The rise of scientific (analytic) philosophy since the turn of the twentieth century is linked to the philosophical interaction between, on the one hand, Ernst Mach, the Vienna Circle around Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the Berlin Group (Hans Reichenbach, Carl G. Hempel), and the Prague Group (Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank), and, on the other, philosophers and scientists in Denmark (Niels Bohr, Joergen Joergensen), Finland (Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright and their disciples), Norway (Arne Næss and his students), and Sweden (Åke Petzäll, the journal Theoria and a younger generation of philosophers in Uppsala). In addition, the pure theory of law of Hans Kelsen achieved wide dissemination in the Nordic countries (through, for example, Alf Ross). One of the key events in the relations between the Central European philosophers and those of the Nordic countries was the Second International Congress for the Unity of Science which was arranged in Copenhagen in 1936.
Besides considering the interactions of these groups, the book also pays special attention to their interactions, in the context of the Cold War period following the Second World War, with the so-called Third Vienna Circle and with the Forum Alpbach/Austrian College around Viktor Kraft and Bela Juhos (along with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Feyerabend), where the issues of (philosophical and scientific) realism and "psychologism"—the relationship between psychology and philosophy—were matters of controversy.
By comparison with the more extensively investigated and better known transatlantic transfer and transformation of "positivism" and logical empiricism, the developments outlined above remain
neglected and marginalized topics in historiography. The symposium aims to reveal the remarkable continuity of the philosophical enlightened "Nordic Connection". We intend to shed light on this forgotten communication and to reconstruct these hidden scholarly networks from anhistorical and logical point of view, thereby evaluating their significance for today’s research.
Table of Contents:
The Vienna Circle in the Nordic Countries.- Arne Naess — Dogmas and Problems of Empiricism.- Niels Bohr and the Vienna Circle.- Between the Vienna Circle and Ludwig Wittgenstein — The Philosophical Teachers of G. H. von Wright.- Theoria and Logical Empiricism On the tensions between the National and the International in Philosophy.- Positivism before Logical Positivism in Nordic Philosophy.- The Earliest Extensive Receptions of Mach in the North.- Kaila's Critique of Vitalism.- Kaila and Reichenbach as Protagonists of ‘Naturphilosophie’.- Jørgen Jørgensen and Logical Positivism.- The Debate on Begriffstheorie Between Cassirer, Marc-Wogau — and Schlick.- The Nature and Status of Scientific Metatheory. The Debate between Otto Neurath and Åke Petzäll.- Young Ketonen and his Supreme Logical Discovery.- Empiricism, Pragmatism, Behaviorism: Arne NÆss and the Growth of American-styled Social Research in Norway after World War II.- General Part.- Jaakko Hintikka in the Library of Living Philosophers: A Dialogue.- On Unity and Disunity in the Sciences: Variations of Ancient Themata.- Enlightenment and Formal Romanticism — Carnap's Account of Philosophy as Explication.- An Improbable Case of Philosophy: Arne Naess between Empiricism, Existentialism and Metaphysics.
Review :
From the reviews: "This volume on the Vienna Circle's influence in the Nordic countries gives a very interesting presentation of an almost forgotten landmark. ... The volume here reviewed, dedicated to Arne Naess, is intended to fill the historical gaps and provide a more complete picture of this rich network, which even the Second World War was unable to destroy." (Carlo Penco, Nordicum-Mediterraneum, Vol. 8 (1), 2013)
