in the Investigations; and this is not because the translation is insufficientlyliteral. I do not know whether it would have been practicable to provide the present concordance with an appendix of English key words and phrases with their various German equivalents. But I am inclined to think that there is no wholly satisfactory solution to the problem posed by the fact that the Philosophische Untersuchungen has a predominantly English-speaking readership. The work is important enough to deserve a concordance, and this one will be helpful to those who can make use of it. HUBERTSCHWYZER University of California, Santa Barbara Philosophical Analysis and Human Values."Selected Essays from Six Decades. By Dickinson S. Miller. Ed. and Intro. Loyd D. Easton. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975. Pp. x + 333) At the end of an essay on Matthew Arnold included in this volume, Dickinson Miller declares, "The truth is that because Arnold wrote on the most deep-reaching problems with a sustained simplicity of language and of touch academic scholars have at no time fully perceived his power as a philosopher." I believe that Miller wished to apply in his writing Arnold's purpose and even to an extent his style. And he may well have felt that the "academic scholars" of his time failed to perceive his achievements with respect to these, excepting, perhaps, William James in Miller's early days and Herbert Feigl in later years. In general, however, his reputation has been uncertain and recognition comparatively slight. Undoubtedly this is accounted for by the fact that his publications have been scattered in periodicals and relatively inaccessible symposia. Up to now his only published book was his slim (37 page) doctoral dissertation, Das Wesen der Erkenntnis und des lrrthums, which appeared in 1893. Most of this work, translated by Miller himself, appeared in the same year in the Philosophical Review 2 (1893):408-425, with the title "The Meaning of Truth and Error." Loyd Easton, who was Miller's assistant from 1940 to 1942, has now made possible wider recognition of Miller's power--and other characteristics--as a philosopher. In his preface he writes that early in their association he realized that he "had encountered an unusuallypowerful, acute and original mind." It is a principal merit of the collection of papers assembled in this book that the force of Miller's thought and teaching is brought to clear focus. Miller had projected but never completed two books, one to be called "Inquiry, Analytical or Sceptical," the other "Analysis at Work," on which he worked up to the last year of his long life (1868-1963), and for which he also proposed various alternative titles: "Revolution in Ethics," or "Principles of Practical Intelligence," or "Intelligence, How and Why It Has Not Been Taught." Of the three sections into which Easton has now divided Miller's papers, the middle and longest one is entitled "Analysis: the Method of Philosophy at Work" and presumably contains much of what Miller planned for the book on "Inquiry." The concludingsection of the present volume at least offers applications that would apparently have been used in Miller's other projected book. Thus I think Easton's achievement will make possible for Dickinson Miller's work as a whole what he himself discerned (see p. 145, n. 1) as a particular contributionof Josiah Royce's, namely, that it "should be acknowledged in the history of philosophy." There are two signal contributionsin these" Selected Essays and Chapters from Six Decades," Easton's felicitous subtitle for his volume, to which the attention of students of the history of philosophy should be particularly directed. The first section of the book is headed "Teachers and Teaching" and contains notable essays on George Stuart Fullerton, William James, and George Santayana. Together with two additional papers on James in the later sections and two on David Hume, they are significant chapters in the philosophic history of ideas. Of...