The American Reception of Logical Empiricism

APSE-IVC-CEU Talks
The Institute Vienna Circle the Unit for Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology APSE (of the Department of Philosophy of the Universtiy of Vienna) and the Central European University CEU are jointly organising a series of talks this term

Date: 29/04/2021

Time: 15h00

Online Plattform: The meeting will be online via Zoom | Talks in Philosophy of Science and Epistemology PSE

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Abstract:

In the 1930s, hundreds of European academics fled to the United States, escaping the quickly deteriorating political situation on the continent. Among them were a few dozen philosophers from a variety of different schools: logical empiricists, phenomenologists, and critical theorists. Especially the first group would have a tremendous impact on American philosophy. Although the local intellectual climate had been dictated by distinctively American traditions such as pragmatism, U.S. philosophers soon began to advance views that were heavily indebted to the empiricists, thereby transforming the American philosophical landscape.

Historians have extensively reconstructed the fate of the exiled empiricists in United States. Still, little attention has been paid to the American context in which their movement came to full bloom. This is remarkable, since any account of the empiricists’ success requires an explanation of why the Americans were so susceptible to their views. What explains the surprisingly positive reception of logical empiricism? And why were the Americans more receptive to empiricism than to phenomenology or critical theory?

In this paper, I shift the perspective from the exiled empiricists to the local, intellectual climate that helped the philosophical refugees to succeed. Building on archival material from a range of key players in this period (e.g. Bridgman, Carnap, Feigl, Quine, Langer, Lewis, Nagel, Reichenbach, and Schlick), I argue that we can better understand the development of mid-twentieth century philosophy if we look at the evolution of American philosophy before the intellectual migration.