The Humanist-educational Agenda of Positivism: The Case of Philipp Frank
APSE-CEU-IVC Talks
The Philosophy Department of the Central European University, the Institute Vienna Circle and the Unit for Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Vienna) are jointly organizing a series of talks this term
Date: 28/10/2021
Time: 15h00
Location: Hörsaal 2G, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/2. Stock, 1010 Wien
No registration required. Please note the 2.5G rule (recovered, vaccinated, PCR-tested) in force at the University of Vienna as well as the mask requirement in the publicly accessible indoor areas of the University of Vienna. There will also be an online streaming of the talk:
Online Plattform: Zoom | Talks in Philosophy of Science and Epistemology PSE
Access:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/91658960832?pwd=MU13Q0htcmhjL3N1dG50azBUNFl6QT09
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Meeting-ID: 916 5896 0832
Password: 971873
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Abstract:
Logical empiricism is and was known for many reasons, most of which are related to its "logical" and to its "empirical" component. Both of them saw various efforts of rehabilitation in recent decades. It is still less known that logical empiricism had an educational agenda as well, most notably among the hands of Philipp Frank, a physicists-turned-philosopher, successor of Einstein in Prague, later a professor at Harvard. For Frank, logical empiricism (or positivism) was a socially engaged and committed business from the very first moment and by natural inclination. This talk has two aims: first to reconstruct the major events and episodes of Frank's life (which is rarely discussed or hardly accessible) that might be relevant to understand his own positivist agenda. Secondly, I will discuss what Frank understood by the "humanistic background of science", how he utilized the history of science to make a philosophical point about the nature and methods of science, and how all these components emerged in a major philosophy of science that was utilized in the General Education Program of Harvard in the 1950s.