Review of History of Philosophy of Science Books

  Manifesto for a Future Research: Vienna Circle and the Artistic World-Conception   Ulrich Arnswald, Friedrich Stadler, and Peter Weibel (eds.),  Der Wiener Kreis – Aktualität in Wissenschaft, Literatur, Architektur und Kunst.  Wien: LIT Verlag, 2019, pp. 298. Paperback ISBN 978-3-643-50937-6,  34,90 €.   If logical empiricism is known for something, then it is their work on the logico-epistemological side of the natural sciences, including formal logic and mathematics. On has to be more precise, of course, as logical empiricists, in general, did not care much about most of the natural sciences; core members of the movement – such as Schlick, Carnap, Reichenbach, and Frank – studied physics, thus theoretical physics played the most important role among the natural sciences. When it turned out that quantum mechanics might have some importance for the interpretation and understanding of biology and life sciences, then some logical empiricists turned their at...

  Vienna Circle: The Director’s Cut   David Edmonds: The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020. Hardcover ISBN: 9780691164908. pp. xiv +313.  $27.95     „In came an eight-hour working day and unemployment benefits. In came an impressive housing program, 64,000 dwellings in vast blocks, accommodating 200,000 people (a tenth of the city’s population). In came rent control. Major investment went into hospitals and public health, and money flowed to set up and support libraries, parks, and sports facilities. Education was given a high priority, and not just in schools. Over the years there developed an extensive network of adult evening classes. The aim was to improve the minds of the masses, both as an end in itself and also because an educated worker, as everyone knew (or thought they knew), is a socialist worker. While many leftist European parties without power were promoting p...

The Rational Reconstruction of the History of Philosophy of Science John Losee,  The Golden Age of Philosophy of Science 1945 to 2000: Logical Constructionism, Descriptivism, Normative Naturalism, and Foundationalism . London–New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. ISBN:  9781350169135, 319 pages, paperback, $39.95     History of philosophy of science is a relatively new field where systematic philosophers, historians, sociologists are working together to get a clearer picture of the unfolding of what is called “philosophy of science”. Since we are talking about the history of a  concrete discipline , its practice consists of hundreds, if not thousands of years, thus ranging from Aristotle to Carnap and beyond. Nonetheless, one of the major focuses of historians has been the twentieth century; the main reason is that in the last few decades, philosophy of science became institutionalized, funded, and professionally practiced in journals, conference proceedings, and congress...

Take the Advice, not Just the Medicine Paul A. Offit, M.D.,  Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information . New York: Columbia University Press, 2018,  xiv  + 251 pages.  $16.95 Paperback  ISBN 9780231186988 Science popularization and the health sciences have two interesting components from the viewpoint of the history of philosophy of science: science popularization and the health sciences. Let’s take them in order.             Popular science or science popularization has a long tradition in the English-speaking world; nonetheless, it didn’t get much attention from professional philosophers of science, or even from historians (of philosophy of science). From one aspect, this might be wholly understandable—popular works do not have much influence on academic debates and professional and institutional philosophical trends and arg...

On the Streets of Prague: Frank, Carnap and the Forms of Positivism Radek Schuster (ed.),  The Vienna Circle in Czechoslovakia.  Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, Volume 23., Cham: Springer, 2020. xii-204 pp. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-36383-3; Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36382-6. When one is considering how analytic philosophy became an international movement, the Vienna Circle has a very special place in the story. Although Bertrand Russell’s works were translated into many languages quite early, and he traveled a lot and he was read in almost every country of Europe (not speaking of the United States and Asia), the Vienna Circle shows even more signs of internationality.             Members of the Vienna Circle around Moritz Schlick came mainly from Mid- and Eastern Europe (Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary), but the Circle had regular and returning visitors from abroad: from the United States, Eng...