The Vienna Circle was a group of philosophically-trained scientists and scientifically-trained philosophers, who met on Thursdays, in Vienna, in the years after the First World War. Out of their meetings there emerged a revolutionary new doctrine. It was called Logical Positivism - and it rejected great swathes of earlier philosophy, from meditations on the existence of God to declarations on the nature of History, as utterly meaningless.
The Logical Positivists were trying to remould philosophy in a world turned upside down not just by war, but by major advances in science: their hero was not Descartes or Hegel but Albert Einstein. When the Nazis took power, they fled to England and America, where their ideas put down new roots, and went on to have a profound impact.
Contributors
Barry Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of London
Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics
Thomas Uebel, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manchester
