Abstract When the term “physicalism” is not used interchangeably with “materialism” it typically names a meta-linguistic or methodological view that is intended to sidestep metaphysical debates like those between materialists, dualists, and idealists. Well-known versions of this anti-metaphysical outlook were defended in the 1930s by Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap. Indeed, according to a standard account, these thinkers introduced the word “physicalism” into philosophy. In this paper, I explore the pre-history of physicalism as an anti-metaphysical articulation of the unity of science. The terms “physicalism” and “physicalists” were first used in the 1850s, far earlier than is commonly recognized, to refer to a cluster of views developed by phrenologists and early positivists such as Franz Joseph Gall and Henri de Saint-Simon. I argue that this fact has more than mere etymological significance. These nineteenth-century thinkers expressed a distinctive proto-physicalist position that contained two core components of the Vienna Circle’s physicalism—the unity of method and unity of laws. They also contributed to a tradition that influenced the Vienna Circle’s agenda of using the unified conceptual structure of the sciences, which results from physicalism, to enable social progress.

Abstract This paper pursues a trail of never fully explained remarks by Ian Hacking on positivist antecedents of his styles-of-reasoning project. The method is critical explication and the aim is to gain a historical perspective on his project within analytical philosophy. After a brief overview of his decidedly deflationist approach to historical ontology, Hacking’s use and understanding of semantic pluralism and verificationism is investigated. The latter is argued to hold the key to what are actual commonalities of doctrine between the styles-project and a certain type of scientific metatheory promoted, unbeknownst to Hacking, on the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle. His thesis that reason has a history finds support in unexpected places.

In the autumn of 1847, Johann Strauss II, as part of his tour in the Danube region, performed with his orchestra in Pest, Novi Sad, Zemun, and Belgrade. The program included his compositions incorporating Serbian national melodies, which he had arranged for Serbian and Slavic balls in Vienna. This study highlights how Johann Strauss II came into contact with the Serbian cultural circle in Vienna, with special attention given to his compositions that used Serbian national songs (Serbischer Marsch, Serben-Quadrille, op. 14; Alexander-Quadrille, op. 33; Slaven-Potpourri, op. 39; and Slaven-Ball-Quadrille, op. 88). The study considers the performance of these works among Serbs in the Habsburg Monarchy (Vienna, Pest, Novi Sad, Zemun) and in the Principality of Serbia (Belgrade) in the context of the social and political upheavals of the 1840s, when Strauss’s compositions were seen as symbols of national revival. The structure of the article follows the formal concept of the quadrille, a popular dance at Serbian balls in the nineteenth century.

The hypothesis we present in the article is that philosophy of mind was conceived in the same context in which the Vienna Circle emerged, so that it was born and remains marked to this day by an underlying antimetaphysical axiom, namely: it is science that will respond definitively to the problem of mind. No matter how antagonistic the positions adopted over decades of discussion have been – theory of mind-brain identity, theory of the non-existence of the mind, functionalism, interactionism, anomalous monism, biological naturalism, enactivism, eliminativism, naturalistic dualism –, the debate in Philosophy of Mind is conditioned by this axiom. In the first three points of the article, we propose an analysis of how Schlick, Carnap and Feigl solidified the statement that the problem of the mind must be answered strictly by science. Our objective with this analysis is to show that, behind their specific perspectives on the theory of mind-brain identity, there is an intention (to reduce the problem of the mind to science), which is common to them. This is not a supposed intention, by inference or other interpretation strategy, but an intention explicitly stated in the form of a fundamental axiom. In the fourth point, through selected examples, we seek to confirm the formulated hypothesis, showing how the neopositivist axiom has become a kind of indeclinable truth for what we call philosophy of mind.

The concept of themata, as developed by Gerald Holton, refers to fundamental principles, often implicit, that guide scientific theories and practices. This epistemological concept has gained significant importance in the history and philosophy of science. This article examines the themata within the context of debates on scientific objectivity, drawing on Holton's idea that themata serve as metaphysical assumptions underlying the construction of scientific knowledge, right from its nascent phase, without necessarily losing their influence throughout the process. The analysis focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the treatment of scientific objectivity within the Vienna Circle and the debates between Karl Popper and certain members of this group regarding conceptions of scientific objectivity. The article sets out at the outset to demonstrate the relevance of studying Holton's themata in relation to the problem of objectivity, and to elucidate the perspective chosen to address this question.

This article examines critical breakthroughs to overcome chaos in metaphysical, theological, and scientific viewpoints. This chaos often arises due to differences in paradigms in understanding reality, truth, and the relationship between science, theological beliefs, and metaphysical reflection. Through an analytical and integrative approach, this article examines the potential for harmony between viewpoints by utilizing interdisciplinary theories, such as critical epistemology and the philosophy of reconciliation. The results of the study show that collaboration between disciplines can be an effective solution in bridging the gap in thinking that has been a major challenge. This article offers a new conceptual framework to build a productive and complementary dialogue between the three domains, thus paving the way for a more comprehensive and inclusive understanding. Conclusion implications of the rejection of epistemological and methodological pluralism broaden the anarchic behavior of intellectuals in the Vienna Circle who reject metaphysical-theological arguments in all their manifestations in the fields of literature, philosophy, theology, and anything that is packaged a priori as a meaningless, nonsense, and unvalidated (proven) statement. This is the form of epistemological and methodological anarchism that is opposed by contemporary scientists such as Kuhn, Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Lyotard, Rorty, Barthes, and Habermas.

Abstract Rudolf Haller’s work on the problem of justification has unfolded over more than twenty years, evolving through his engagement with Hans Albert, the protocol-sentence debate of the Vienna Circle, and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Methodologically, his work is characterised by taking the sceptical challenge seriously; in terms of content, it revolves around three central principles that have crystallised over the course of his research. This article discusses these principles and tracks their development and relevance in Haller’s philosophical journey. A particular focus is on Schlick’s conception of “Konstatierungen” and Haller’s interpretation of and response to it.

Abstract In Otto Neurath’s essay on the prehistory of the Vienna Circle, Franz Brentano is mentioned but only as a rather marginal figure. In some contrast to this view, Rudolf Haller sees Brentano and his school as the second important branch of his concept of “Austrian Philosophy”, a view that became known as the Neurath-Haller thesis. This is all the more astonishing as Brentano’s reception in Austria had largely come to a standstill in the 1950s and 1960s. This essay explores the question of which sources might have influenced Haller in this remarkable reassessment of Brentano.

The article is devoted to the explication of the place of metaphysics in the life of an individual and culture as a whole, in particular the subject of the article is the relationship between metaphysics and science in the culture of Modernity. The author shows that today there are two main traditions of understanding this ratio. One tradition associated with the line of positivism (A. Comte, Vienna Circle) insists that with the discovery of the scientific method, metaphysics has become an excessive cultural phenomenon. The second, which goes back to German classical idealism (I. Kant, J. Fichte, F. Schelling, G. Hegel), believes that metaphysics is the foundation of all particular sciences. Accordingly, it is fundamentally irreducible both from the system of sciences and from culture as such. In article is shown that the status of science in the culture of Modernity gradually changed from confidence in its ability to know the objective world (logical positivists), through the demonstration of the ontological and epistemological boundaries of scientific knowledge (late L. Wittgenstein, R. Carnap, W. Quine), to recognizing science as close to the “form of life” myth (post-positivism). In this regard, it is concluded that science cannot claim a metatheoretical status, and therefore cannot be an implicit form of metaphysics, the relevance of which has not disappeared. Accordingly modern man, like many generations before him, continues to be doomed to metaphysics.

Abstract Rudolf Carnap and Martin Heidegger shared with Max Weber the decisionist understanding of values as something that cannot be justified by scientists or philosophers. Although both accepted the challenge of modernity in this respect, they reacted in opposite ways. Carnap, along with the Vienna Circle, defended a scientific conception of the world in which science and instrumental rationality were to permeate all of life; Heidegger embarked on an understanding of metaphysics in which rationality and science were to be eliminated. Both strategies were deeply political, and both resulted from the split in the German youth and life-reform movement that took place during and immediately after World War I. I discuss this image here in the context of dialectical theology, the Vienna Circle, and the Davos Disputation, with a sideways glance at Ernst Cassirer, and with a view to earlier interpretations by Michael Friedman and Gottfried Gabriel.

This paper seeks to provide an inter-theoretical comparison between the pure theory of law and logical positivism. I intend to explore the following question: Is the pure theory of law philosophically closer to logical positivism than is commonly assumed? Or, as traditionally held, should it be regarded as a significantly distant approach? The limited existing literature shows a significant disagreement among prominent experts on how this question should be answered. The main goal of this article is to settle this debate. To achieve this, I will divide my exposition into three parts. In the first part, I explain why the pure theory of law and logical positivism should definitely be considered philosophically distant approaches. In the second part, I claim that the traits of Kelsen's thought often cited to bring his theory closer to that of the Vienna Circle reflect either a mere terminological coincidence or a peripheral similarity. In the third part, I highlight an additional theoretical benefit that results from this inter-theoretical comparison. Finally, I present a brief summary to close.

Falsifiability is a perspective introduced by Karl Raymond Popper, influenced by David Hume's critique of the problem of induction and Immanuel Kant's method of criticism in contemporary philosophy of science. It is considered one of the influential viewpoints in this field. Before the introduction of this theory, members of the Vienna Circle sought to establish a foundation for scientific laws independent of Aristotelian essentialism and rationalism. However, Popper highlights the failure of such efforts, arguing that a scientific theory is not the product of cumulative observations that could serve as proof or confirmation for it. Hypothesis, falsification, the primacy of theory over observation, approximation to truth, and realism constitute the core elements of the falsifiability perspective. This research employs a descriptive-analytical method, and its findings indicate that if observation does not play a positive role in the formation of theories, there is no guarantee of approximation to truth. Moreover, certain expressions of the primacy of theory over observation are incompatible with realism. Ultimately, Popper’s perspective entails a form of profound skepticism.

This article presents William Kneale’s epistemological pragmatism as an alternative to strict verificationism discussed at the 1945 symposium of the Aristotelian Society. The focus is on his critique of the traditional verificationist criterion of the Vienna Circle and his argument for knowledge as a flexible rather than strictly empirical process. Kneale challenges the view that the meaningfulness of statements is determined by their verifiability and demonstrates that knowledge can exist without explicit hypothesis testing. Unlike Friedrich Waismann, who sought to modernize verificationism, Kneale highlights its limitations. He also disputes Donald MacKinnon’s position, which linked verification to a priori knowledge and the universal subject-predicate structure of language. The analysis of these opposing views shows that the 1945 symposium was a significant milestone in analytic philosophy, anticipating contemporary discussions on meaningfulness, knowledge justification, and the limits of empirical verification.

The outstanding German social thinker Theodor Adorno, a talented university teacher and one of the founders of the critical theory of society (Frankfurt School), wrote his work «On the question: What is German?» as a speech that he read on May 9, 1965. on the German radio (Deutschlandfunk) in the series of radio programs of the same name. In the same year, the text of the speech was published as an article in the August issue of the West German magazine Liberal. As an undoubted authority in the field of social and theoretical research, and as one of ideological leaders of the institutional development of West Germany as a democratic and legal country, Adorno dedicated this speech to the date of the twentieth anniversary of the military defeat of the Nazi regime and the historic collapse of the Nazi political rule in Europe. Here, his long-standing principled criticism of sociocultural and ideological-theoretical factors was continued, primarily the so-called «philosophy of identity», which, according to the Frankfurt philosopher, due to their neutralizing influence on the independent and critical thinking of an individual, contributed to the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, and hence are indirectly responsible for their countless military and political crimes. In this speech, Adorno, remaining under the influence of his published book «The Jargon of Authenticity; to the German Ideology» (1964), in which a radical critique of the philosophical works of the German existentialist thinkers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, as well as prominent representatives of the Vienna Circle devoted primarily to the philosophy of language, theoretically supplemented his critique of the sociocultural phenomenon of a national «authenticity» of an ordinary bourgeois. According to the Frankfurt thinker, the provincial essence of this culture directly caused the spiritual «numbness», despiritualization of the German society at that time, and thus indirectly enabled its powerful capture by Nazi ideology. Based on this criticism, the Frankfurt philosopher laid out the essence of his German identity in the text, although he was not ethnically an «authentic» German. According to Adorno, the foundation of his cultural identity was laid in his childhood, in his native home, where he was brought up as a bearer of a spiritually exalted German culture, with its classical music and philosophy, whose deeply emancipatory, anti-ideological essence is able to invariably generate a personal understanding of the individual’s causes human suffering and the practical implementation of means to overcome them.

Philipp Frank (1884-1966) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and philosopher and a founding member of the Vienna Circle. Although much of his recognition as a proponent of logical positivism emerged in the 1920s, Frank’s deep interest in and engagement with philosophy, particularly the philosophy of science, was evident from the early years of his professional career. Under the mentorship of Ludwig Boltzmann at the University of Vienna and significantly influenced by Ernst Mach, Frank exemplified key traits among Austrian physicists of the early 20th century: a commitment to antidogmatism, a pluralistic approach, and an emphasis on dialogue amidst the growing specialization and fragmentation of knowledge. This article aims to explore both the personality and his ideas through an examination of Frank’s articles and reviews from his formative years in 1907 up until the end of the so-called Belle Époque in 1914.

The chilef problem of metaphysics of reasons is the theoretical substantiation of the steady existence of the best government and society. Reason (Erӧrterung) contains that which presupposes the formation of a concept given a priori. Montesquieu’s theory of separation of powers inspired the Constitution of the United States. But the American founding fathers decidedly rejected Montesquieu’s experience concerning the separation of powers in England. The article deals with the problem of defending Kant’s opinion that logic had made no important step either forward or backward since Aristotle. The work raises the problem of the excrescences of the scientific empiricism of the Vienna Circle. The research attempts to solve the problem connected with the debate concerning the insights of rationalists as mere tautologies. Concerning the problem of relation between the mathematical and dialectical logic, the present work shows that the first type of logic refers mainly to natural, the second mainly to social science. The article discusses the eternal problem of middle classes clearly raised by Aristotle. This problem is successfully solved in China with the help of the differentiated theory of convergence: capitalism within the framework of socialism for the East, socialism within the framework of capitalism for the West.

One of the greatest philosophers in contemporary philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, presents a picture theory of language that describes reality in his work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In this theory, the non-factual is positioned outside the boundaries of language. Wittgenstein takes a mystical stance on the inexpressible and deals with them in terms of a theory of meaning based on depiction. In addition, Wittgenstein reconsiders the problem of meaning in the context of the use of language in his late works and makes some corrections in his views. Wittgenstein, who was previously influenced by the view that only the factual can be meaningful, which was discussed in the Vienna circle, also settles on a position related to mysticism. In the present study, Wittgenstein's views on meaning are compared with those of Ibn Khaldun, and his views on mysticism with those of Ibn Arabi, and it is aimed to determine their similarities. Key Words: Wittgenstein, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Arabi, meaning, mystisicsm, metaphysics

Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) was an associate of the Vienna Circle and an Austro-Marxist. He is remembered for the so-called ‘Zilsel Thesis’, a historical reconstruction of the social and economic preconditions for the emergence of modern experimental science written in exile in the USA. His earlier work in Vienna on the cult of genius has recently been revisited by a number of scholars. The aim of this translation is to make one of his writings on this subject available to an Anglophone audience. Here he develops a genealogy of irrationalist ideology—one opposed to the rationalism of urban and commercial culture and to science—whose roots he traces to the German Romantic Movement. He offers a novel account of the interaction between Romantic writers, artists, and philosophers and wider currents of counter-revolutionary thought that emerged as a reaction to the French Revolution. The commentary seeks to contextualize the work as a critical, if indirect, contemporary engagement with fascism and points to its contemporary relevance.

Abstract This paper contextualizes and criticizes a recent attempt to square the socio-political commitment of the members of the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle with the ethical non-cognitivism that follows from their conception of cognitive meaningfulness. It is shown that intolerable consequences result from the moral-political reading of the “scientific world-conception” proposed and it is argued that squaring their commitment and non-cognitivism does not require such a reading. It is also pointed out how deleterious consequences are avoided by an already existent reconstruction of the left wing’s position which was misunderstood by the author criticized and which is briefly recollected.

After the attempt at collaboration between the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle failed in the late 1930s, Adorno stood at the forefront of critical theory’s polemics against ‘positivism’. Given these later polemical exchanges, some of the tendencies common to both movements have remained overlooked. Among these is their opposition to the phenomenological tradition. This paper focusses on certain features common to Schlick’s and Adorno’s critical responses to Husserl. The Machians, including Adorno’s supervisor Hans Cornelius, were targeted by Husserl’s onslaught against psychologism in 1900. The young Schlick’s Machian background had motivated his contribution to the Psychologismusstreit, in the context of which he launched a series of objections against Husserl’s ‘independence theory of truth’. Adorno’s later doctoral dissertation under Cornelius was also motivated by the effort to defend his master against Husserl’s objections. Schlick’s criticisms intensified in later works, where Husserl’s epistemology of intuition is seen as yet another instance of the widespread confusion between knowledge and acquaintance. Schlick’s warnings against Husserl’s turn towards the irrationalist fashions of his day find their echo in Adorno’s ‘Metakritik’. Apart from their broad agreement in how they understand Husserl’s positioning within his context, Schlick and Adorno also develop a similar criticism of Husserl’s account of intuition as failing in its aspiration to discover unmediated givenness, which it confuses with mediated conceptual knowledge. Unfortunately, while Adorno explicitly acknowledges Schlick’s critique of Husserl, he also misconstrues it as a scientistic rejection of metaphysical nonsense, thus failing to acknowledge the proximity to his approach.