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Exact thinking in demented times : the Vienna Circle and the epic quest for the foundations of science / Karl Sigmund.

by Sigmund, Karl, 1945- author.

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New York, NY : Basic Books, [2017]

Science -- Philosophy -- History -- 20th century.

Logical positivism.

9780465096954 (hardcover)

0465096956 (hardcover)

xviii, 449 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 25 cm

First United States edition.

Preface / by Douglas Hofstadter -- Bringing the Vienna Circle into focus -- A tale of two thinkers -- A trial run for the Vienna Circle -- The circle starts rolling -- The turn of the circle -- The circle makes a name for itself -- Tangents -- The parallel circle -- The circle squeezed -- Moral matters -- The circle's end -- Circling the globe -- Fadeout -- Afterword.

In post-World War I Vienna, some of the most brilliant minds of that generation came together to prove true or false the ideas that had supported math, physics, and philosophy since antiquity, but which were essentially assumptions. Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell's search for the foundations of mathematics, these young intellectuals sought to develop and propagate a worldview entirely based on science. They called themselves the Vienna Circle. The founding members - philosopher Moritz Schlick, economist Otto Neurath, and mathematician Hans Hahn - set out to create a purely science-based philosophy, free from jargon and obscure metaphysics. They were soon joined by luminaries such as Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap, and collaborated (and feuded) with the likes of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. Meeting regularly from 1924 to 1936, the group left an indelible mark on science, creating ripples through physics, mathematics, philosophy, economics, and even art and literature. But interwar Europe would sweep them up in its currents, dragging the Circle's passionate members into murders and suicides, love affairs and nervous breakdowns, political persecution and hair's breadth escapes. This was not the age for a new enlightenment: the Circle, denigrated as a hodgepodge of Jewish intellectuals, political radicals, and eccentric professors, had to flee a continent darkened by fascism and war. Nonetheless, their scientific mission endured, driving the development of the modern scientific method. Exact Thinking in Demented Times is the first book to tell the often outrageous, sometimes tragic but always riveting stories of the men who shaped present-day scientific thought. A dazzling group biography, this landmark book will make clear the debt we owe to those who dared to reinvent knowledge from the ground up. -- from dust jacket.

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