BOOK REVIEW
The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science A Review by John W. Dawson Jr. Communicated by Stephen Kennedy
Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science By Karl Sigmund Basic Books, 2017 Hardcover, 480 pages ISBN: 978-0465096954 The phenomenal cultural and intellectual efflorescence that began in Vienna during the last years of the nineteenth century and continued during the interval between the two World Wars, amidst the economic and political chaos that ensued in the wake of the disintegration of the Habsburg empire, has been the subject of numerous studies, including Carl Schorske’s Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture and Allan Janik’s and Stephen Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna. Most of those studies, however, have focused on developments in literature and the arts rather than in mathematics and the philosophy of science. Much has also been written about the empiricist philosophy (logical positivism) proclaimed in the manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung—Der Wiener Kreis (The Scientific Worldview — the Vienna Circle). To my knowledge, however, the present work is the first to provide a collective biography of all of the central and many of the peripheral participants in that Circle and to place their lives and work within the context of those tumultuous John W. Dawson Jr. is professor emeritus of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, York. His email address is jwd7too@ comcast.net. For permission to reprint this article, please contact: reprint-permission@ams.org. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1712
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times—a daunting task, given the sheer number of individuals involved and the complexity of their interactions. It is a pleasure to say that Sigmund has succeeded brilliantly in that endeavor. As he remarks in the Afterword, “it was almost inevitable” that he be the one to do so, for he grew up in the shadow of the Circle: A lifelong resident of Vienna, he was enchanted as a schoolboy with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, frequented coffeehouses where the Circle met, and, as a student and later professor at the University of Vienna, studied and worked in the same environs as the Circle’s leaders had. In addition, he edited the collected works of Hans Hahn and was co-curator of the exhibitions Gödel’s Century and The Vienna Circle, held at that university in 2006 and 2015, respectively. The work under review is a rewritten expansion by Sigmund of his German original, Sie nannten sich der Wiener Kreis: Exaktes Denken am Rand des Untergangs (They Called Themselves the Vienna Circle: Exact Thinking on the Brink of Destruction). In the final stages of its preparation he was assisted by Douglas Hofstadter, who also contributed a short Preface. The result is an absorbing account, written in an informal and engaging style, that provides detailed portraits of a diverse group of thinkers brought together to discuss matters of common philosophical interest through the mediation of the Circle’s leader, Moritz Schlick. Around 1910 such discussion circles, focused on the works of particular thinkers or artists and led by prominent scholars and reformers, were quite common in Vienna. What became the Vienna Circle began inauspiciously as a small group of newly minted PhDs, members of the Philosophical Society of Vienna, who gathered for discussions in the city’s coffeehouses. As Sigmund notes, “little
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