The Vienna Circle (in German: der Wiener Kreis) was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society (Verein Ernst Mach) in honour of Ernst Mach. Among its members were Gustav Bergmann, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Tscha Hung, Victor Kraft, Karl Menger, Richard von Mises, Marcel Natkin, Otto Neurath, Olga Hahn-Neurath, Theodor Radakovic, Rose Rand and Friedrich Waismann.

Herbert Feigl and Kurt Gödel were two eminent students at the University of Vienna at this time. They were allowed to participate in the meetings, but were not members of the Vienna Circle. Members of the Vienna Circle had a common attitude towards philosophy, consisting of an applied logical positivism drawn from Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus formed the basis for the group's philosophy^[1] (although Wittgenstein himself insisted that logical positivism was a gross misreading of his thinking, and took to reading poetry during meetings of the Vienna Circle). The Vienna Circle's influence on 20th century philosophy was immense, and much later work, such as that of Willard Van Orman Quine, was in response to the Circle's thought.

History of the Vienna Circle[link]

The pre-history of the Vienna Circle began with meetings on the philosophy of science and epistemology from 1908 ^[2] on, promoted by Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath.

Hans Hahn, the oldest of the three (1879–1934), was a mathematician. He received his degree in mathematics in 1902. Afterwards he studied under the direction of Ludwig Boltzmann in Vienna and David Hilbert, Felix Klein and Hermann Minkowski in Göttingen. In 1905 he received the Habilitation in mathematics. He taught at Innsbruck (1905–1906) and Vienna (from 1909).

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) studied sociology, economics and philosophy in Vienna and Berlin. From 1907 to 1914 he taught in Vienna at the Neuen Wiener Handelsakademie (Viennese Commercial Academy). Neurath married Olga, Hahn’s sister, in 1911.

Philipp Frank, the youngest of the group (1884–1966), studied physics at Göttingen and Vienna with Ludwig Boltzmann, David Hilbert and Felix Klein. From 1912, he held the chair of theoretical physics in the German University in Prague.

Their meetings were held in Viennese coffeehouses from 1907 onward. Frank remembered:

After 1910 there began in Vienna a movement which regarded Mach’s positivist philosophy of science as having great importance for general intellectual life […] An attempt was made by a group of young men to retain the most essential points of Mach's positivism, especially his stand against the misuse of metaphysics in science. […] To this group belonged the mathematician H. Hahn, the political economist Otto Neurath, and the author of this book [i.e. Frank], at the time an instructor in theoretical physics in Vienna. […] We tried to supplement Mach’s ideas by those of the French philosophy of science of Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem, and also to connect them with the investigations in logic of such authors as Couturat, Schröder, Hilbert, etc.

— Uebel, Thomas, 2003, p.70).

Presumably the meetings stopped in 1912, when Frank went to Prague, to hold the chair of theoretical physics left vacant by Albert Einstein. Hahn left Vienna during World War I and returned in 1921. The following year Hahn, with the collaboration of Frank, arranged to bring into the group Moritz Schlick, who held the chair of philosophy of the inductive sciences at the University of Vienna. Schlick had already published his two main works Raum und Zeit in die gegenwärtigen Physik (Space and Time in contemporary Physics) in 1917 and Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (General Theory of Knowledge) in 1918. A central work for the newly founded discussion group was the Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), published by Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1921 (in 1922 in German-English version).

Under the direction of Schlick, a new regular series of meetings began. In 1926 Schlick and Hahn arranged to bring in Rudolf Carnap at the University of Vienna. In 1928 the Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society) was founded, with Schlick as chairman. In 1929 the Vienna Circle manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle) was published. The pamphlet is dedicated to Schlick, and its preface was signed by Hahn, Neurath and Carnap. In the appendix is a list of the members of the Vienna Circle.

The Vienna Circle was dispersed when the Nazi party came to power in Germany; many of its members emigrated to USA, where they taught in several universities. Schlick remained in Austria, but in 1936 he was killed by a Nazi sympathizer student in the University of Vienna.

The Kraft Circle, a successor to the Vienna Circle, arose in 1949 under the leadership of Viktor Kraft. Its philosophical programme was continued long after its demise (1952/3) by Paul Feyerabend.

The Vienna Circle manifesto[link]

It states the scientific world-conception of the Vienna Circle, which is characterized “essentially by two features. First it is empiricist and positivist: there is knowledge only from experience […] Second, the scientific world-conception is marked by the application of a certain method, namely logical analysis.”^[3]

Logical analysis is the method of clarification of philosophical problems; it makes an extensive use of symbolic logic and distinguishes the Vienna Circle empiricism from earlier versions. The task of philosophy lies in the clarification—through the method of logical analysis—of problems and assertions.

Logical analysis shows that there are two different kinds of statements; one kind includes statements reducible to simpler statements about the empirically given; the other kind includes statements which cannot be reduced to statements about experience and thus they are devoid of meaning. Metaphysical statements belong to this second kind and therefore they are meaningless. Hence many philosophical problems are rejected as pseudo-problems which arise from logical mistakes, while others are re-interpreted as empirical statements and thus become the subject of scientific inquiries.

One source of the logical mistakes that are at the origins of metaphysics is the ambiguity of natural language. “Ordinary language for instance uses the same part of speech, the substantive, for things (‘apple’) as well as for qualities (‘hardness’), relations (‘friendship’), and processes (‘sleep’); therefore it misleads one into a thing-like conception of functional concepts”.^[4] Another source of mistakes is “the notion that thinking can either lead to knowledge out of its own resources without using any empirical material, or at least arrive at new contents by an inference from given states of affair”.^[5] Synthetic knowledge a priori is rejected by the Vienna Circle. Mathematics, which at a first sight seems an example of necessarily valid synthetic knowledge derived from pure reason alone, has instead a tautological character, that is its statements are analytical statements, thus very different from Kantian synthetic statements. The only two kinds of statements accepted by the Vienna Circle are synthetic statements a posteriori (i.e. scientific statements) and analytic statements a priori (i.e. logical and mathematical statements).

However, the persistence of metaphysics is connected not only with logical mistakes but also with “social and economical struggles”.^[6] Metaphysics and theology are allied to traditional social forms, while the group of people who “faces modern times, rejects these views and takes its stand on the ground of empirical sciences”.^[7] Thus the struggle between metaphysics and scientific world-conception is not only a struggle between different kinds of philosophies, but it is also—and perhaps primarily—a struggle between different political, social and economical attitudes. Of course, as the manifesto itself acknowledged, “not every adherent of the scientific world-conception will be a fighter”.^[8] Many historians of the Vienna Circle see in the latter sentence an implicit reference to a contrast between the so called ‘left wing’ of the Vienna Circle, mainly represented by Neurath and Carnap, and Moritz Schlick. The aim of the left wing was to facilitate the penetration of the scientific world-conception in “the forms of personal and public life, in education, upbringing, architecture, and the shaping of economic and social life”.^[9] In contrast, Schlick was primarily interested in the theoretical study of science and philosophy. Perhaps the sentence “Some, glad of solitude, will lead a withdrawn existence on the icy slopes of logic”^[10] is an ironic reference to Schlick.

The manifesto lists Walter Dubislav, Josef Frank, Kurt Grelling, Hasso Härlen, Eino Kaila, Heinrich Loewy, F. P. Ramsey, Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Reidemeister, and Edgar Zilsel as "Those sympathetic to the Vienna Circle" and Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein as "Leading representatives of the scientific world-conception".

Unified science[link]

The final goal pursued by the Vienna Circle was unified science, that is the construction of a "constitutive system" in which every legitimate statement is reduced to the concepts of lower level which refer directly to the given experience. "The endeavour is to link and harmonise the achievements of individual investigators in their various fields of science".^[11] From this aim follows the search for clarity, neatness, and for a symbolic language that eliminates the problems arising from the ambiguity of natural language. The Vienna Circle published a collection, called Einheitswissenschaft (Unified science), edited by Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Joergen Joergensen (after Hahn's death) and Charles W. Morris (from 1938), whose aim was to present an unified vision of science. After the publication in Europe of seven monographs from 1933 to 1939, the collection was dismissed, because of the problems arising from the World War II. In 1938 a new series of publications started in USA. It was the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, an ambitious project never completed devoted to unified science. Only the first section Foundations of the Unity of Sciences was published; it contains two volumes for a total of twenty monographs published from 1938 to 1969. As remembered by Rudolf Carnap and Charles Morris in the Preface to the 1969 edition of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science:

The Encyclopedia was in origin the idea of Otto Neurath. It was meant as a manifestation of the unity of science movement […] Original plans for the Encyclopedia were ambitious. In addition to the two introductory volumes, there was to be a section on the methodology of the sciences, one on the existing state of the unification of sciences, and possibly a section on the application of the sciences. It was planned that the work in its entirety would comprise about twenty-six volumes (260 monographs)

— Foundations of the Unity of Sciences, vol. 1, The University of Chicago Press, 1969, p. vii.

Thomas Kuhn’s well known work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was published in this Encyclopedia in 1962, as the number two in the second volume.

The elimination of metaphysics[link]

The attitude of Vienna Circle towards metaphysics is well expressed by Carnap in the article 'Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache' in Erkenntnis, vol. 2, 1932 (English translation 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language' in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., Logical empiricism at its peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath, New York : Garland Pub., 1996, pp. 10–31). A language—says Carnap—consists of a vocabulary, i.e. a set of meaningful words, and a syntax, i.e. a set of rules governing the formation of sentences from the words of the vocabulary. Pseudo-statements, i.e. sequences of words that at first sight resemble statements but in reality have no meaning, are formed in two ways: either meaningless words occur in them, or they are formed in an invalid syntactical way. According to Carnap, pseudo-statements of both kinds occur in metaphysics.

A word W has a meaning if two conditions are satisfied. First, the mode of the occurrence of W in its elementary sentence form (i.e. the simplest sentence form in which W is capable of occurring) must be fixed. Secondly, if W occurs in an elementary sentence S, it is necessary to give an answer to the following questions (that are—according to Carnap—equivalent formulation of the same question):

1. What sentences is S deducible from, and what sentences are deducible from S?
2. Under what conditions is S supposed to be true, and under what conditions false?
3. How is S verified?
4. What is the meaning of S?

(Carnap, 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language' in Sarkar, Sahotra, cit., pp. 12)

An example offered by Carnap concerns the word 'arthropod'. The sentence form "the thing x is an arthropod" is an elementary sentence form that is derivable from "x is an animal", "x has a segmented body" and "x has jointed legs". Conversely, these sentences are derivable from "the thing x is an arthropod". Thus the meaning of the word 'arthropod' is determined.

According to Carnap, many words of metaphysics do not fulfill these requirements and thus they are meaningless. As an example, Carnap considers the word 'principle'. This word has a definite meaning, if the sentence "x is the principle of y" is supposed to be equivalent to the sentence "y exists by virtue of x" or "y arises out of x". The latter sentence is perfectly clear: y arises out of x when x is invariably followed by y, and the invariable association between x and y is empirically verifiable. But—says Carnap—metaphysicians are not satisfied with this interpretation of the meaning of 'principle'. They assert that no empirical relation between x and y can completely explain the meaning of "x is the principle of y", because there is something that cannot be grasped by means of the experience, something for which no empirical criterion can be specified. It is the lacking of any empirical criterion—says Carnap—that deprives of meaning the word 'principle' when it occurs in metaphysics. Therefore, metaphysical pseudo-statements such as "water is the principle of the world" or "the spirit is the principle of the world" are void of meaning because a meaningless word occurs in them.

However, there are pseudo-statements in which occur only meaningful words; these pseudo-statements are formed in a counter-syntactical way. An example is the word sequence "Caesar is a prime number"; every word has a definite meaning, but the sequence has no meaning. The problem is that "prime number" is a predicate of numbers, not a predicate of human beings. In the example the nonsense is evident; however, in natural language the rules of grammar do not prohibit the formation of analogous meaningless word sequences that are not so easily detectable. In the grammar of natural languages, every sequence of the kind "x is y", where x is a noun and y is a predicate, is acceptable. In fact, in the grammar there is no distinction between predicate which can be affirmed of human beings and predicate which can be affirmed of numbers. So "Caesar is a general" and "Caesar is a prime number" are both well-formed, in contrast for example with "Caesar is and", which is ill-formed. In a logically constructed language—says Carnap—a distinction between the various kinds of predicate is specified, and pseudo-statements as "Caesar is a prime number" are ill-formed. Now, and this is the main point of Carnap's argument, metaphysical statements in which meaningless words do not occur, are indeed meaningless because they are formed in a way which is admissible in natural languages, but not in logically constructed languages. Carnap attempts to indicate the most frequent sources of errors from which metaphysical pseudo-statements can arise. One source of mistakes is the ambiguity of the verb 'to be', which is sometimes used as a copula ("I am hungry") and sometimes to designate existence ("I am"). The latter statement incorrectly suggests a predicative form, and thus it suggests that existence is a predicate. Only modern logic, with the introduction of an explicit sign to designate existence (the sign Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \exists \; ), which occurs only in statements such as Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \exists \;xP(x) , never as a predicate, has shown that existence is not a predicate, and thus has revealed the logical error from which pseudo-statements such as "cogito, ergo sum" has arisen.

Another source of mistakes is type confusions, in which a predicate of a kind is used as a predicate of another kind. For example the pseudo-statements "we know the Nothing" is analogous to "we know the rain", but while the latter is well-formed, the former is ill-formed, at least in a logically constructed language, because 'Nothing' is incorrectly used as a noun. In a formal language, 'Nothing' only means Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \lnot \;\exists \;x , such as "there is nothing which is outside", i.e. Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \lnot \;\exists \;xO(x) , and thus 'Nothing' never occurs as a noun or as a predicate.

What is the role of metaphysics? According to Carnap, although metaphysics has no theoretical content, it has content indeed: metaphysical pseudo-statements express the attitude of a person towards life. Metaphysics is an art like lyrical poetry. The metaphysician, instead of using the medium of art, works with the medium of the theoretical; he confuses art with science, attitude towards life with knowledge, and thus produces an unsatisfactory and inadequate work. "Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability".^[12]

Congresses and publications[link]

The Vienna Circle was very active in advertising their new philosophical ideas. Several congresses on epistemology and philosophy of science were organized, with the help of the Berlin Circle. There were some preparatory congresses: Prague (1929), Königsberg (1930), Prague (1934) and then the first congress on scientific philosophy held in Paris (1935), followed by congresses in Copenhagen (1936), Paris (1937), Cambridge, UK (1938), Cambridge, Mass. (1939). The Königsberg congress (1930) was very important, for Kurt Gödel announced that he had proven the completeness of first-order logic and the incompleteness of formal arithmetic. Another very interesting congress was the one held in Copenhagen (1936), which was dedicated to quantum physics and causality.

Between 1928 and 1937, the Vienna Circle published ten books in a collection named Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), edited by Schlick and Frank. Karl Raimund Popper’s book Logik der Forschung was published in this collection. Seven works were published in another collection, called Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science). In 1930 Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach undertook the editorship of the journal Erkenntnis, which was published between 1930 and 1940 (from 1939 the editors were Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap and Charles Morris).

The following is the list of works published in the two collections edited by the Vienna Circle.

Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), edited by Schlick and Frank:

• Richard von Mises, Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit, 1928 (Probability, Statistics, and Truth, New York : Macmillan company, 1939)
• Rudolf Carnap, Abriss der Logistik, 1929
• Moritz Schlick, Fragen der Ethik, 1930 (Problems of Ethics, New York : Prentice-Hall, 1939)
• Otto Neurath, Empirische Soziologie, 1931
• Philipp Frank, Das Kausalgesetz und seine Grenzen, 1932 (The Law of Causality and its Limits, Dordrecth ; Boston : Kluwer, 1997)
• Otto Kant, Zur Biologie der Ethik, 1932
• Rudolf Carnap, Logische Syntax der Sprache, 1934 (The Logical Syntax of Language, New York : Humanities, 1937)
• Karl Raimund Popper, Logik der Forschung, 1934 (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York : Basic Books, 1959)
• Josef Schächeter, Prolegomena zu einer kritischen Grammatik, 1935 (Prolegomena to a Critical Grammar, Dordrecth ; Boston : D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1973)
• Victor Kraft, Die Grundlagen einer wissenschaftliche Wertlehre, 1937 (Foundations for a Scientific Analysis of Value, Dordrecth ; Boston : D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1981)

Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science), edited by Carnap, Frank, Hahn, Neurath, Joergensen (after Hahn's death), Morris (from 1938):

• Hans Hahn, Logik, Mathematik und Naturerkennen, 1933
• Otto Neurath, Einheitswissenschaft und Psychologie, 1933
• Rudolf Carnap, Die Aufgabe der Wissenschaftlogik, 1934
• Philipp Frank, Das Ende der mechanistischen Physik, 1935
• Otto Neurath, Was bedeutet rationale Wirtschaftsbetrachtung, 1935
• Otto Neurath, E. Brunswik, C. Hull, G. Mannoury, J. Woodger, Zur Enzyklopädie der Einheitswissenschaft. Vorträge, 1938
• Richard von Mises, Ernst Mach und die empiristische Wissenschaftauffassung, 1939

These works are translated in Unified Science: The Vienna Circle Monograph Series Originally Edited by Otto Neurath, Kluwer, 1987.

Monographs, arranged in chronological order, published in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science:

• Otto Neurath, Niels Bohr, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris, Encyclopedia and unified science, 1938, vol.1 n.1
• Charles Morris, Foundations of the theory of signs, 1938, vol.1 n.2
• Victor Lenzen, Procedures of empirical sciences, 1938, vol.1 n.5
• Rudolf Carnap, Foundations of logic and mathematics, 1939, vol.1 n.3
• Leonard Bloomfield, Linguistic aspects of science, 1939, vol.1 n.4
• Ernest Nagel, Principles of the theory of probability, 1939, vol.1 n.6
• John Dewey, Theory of valuation, 1939, vol.2 n.4
• Giorgio de Santillana and Edgar Zilsel, The development of rationalism and empiricism, 1941, vol.2 n.8
• Otto Neurath, Foundations of social sciences, 1944, vol.2 n.1
• Joseph Henri Woodger, The technique of theory construction, 1949, vol.2 n.5
• Philipp Frank, Foundations of physics, 1946, vol.1 n.7
• Erwin Frinlay-Freundlich, Cosmology, 1951, vol.1 n.8
• Joergen Joergensen, The development of logical empiricism, 1951, vol.2 n.9
• Egon Brunswik, The conceptual framework of psychology, 1952, vol.1 n.10
• Carl Hempel, Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science, 1952, vol.2 n.7
• Felix Mainx, Foundations of biology, 1955, vol.1 n.9
• Abraham Edel, Science and the structure of ethics, 1961, vol.2 n.3
• Thomas Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolutions, 1962, vol.2 n.2
• Gherard Tintner, Methodology of mathematical economics and econometrics, 1968, vol.2 n.6
• Herbert Feigl and Charles Morris, Bibliography and index, 1969, vol.2 n.10

Quoted works[link]

• Foundations of the Unity of Sciences, vol. 1, Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1969
• Uebel, Thomas, "On the Austrian Roots of Logical Empiricism" in Logical Empiricism - Historical and contemporary Perspectives, ed. Paolo Parrini, Wesley C. Salmon, Merrilee H. Salmon, Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003, pp. 76–93
• Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis, 1929. English translation The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: from 1900 to the Vienna Circle, New York : Garland Publishing, 1996, pp. 321–340
• Rudolf Carnap, "Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache" in Erkenntnis, vol. 2, 1932 (English translation "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language" in Sarkar, Sahotra, ed., Logical empiricism at its peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath, New York : Garland Pub., 1996, pp. 10–31)

Reception in the U.S.[link]

The spread of logical positivism in the USA occurred throughout the 1920s–1930s. In 1929 and in 1932 Schlick was a Visiting Professor at Stanford, while Feigl, who immigrated to the USA in 1930, became lecturer (1931) and professor (1933) at the University of Iowa. The definite diffusion of logical positivism in the U.S. was due to Carl Hempel, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl, who emigrated and taught in the U.S. ^{[13] [14] [15]}

Another link to the U.S. is Willard Van Orman Quine who traveled in 1932–1933 as Sheldon Traveling Fellow to Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw. Moreover, American semiotician and philosopher Charles W. Morris helped many German and Austrian philosophers emigrate to the United States including Rudolf Carnap in 1936.

Reception in the UK[link]

Alfred Jules Ayer acquainted the British academia with the work of the Vienna Circle. Also Karl Popper was important for the reception and critique of their work, even though he never participated in the meetings of the Vienna Circle.

See also[link]

• Logical positivism
• List of Austrian intellectual traditions

References[link]

Notes[link]

1. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=BG0FTD1oEakC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Vienna+circle+Wittgenstein&source=bl&ots=SRghuMnqKZ&sig=x-mBcGRKwUsKuRlKwM1rnt7jMOQ&hl=en&ei=lpZkTMioDcH6nAfmkuBe&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
2. ^ Wittgenstein's Vienna, New Edition, Elephant Paperback, 1996.
3. ^ The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle in Sarkar, Sahotra, 1996, p. 331—hereinafter VC
4. ^ VC p. 329
5. ^ VC p. 330
6. ^ VC p. 339
7. ^ VC p. 339
8. ^ VC p. 339
9. ^ VC p. 339–340
10. ^ VC p. 339
11. ^ VC p. 328
12. ^ Carnap, 'The Elimination of Metaphysics', in Sarkar, Sahotra, cit.,p. 30
13. ^ * E. Nagel, Nature and Convention in: The Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1929, in which Nagel discussed Reichenbach's interpretation of the theory of relativity;
14. ^ * S. Hook, Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy in: The Journal of Philosophy, 27, 1930, in which Hook presented a favorable report on logical positivism;
15. ^ * A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl, Logical Positivism: A New Movement in European Philosophy in: The Journal of Philosophy, 28, 1931.

Bibliography[link]

• Ayer, Alfred Jules. Logical Positivism. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1959.
• Barone, Francesco. Il neopositivismo logico. Roma Bari: Laterza, 1986.
• Bergmann, Gustav. The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. New York: Longmans Green, 1954.
• Cirera, Ramon. Carnap and the Vienna Circle: Empiricism and Logical Syntax. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994.
• Friedman, Michael, Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Gadol, Eugene T. Rationality and Science: A Memorial Volume for Moritz Schlick in Celebration of the Centennial of his Birth. Wien: Springer, 1982.
• Geymonat, Ludovico. La nuova filosofia della natura in Germania. Torino, 1934.
• Giere, Ronald N. and Richardson, Alan W. Origins of Logical Empiricism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
• Kraft, Victor. The Vienna Circle: The Origin of Neo-positivism, a Chapter in the History of Recent Philosophy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1953.
• McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann. Trans. by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1979.
• Parrini, Paolo; Salmon, Wesley C.; Salmon, Merrilee H. (ed.) Logical Empiricism - Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.
• Reisch, George. How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science : To the Icy Slopes of Logic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Salmon, Wesley and Wolters, Gereon (ed.), Logic, Language, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: Proceedings of the Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Konstanz, 21–24 May 1991, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994.
• Sarkar, Sahotra. The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.
• Sarkar, Sahotra. Logical Empiricism at its Peak: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
• Sarkar, Sahotra. Logical Empiricism and the Special Sciences: Reichenbach, Feigl, and Nagel. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
• Sarkar, Sahotra. Decline and Obsolescence of Logical Empiricism: Carnap vs. Quine and the Critics. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
• Sarkar, Sahotra. The Legacy of the Vienna Circle: Modern Reappraisals. New York: Garland Pub., 1996.
• Spohn, Wolfgang (ed.), Erkenntnis Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

External links[link]

• copy of "Friends of the Vienna Circle"
• The Philosophy of Logical Positivism
• Institute Vienna Circle
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• The Vienna Circle Manifesto

Vienna Wien
Left–right, top–bottom: Rathaus, Schloss Schönbrunn, Riesenrad, Staatsoper, Stephansdom, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Stephansplatz, Sachertorte, Johann-Strauß-Denkmal, Sezession, Donau City, Hundertwasserhaus
Flag Seal Coat of arms
Vienna Location of Vienna in Austria
Coordinates: 48°12′32″N 16°22′21″E / 48.20889°N 16.3725°E / 48.20889; 16.3725
Country	Austria
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Government
• Mayor	Michael Häupl (SPÖ)
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Area
• City	414.65 km2 (160.10 sq mi)
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• Water	19.39 km2 (7.49 sq mi)
Elevation	151 (Lobau) – 542 (Hermannskogel) m (495–1,778 ft)
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Website	www.wien.gv.at

Vienna ( /viːˈɛnə/; German:  Wien (help·info) [viːn]) is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million^[3] (2.4 million within the metropolitan area,^[2] more than 25% of Austria's population), and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 9th-largest city by population in the European Union. Until the beginning of the 20th century it was the largest German speaking city in the world, and before the first world war and the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian empire the city had 2 million inhabitants. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city lies in the east of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[4]

Apart from being regarded as the City of Music^[5] because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be "The City of Dreams" because it was home to the world's first psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud,^[6] a neurologist who is well known for being one of the greatest interpreters of dreams. The City's roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is well known for playing an essential role as a leading European Music Centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The Historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as the late-19th-century Ringstrasse lined with grand buildings, monuments and parks.^[7]

In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first (in a tie with Vancouver, Canada) for quality of life (in the 2011 survey of 140 cities Vienna was ranked number two, behind Melbourne).^[8][9][10] For three consecutive years (2009–2011), the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Vienna first in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of hundreds of cities around the world.^[11][12][13] Monocle's 2011 "Quality of Life survey" ranked Vienna sixth on a list of "the top 25 cities in the world to call home" (up from eighth in 2010).^[14][15][16]

Analytically, the city was ranked 1st globally for a culture of innovation in 2007 and 2008, and 2nd globally after Boston in 2009 from 256 cities on an analysis of 162 indicators in the Innovation Cities Index on a 3-factor score covering culture, infrastructure and markets.^[17] As a city, Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is often used as a case study by urban planners.^[18]

Each year since 2005, Vienna has been the world's number one destination for international congresses and conventions.^[19] Vienna attracts about five million tourists a year.^[20]

Name[link]

The English name Vienna, the official German name Wien, and the names of the city in most languages, are thought to be derived from the Celtic word "windo-", meaning bright or fair – as in the Irish "fionn" and the Welsh "gwyn" – but opinions vary on the precise origin. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning "forest stream," which subsequently became Venia, Wienne and Wien. Others claim that the name comes from the Roman settlement of Celtic name Vindobona (Celtic "windo-bona"), probably meaning "white base/bottom [land]," which became Vindovina, Vídeň (Czech) and Wien.^[21]

The name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian (Beč) and Ottoman Turkish (Beç) appears to have a different, Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area.^[22] In Slovene, the city is called Dunaj, which in other Slavic languages means the Danube River, on which it is located.

History[link]

Vienna in 1493 from the Nuremberg Chronicle

Evidence of continuous habitation has been found since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.

Roman ruins at Michaelerplatz

Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman (or Koloman, Irish Colmán, derived from colm "dove") is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil (Virgil the Geometer) was Bishop of Salzburg for forty years, and twelfth century monastic settlements were founded by Irish Benedictines. Evidence of these ties are still evident in Vienna's great Schottenstift monastery, once home to many Irish monks.

During the Middle Ages, Vienna was home to the Babenberg dynasty; in 1440, it became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasties. It eventually grew to become the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire and a cultural centre for arts and science, music and fine cuisine. Hungary occupied the city between 1485–1490.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman armies were stopped twice outside Vienna (see Siege of Vienna, 1529 and Battle of Vienna, 1683). A plague epidemic ravaged Vienna in 1679, killing nearly a third of its population.^[23]

Austro-Hungarian Empire[link]

Vienna map, 1773–81

View of Vienna in 1758, by Bernardo Bellotto

In 1804, during the Napoleonic wars, Vienna became the capital of the Austrian Empire and continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting the 1814 Congress of Vienna. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Vienna remained the capital of what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city was a centre of classical music, for which the title of the First Viennese School is sometimes applied.

During the latter half of the 19th century, the city developed what had previously been the bastions and glacis into the Ringstraße, a new boulevard surrounding the historical town and a major prestige project. Former suburbs were incorporated, and the city of Vienna grew dramatically. In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the First Austrian Republic.

From the late 19th century to 1938, the city remained a centre of high culture and modernism. A world capital of music, the city played host to composers such as Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and Richard Strauss. The city's cultural contributions in the first half of the 20th century included, amongst many, the Vienna Secession movement, psychoanalysis, the Second Viennese School, the architecture of Adolf Loos and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Within Austria, it was seen as a centre of socialist politics, for which it was sometimes referred to as "Red Vienna". The city was a stage to the Austrian Civil War of 1934, when Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss sent the Austrian Army to shell civilian housing occupied by the socialist militia.

The Anschluss and World War II[link]

Vienna in 1900

In 1938, after a triumphant entry into Austria, Adolf Hitler spoke to the Austrian people from the balcony of the Neue Burg, a part of the Hofburg at the Heldenplatz. Between 1938 (see Anschluss) and the end of the Second World War, Vienna lost its status as a capital to Berlin.

On 2 April 1945, the Soviets launched the Vienna Offensive against the Germans holding the city and besieged it. British and American air raids and artillery duels between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army crippled infrastructure, such as tram services and water and power distribution, and destroyed or damaged thousands of public and private buildings. Vienna fell eleven days later. Austria was separated from Germany, and Vienna was restored as the republic's capital city.

Four-power Vienna[link]

Occupation zones in Vienna, 1945–55

After the war, Vienna was surrounded by the Soviet-occupied zone. As in Berlin, Vienna was divided into sectors by the four powers and supervised by an Allied Commission. The four-power occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin: the central area of the city, known as the first district, constituted an international zone in which the four powers alternated control on a monthly basis. The Berlin Blockade of 1948 raised allied concerns that the Russians might repeat the blockade in Vienna. The matter was raised in the UK House of Commons,

"What plans have the Government for dealing with a similar situation in Vienna? Vienna is in exactly a similar position to Berlin. It is surrounded by a Soviet Zone of occupation and we have our sector of responsibility in Vienna the same as the Americans and the French. What plans have the Government to deal with a similar situation arising in Vienna in the near future? I hope we shall have an answer, because this is of vital importance." – Sir Anthony Nutting, Honourable Member for Melton, 30 June 1948, House of Commons, London.

There was a lack of airfields in the Western sectors, and authorities drafted contingency plans to deal with such a blockade. Plans included the laying down of metal landing mats at Schönbrunn. The Soviets did not embark on a wholesale blockade of the city. Some historians have argued that the Potsdam Agreement included written rights of land access to the western sectors, whereas no such written guarantees had covered the western sectors of Berlin. During the 10 years of the four-power occupation, Vienna became a hot-bed for international espionage between the Western and Eastern blocs. In the wake of the Berlin Blockade, the Cold War in Vienna took on a different dynamic. While accepting that Germany and Berlin would be divided, the Russians had decided against allowing the same state of affairs to arise in Austria and Vienna.

They put up barbed wire fences around the perimeter of West Berlin in 1953, but not in Vienna. By 1955, the Russians agreed to relinquish their occupation zones in Eastern Austria, and East Vienna, as well as their sector in the fourth and tenth districts in South Vienna. In exchange they required a permanent neutrality clause to be enshrined into the new Austrian State Treaty - thus ensuring that Austria would not be a member of NATO and that NATO forces would therefore not have direct communications between Italy and West Germany. In 1955, the Russians pulled out of Austria.

The atmosphere of four-power Vienna is captured in the Graham Greene screenplay for the film The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed. Later he adapted the screenplay as a novel and published it. Occupied Vienna is also colourfully depicted in the Philip Kerr novel, "A German Requiem."

Austrian State Treaty[link]

The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in 1955. That year, after years of reconstruction and restoration, the State Opera and the Burgtheater, both on the Ringstraße, reopened to the public. The State Treaty ensured that modern Austria would align with neither NATO nor the Soviet bloc, and is considered one of the reasons for Austria's late entry into the European Union.

In the 1970s, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky inaugurated the Vienna International Centre, a new area of the city created to host international institutions. Vienna has regained a part of its former international stature by hosting international organizations, such as the United Nations (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Office at Vienna and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United European Gastroenterology Federation.

Historical population[link]

Inhabitants according to official census figures: 1800–2005

Due to the industrialization and migration from other parts of the Empire, the population of Vienna increased sharply during its time as the capital of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). In 1910, Vienna had more than two million inhabitants, and was one of the six largest cities in the world.^{[citation needed]} At the turn of the century, Vienna (Czech Vídeň, Hungarian Bécs) was the city with the second-largest Czech population in the world (after Prague).^[24] At the height of the migration, about one-third of the Viennese population was of Slavic or Hungarian origin. After World War I, many Czechs and Hungarians returned to their ancestral countries, resulting in a decline in the Viennese population.

In 1923, there were 201,513 Jews living in Vienna, which had become the third-largest Jewish community in Europe. 65,000 Jewish people were deported and killed in concentration camps by Nazi forces, approximately 130,000 fled.^[25]

By 2001, 16% of people living in Austria had nationalities other than Austrian, nearly half of whom were from former Yugoslavia, primarily Serbs;^[26][27] the next most numerous nationalities in Vienna were Turks (39,000; 2.5%), Poles (13,600; 0.9%) and Germans (12,700; 0.8%).^[28]

Year	1754	1800	1850	1900	1910	1923	1939
Total population	175,460	271,800	551,300	1,769,137	2,083,630	1,918,720	1,770,938
Year	1951	1961	1971	1981	1991	2001	2008
Total population	1,616,125	1,627,566	1,619,885	1,531,346	1,539,848	1,550,123	1,678,435

Geography and climate[link]

Winter in Vienna

Vienna is located in northeastern Austria, at the easternmost extension of the Alps in the Vienna Basin. The earliest settlement, at the location of today's inner city, was south of the meandering Danube while the city now spans both sides of the river. Elevation ranges from 151 to 524 m (495 to 1,719 ft).

Vienna lies within a transition of oceanic climate and humid continental climate according to the Köppen classification. The city has warm summers with average high temperatures of 22 to 26 °C (72 to 79 °F), with maxima exceeding 30 °C (86 °F) and lows of around 15 °C (59 °F). Winters are relatively cold with average temperatures at about freezing point, and snowfall occurring mainly from December through March. Spring and autumn are cool to mild. Precipitation is generally moderate throughout the year, averaging 620 mm (24.4 inches) annually, with the Vienna Woods region in the west being the wettest part (700 to 800 mm (28 to 31 in) annually) and the flat plains in the east being the driest part (500 to 550 mm (20 to 22 in) annually).

Districts and enlargement[link]

Satellite view of Vienna

Vienna is composed of 23 districts (Bezirke). Administrative district offices in Vienna (called Magistratisches Bezirksamt) serve similar to those in the other states (called Bezirkshauptmannschaft), the officers being subject to the Landeshauptmann (which in Vienna is the mayor); with the exception of the police, which in Vienna is governed by the President of the Police (at the same time one of the nine Directors of Security of Austria), a federal office, directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior.

As had been planned in 1919 for all of Austria but not introduced, the district residents in Vienna (Austrians as well as EU citizens with permanent residence here) are electing a District Assembly (Bezirksvertretung) which chooses the District Head (Bezirksvorsteher) as political representative of the district on city level. City hall has delegated maintenance budgets, e.g., for schools and parks, so that they are able to set priorities autonomously. Any decision of a district can be overridden by the city assembly (Gemeinderat) or the responsible city councillor (amtsführender Stadrat).

Map of the districts of Vienna with numbers

The heart and historical city of Vienna, a large part of today's Innere Stadt, was a fortress and surrounded by fields in order to defend itself from potential attackers. In 1850, Vienna with the consent of the emperor included 34 surrounding villages,^[29] called Vorstädte, into the city limits (districts no. 2 to 8, since 1861 with the separation of Margareten from Wieden no. 2 to 9). Consequently the walls were razed after 1857,^[30] making it possible for the city centre to expand.

In their place, a broad boulevard called the Ringstraße was built, along which imposing public and private buildings, monuments, and parks were created until the turn of the century. These buildings include the Rathaus (town hall), the Burgtheater, the University, the Parliament, the twin museums of natural history and fine art, and the Staatsoper. It is also the location of New Wing of the Hofburg, the former imperial palace, and the Imperial and Royal War Ministry finished in 1913. The mainly Gothic Stephansdom is located at the centre of the city, on Stephansplatz. The Imperial-Royal Government set up the Vienna City Renovation Fund (Wiener Stadterneuerungsfonds) and sold many building lots to private investors, thereby partly financing public construction works.

From 1850 to 1890, city limits in the West and the South have mainly followed another wall called Linienwall. Outside this wall from 1873 onwards a ring road called Gürtel was built. In 1890 it was decided to integrate 33 suburbs (called Vororte) beyond that wall into Vienna by 1 January 1892^[31] and transform them into districts no. 11 to 19 (district no. 10 had been constituted in 1874); hence the Linienwall was torn down from 1894 onwards.^[32] In 1900, district no. 20, Brigittenau, was created by separating the area from the 2nd district.

Panorama from Burgtheater in Innere Stadt

From 1850 to 1904, Vienna had expanded only on the right bank of the Danube, following the main branch before the regulation of 1868–1875, i.e., the Old Danube of today. In 1904, the 21st district was created by integrating Floridsdorf, Kagran, Stadlau, Hirschstetten, Aspern and other villages on the left bank of the Danube into Vienna, in 1910 Strebersdorf followed. On 15 October 1938 the Nazis created Great Vienna with 26 districts by merging 97 cities and villages into Vienna, 80 of which have returned to surrounding Lower Austria in 1954.^[31] Since then Vienna has 23 districts.

Industries are located mostly in the southern and eastern districts. The Innere Stadt is situated away from the main flow of the Danube, but is bounded by the Donaukanal ("Danube canal"). Vienna's second and twentieth districts are located between the Donaukanal and the Danube River. Across the Danube, where the Vienna International Centre is located, and in the southernmost area are the newest parts of the city (districts 21–23).

Politics[link]

Austrian Parliament Buildings Debating Chamber of the former House of Deputies of Austria

Until 1918, Viennese politics were shaped by the Christian Social Party, in particular long-term mayor Karl Lueger. Vienna is today considered the centre of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. During the period of the First Republic (1918–1934), the Vienna Social Democrats undertook many overdue social reforms. At that time, Vienna's municipal policy was admired by Socialists throughout Europe, who therefore referred to the city as "Red Vienna" (Rotes Wien). In February 1934 troops of the Conservative Austrian federal government and paramilitary socialist organisations were engaged in the Austrian civil war, which led to the ban of the Social Democrat party.

For most of the time since the First World War, the city has been governed by the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) with absolute majorities in the city parliament. Only between 1934 and 1945, when the Social Democratic Party was illegal, mayors were appointed by the austro-fascist and later by the Nazi authorities. The current mayor of Vienna is Michael Häupl. The Social Democrats currently hold 55% of the seats with a 49% share of the vote.^[33] Many Austrian political experts^[who?] believe that if not for the Social Democrats' nearly unbreakable hold on Vienna, the rival Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) would dominate Austrian politics.

An example of the city’s many social democratic policies is its low-cost residential estates called Gemeindebauten.

Ever since Vienna obtained federal state (Bundesland) status of its own in 1921, the mayor has also had the role of the state governor (Landeshauptmann). The Rathaus accommodates the offices of the mayor and the state government (Landesregierung). The city is administered by a multitude of departments (Magistratsabteilungen).

In the 1996 City Council election, the SPÖ lost its overall majority in the 100-seat chamber, winning 43 seats and 39.15% of the vote. In 1996 the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which won 29 seats (up from 21 in 1991), beat the ÖVP into third place for the second time running. From 1996–2001, the SPÖ governed Vienna in a coalition with the ÖVP. In 2001 the SPÖ regained the overall majority with 52 seats and 46.91% of the vote; in October 2005 this majority was increased further to 55 seats (49.09%). In course of the 2010 city council elections the SPÖ lost their overall majority again and consequently forged a coalition with the Green Party – the first SPÖ/Green coalition in Austria.^[34]

Religion[link]

St. Charles's Church, Vienna

Vienna is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna; its current Archbishop is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. According to the 2001 census, 49.2% of Viennese are Roman Catholics, while 25.7% are of no religion, 7.8% are Muslim, 6.0% are members of an Orthodox denomination, 4.7% are Protestant (mostly Lutheran), 0.5% are Jewish, and 6.3% are either of other religions or did not reply.^[28]

Many Roman Catholic churches in central Vienna feature performances of religious or other music, including masses sung to classical music and organ. Some of Vienna's most significant historical buildings are Roman Catholic churches, including the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral), the Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church) and the Votivkirche.

The proportion of Viennese who identify as Roman Catholic has dropped over the last fifty years, from 90% in 1961 to 39.8% in 2010.^[35]

Culture[link]

Music, theatre and opera[link]