Abstract
Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau provides us with a history of Waismann’s time in the Vienna Circle. Waismann is often taken to have reported Wittgenstein’s ideas to the Circle. Limbeck-Lilienau however stresses that these reports not only shaped central discussions within the Circle, mainly between him and Rudolf Carnap, but that Waismann’s contributions went beyond mere reporting in trying to improve upon the philosophical outlook emerging from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The paper works out the conflict between Waismann’s and Carnap’s views on language and physicalism and documents its uptake in Waismann’s Principles of Linguistic Philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
The minutes of the discussions from 1930–1931 are published in Stadler (2015, 75–123). Some transcripts of Waismann’s talks in the Circle are preserved in the Carnap Papers (Pittsburgh) and the Waismann Papers (Oxford).
- 2.
- 3.
Höfler published a handbook on logic in 1922, which gave a detailed exposition of Russell’s logic from the Principia Mathematica. Before Word War I, Höfler was also a mentor of Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn and Philipp Frank. Still in 1933, Waismann gave a course on one of Höfler’s books on logic. On Höfler, see Blackmore (2017).
- 4.
Waismann Papers (Oxford), A 1–2.
- 5.
These courses were kind of unofficial; they were always announced as Schlick’s seminars (“Schlicks Proseminar”), despite the fact that Waismann gave them alone.
- 6.
In 1924, Ramsey met Hahn several times and once also Schlick. About these meetings, see Misak (2020).
- 7.
- 8.
On the controversy about identity between Wittgenstein and Ramsey in 1927, see Sullivan (1995).
- 9.
The talks have been preserved through the notes of Carnap. I quote from these notes (Carnap Papers, RC 102-76-10).
- 10.
He explicitly stated the principle in an outline for a course, probably from 1929/1930 (preserved in the Carnap Papers, RC 102-76-13). Wittgenstein expressed that principle, although in a different form in Philosophical Remarks written between February 1929 and April 1930 (Wittgenstein 1964, § 43). Wittgenstein also stated the principle in the same words as Waismann in his Cambridge lecture from 1931/1932 (Lee 1980, C I).
- 11.
Tarski gave several lectures on his conception of meta-mathematics in Vienna in February 1930, which greatly influenced Carnap. Carnap’s and Neurath’s first talks on physicalism also date from 1930. See Uebel (2007).
- 12.
See Carnap Papers, RC 102-76-10.
- 13.
The Koenigsberg Conference is famous for Gödel’s first public announcement of his results on incompleteness. Besides the talks by Carnap and Waismann at that conference, John von Neumann presented the position of formalism and Arend Heyting the intuitionist view.
- 14.
Especially the interpretation of identity and the status of such axioms as the axiom of infinity.
- 15.
See the “Protocols of the Schlick Circle” from 1931 (Stadler 2015, 81).
- 16.
Waismann’s tolerant attitude towards freely chosen “logical syntaxes”, a position he adopted much earlier than Carnap, would need a separate treatment as well as a comparison with Carnap’s later view on logical syntax. This cannot be done here for reasons of space.
- 17.
- 18.
Waismann in his course from 1932 on “Thinking, Meaning, Intention”, Schlick Papers, 078/B.60.
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Archival Sources
From the Carnap Papers, Archive of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh:
Notes on Friedrich Waismann’s Lectures on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, 1930, RC 102-76-10.
“Waismann, Leitsätze zum Proseminar I”, RC 102-76-13.
From the Schlick Papers, Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem:
Waismann, Friedrich. 1929/1930. “Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre sondern ein Tun”. Schlick- Proseminar. 070/B.51-1 and 071/B.53. (I thank Juha Manninen for a transcription of parts of the seminar protocol.)
Waismann, Friedrich. 1932. “Über ‘Denken’, ‘Meinen’, ‘Intention’” [On ‘Thinking’, ‘Meaning’, ‘Intention’]. Schlick-Proseminar. 078/B.60.
From the Waismann Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford:
Waismann, Friedrich. “Über das Wesen der Philosophie und ihre Aufgabe” [On the Nature of Philosophy and its Function], A1 and A2.
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Limbeck-Lilienau, C. (2019). Waismann in the Vienna Circle. In: Makovec, D., Shapiro, S. (eds) Friedrich Waismann. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25008-9_2
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