The nature and status of scientific metatheory

the debate between Otto Neurath and Åke Petzäll

Thomas Uebel

pp. 181-201

in: Juha Manninen, Friedrich Stadler (eds), The Vienna circle in the Nordic countries, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

Critics from the Nordic countries played a significant role in the development of the philosophies of the Vienna Circle. By the time the first English-language monograph-length critical study of Viennese neopositivism (Weinberg 1936) was published—as well as A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic (1936)—several critical studies by philosophers from Sweden and Finland were already gathering dust: Eino Kaila's Der logische Neupositivismus (1930), Åke Petzäll's Logistischer Positivismus (1931) and his Zum Methodenproblem der Erkenntnislehre (1935). With their authors having participated in the meetings of the Circle, these early monographs mirror the development of Viennese neopositivism as few other critical monographs do. Kaila focussed on the philosophical methodology and the doctrines adopted in Carnap's Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928). His arguments were discussed in the Circle's meetings and Carnap published a friendly review (1930) in which he nevertheless rejected Kaila's criticisms, in particular of the method of quasi-analysis. Petzäll also seems to have regarded an Aufbau-style Konstitutionssystem as the ideal type of Viennese neopositivism, but he rather focussed on the difficulties to find a version of the empiricist meaning criterion that not only all members of the Vienna Circle could agree to, but also was able to withstand critical attention. His first monograph reached the sceptical conclusion that verificationism was caught in a paradox.

Cited authors

Neurath Otto

Petzäll Åke