The Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
Diederick Raven & Wolfgang Krohn
Zilsel and the
in Social Origins of Modern Science
Edgar Zilsel, Diederick Raven, Wolfgang Krohn, R. S. Cohen
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000, xxxix-xlvii.
Content
1. The Fundamental Dualism or How can Rational Law describe Irrational Nature?
2. Zilsel and his failed Habilitaiionsschrifi
3. Zilsel and the
1. The Fundamental Dualism or How can Rational Law describe Irrational Nature?
Zilsel first grappled with the role of the concept of law in his book The Application Problem. The main topic of the book is a riddle posed by the so-called law of large numbers. The law states what at first glance seems to be a rather truistic statement of probability theory, namely that “with a large number of repeated throws of a chance game... the relative frequency almost equals the mathematical probability.” [70] Nature, however, could be rather different. She could produce frequencies quite different from the expected result. It is therefore not at all trivial to ask why the law of large numbers is applicable at all. Zilsel construed this problem as being part of a wider one: how can rational mathematical constructions apply to a vague and irrational nature? This is what Zilsel termed ‘the application problem’.
Since it is neither natural law nor mathematical principle, Zilsel found the epistemological and ontological status of the law of large numbers to be in need of explanation. Zilsel ventured a Kantian solution based upon contemporary theories of statistics and induction. Kant’s transcendental solution to the Humean problem of relating deductive reasoning and inductive sense experience was to declare the principle of causality a precondition of knowledge. Either we understand the mutual relations of things in terms of causes and effects, or we don’t understand anything.
The critical aspect of Zilsel’s thinking that developed out of this analysis of the relationship between the rational laws of probability and empirical causal laws of nature led him to accept that there are general philosophical problems
[69] Otto Neurath asked Zilsel to write this essay in a letter dated 10. 1. 1938 (NP/Z). He was working on the MS for roughly two years interrupted of course by his and his family’s moves to London and New York.
[70] Zilsel, The Application Problem, p.3. Apparently Zilsel’s analysis made a deep impression in mathematical circles, of. StadIer, 1997, op. cit., p. 802. Hans Hahn (Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 1917, 27/8, p. 37-8) however wrote a critical review, claiming that Zilsel’s mathematical argument was fundamentally flawed. For Zilsel’s reaction see note 71.
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which are related to all sciences but not solvable within any one specific science. In opposition to the proponents of logical positivism within the Vienna Circle - Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Richard von Mises - Zilsel believed that the discussion of such problems was fruitful and should not be denounced as metaphysical ‘Scheinprobleme’ [71] At the same time, however, he never believed in the capacity of philosophy to solve fundamental problems independent of empirical research and distrusted philosophy as an independent discipline. Zilsel was very outspoken in his desire to unite these fundamental philosophical problems with the contemporary problems presented in empirical research. He particularly despised all attempts by “schoolmasters... who would separate... philosophy from the empirical disciplines”. [72] This philosophical position is perhaps clearest in the following quote:
the remaining unsolved and fundamental philosophical problems can only be discussed in a fruitful manner if the results and methods already made in the empirical sciences are taken into account... [and as] Ernst Mach and Henri Poincaré [have shown] it is at present only possible to fruitfully discuss philosophical problems in that intimate connection to living science which characterized the classical philosophy of the 17th century. [73]
Zilsel’s subsequent research on the concept of genius arose within the context of this commitment to the “living sciences”. He began to direct the ‘application problem’ toward the statistical analysis of history and culture. How is the ‘nature’ of society to be perceived if it is subordinate to the law of large numbers? Is this ‘nature’ fundamentally different from that of the natural sciences? Philosophers of culture would strongly emphasize the difference which Zilsel ventured to deny.
2. Zilsel and his failed Habilitaiionsschrifi
On July 10, 1923, Zilsel submitted his two-volume Contributions to the History of the Concept of Genius [74] to the Philosophy Department of the University of
[71] In an undated letter to Moritz Schlick, in which Zilsel responded to Schlick’s paper ‘Die Kausalität in der gegenwärtigen Physik’ (‘Causality in Contemporary Physics’, Die Naturwissenschafien, 1931, 19, pp. 145-62), he insisted upon these views. In a long and careful argumentation he makes his point that the presupposition of a “specific constellation of nature” (15) is needed in order to apply statistical laws to nature. (SchP/Z). In a letter to Zilsel Reichenbach responded: “I completely agree that positivism suppresses certain things which are simply there; I consider it wrong to declare these Scheinprobleme, but prefer to raise the question as to how to conceive the concept of the scientifically-statable (wissenschaftlich-Sagbaren) so that these otherwise suppressed things might be comprehended”. (HR 013-38-15, July 4, 1932. Quoted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved). Reichenbach and Zilsel had corresponded on probability and induction since 1925. The ‘spirit’ of their exchange may be grasped by the following remark of Zilsel: “By the way, my Application Problem contains a lot of mistakes. To make mistakes seems to adhere to the essence of philosophy; one only wishes to have a philosophical method in which right and wrong are discernable at all, and in which the mistakes are discovered as quickly as possible”. (HR 016-24-06, May 22, 1925. Quoted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved.)
[72] Zilsel, ‘Philosophische Bemerkungen’, in DerKampf. 1929, 22, pp.178-86; republished in E. Zilsel Wissenschafiund Weltanschauung.Aufsatze 1929-1933, K. Acham and G. Mozetič (eds.), 1992, pp. 31- p. 40.
[73] Ibid, p. 39.
[74] Beitrage zur Geschichte des Geniebegriffes.
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Vienna, and applied for a venia legendi [75] for the subject of philosophy. The first part of this work was entitled ‘The Classical Roots of the Concept of Genius’ [76] and the second part simply ‘The Renaissance’. The examination committee consisted of eight people - Robert Reininger, Karl Bühler, Moritz Schlick, Richard Meister, Heinrich Gomperz, Julius Schlosser, Rudolf Wegscheider, and Felix Ehrenhaft. Later in life, Zilsel would describe himself as “a pupil of H. Gomperz under whose direction I studied especially ancient philosophy and civilization and learned to use philological and historical methods”. From what we know, he was always very close to Schlick, with whom he had “worked intensely on the fundamentals of modern physics” [77], and whose obituary he wrote for the journal Die Naturwissenschafien after a mentally disturbed student shot Schlick in 1936. Even with his close supporters on the committee, however, Zilsel found himself in a difficult situation. Both Gomperz and Schlick asked Zilsel on separate occasions to withdraw his application, and after some objections he did so on June 3, 1924.
If we look at the various positions of the committee members, two substantial differences concerning philosophy and politics stand out. Philosophically, there was a clash between the different strands of traditional philosophy (including German idealism, Catholic philosophy, and neo-romanticism) and a new philosophy based on formal logic, language analysis, and recent developments in physics. Among German-speaking countries the battle lines were perhaps most clearly drawn in Vienna. The battle began in 1895 when a new chair for the philosophy of the exact sciences was established and occupied by the positivist physicist-philosopher Ernst Mach. His successors were Ludwig Boltzmann, Adolf Stöhr, and from 1922 on, Moritz Schlick. Opposed to this development were the representatives of the traditional conservative and Catholic philosophy. Although the established positions of the conservative faction differed in many respects, they had united views on several issues where knowledge politics played a significant role, among them the conviction that philosophy should be regarded as the ‘queen of the sciences’. They defended the speculative and synthesizing power of philosophy and were opposed to any attempt to turn philosophy into a rigorous scientific enterprise. They emphasized a sharp division between philosophy and the empirical disciplines, and did not consider the new logic of Frege, Russell, and Whitehead nor the new metamathematics of Hubert to be a part of philosophy. Politically, there was a clash between the democratic alliance of the new scientific philosophers like Carnap, Reichenbach, Schlick, Neurath and, directly opposed, the conservative, neo-romantic, and anti-socialist faction.
[75] Upon acceptance of a Habilitaion a venia legendi may be obtained with which one may teach in the given area on a free-lance basis. Generally, it also serves as a license to apply for a university professorship.
[76] Die antiken Wurzeln des Geniebegr(ffes.
[77] Both quotes are from the curriculum vitae in HP/Z, undated.
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Robert Reininger (who had a chair in the History of Philosophy) and Richard Meister (who had a chair in Pedagogy) were the two members of the committee who denied Zilsel’s work “any value as a professional piece of philosophy”. Reininger [78] considered “the writing on the concept of genius as unsatisfactory”; the second part “has nothing to do with philosophy” and is a “mere collection of materials”. Meister claimed to have found a number of fundamental mistakes in the methodology of the work, amongst them “that everything is focused on economics”. He also made a point of stating that he had nothing against the candidate on personal grounds, but that he had problems with his “one-dimensional and rationalistic” approach in which “everything is construed in economic terms”. Without taking sides in this dispute. [79] it is possible to say that Reininger and Meister did have a point. The MS they were presented with was to a large extent a philological and historical analysis of the genealogy of the concept of genius supplemented by a set statements specifying under which socio-economic and institutional conditions the concept of genius could develop. Even today, the MS would not easily qualify as a thesis in philosophy. Zilsel’s fight for the acceptance of his Habilitationsschrift was fought and lost in a dispute over what constitutes the subject matter of philosophy proper.
Zilsel had very outspoken ideas about exactly this point, and he was by no means willing to compromise. When Schlick at one point asked Zilsel to withdraw the MS and submit a new, more philosophically oriented Habilitationsschrift, Zilsel firmly refused. In his reply to Schlick, Zilsel demonstrates his strong commitment to stick to his research program:
In continuing my work in philosophy and physics on phenomena of chance and large numbers in inanimate nature, my interests, in recent years, have turned toward the application of natural scientific methods to the humanities as well as toward the disclosure of fairly exact laws concerning the events in these fields. This research area shall occupy my mind for a longer period of time. I have already collected rather extensive material, especially regarding the history of the concept of genius. The results of the finished parts are formulated with respect to this material. How long the final completion of the other parts will occupy me, I, of course, cannot say today. I could not, however, justify to myself that the direction of my scientific work be influenced by any considerations other than by the problems themselves, my interest in them, and my previous work.
[78] There may have been a tension between Zilsel and Reininger dating back to the publication of Zilsel’s book TheReligion of Genius(1918). In the author’s summary (Selbstanzeige) of it (Kantstudien, 19 19/20, 24, pp. 165/6) Zilsel mentions Reininger as one of the authors upon whom he had orientated his work. Zilsel’s criticism of the ‘cult of genius’ may have been taken badly by Reininger for whom it was a very important idea.
[79] The conflict needs not only be seen in the context of a larger inner-university fight between positivist and traditional philosophers but also be placed within a special controversy concerning school reform. Meister was a vigorous opponent of the school reform movement in which Zilsel was very much involved. Zilsel’s scientifically based rationalism clashed with Meister’s a priori intuitionism in legitimating authority - both in science and in politics. More details can be found in F. Stadler, ‘Aspects of the Social Background and Position of the Vienna Circle at the University of Vienna’, pp. 5 1-77 in Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle.’ Austrian Studies on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle, T. E. Uebel (ed.). (Dordrecht, etc.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), esp. pp. 59-61.
Furthermore, I would not have called my analysis of the history of the concept of genius, the outcome of eight years of work, a Habilitation thesis, if, in my judgement, it could not withstand scientific criticism. A withdrawal of the present application appears to me to amount to a revocation of my intent. I would not be ready to withdraw it unless scientific reasons convince me of the untenability of my judgement. [80]
However, Zilsel withdrew his application for the venia legendi in a letter to the Dean on the third of November 1924 and refused to present another manuscript “which belonged to the most narrow definition of philosophy”, as had been requested by the evaluating committee. At whatever the cost to his career, Zilsel would stubbornly champion his understanding of philosophy. In his letter to the Dean, he writes:
I have, as seen in my previous work, approached philosophy, not coincidentally, not from the studies of historical literature. I have rather tried to develop my philosophy of nature and history with the help of physical and historical factual material in the hope of serving philosophy better than I would were I to cut her off from the fruitful ground of the individual sciences. It appears very improbable that I should fundamentally change my method in completing my planned philosophical work; it is thus improbable that the mentioned hopes for my future work can be fulfilled in the near future. I nevertheless find myself forced to follow the advice given to me with an apparently benevolent intention. I thus withdraw my application. [81]
A combination of philosophical and political factors prevented the acceptance of Zilsel’s work. [82] However, he did rework the MS - to what extent is unclear -
[80] The complete text of this letter is given by Dvotak, op. cit., 1981, p. 130-1, n. 11.
[81] This letter, d.d . November 3, 1924, is in the Zilsel file at the University of Vienna; we will use the acronym ZF/UV for references to this file.
[82] As to the scientific merits of Zilsel’s MS. the following is relevant. In order to find a way out of the situation the commission negotiated a compromise. It decided to seek an additional opinion from three external experts. The committee agreed upon three distinguished philosophers of high reputation though differing orientation - Ernst Cassirer (Berlin), Adolf Dyroff (Bonn), and Heinrich Scholz (Kiel). They were asked “whether according to your opinion the work can be appreciated as a piece of philosophy, and whether you believe that its ways of thought (which are obviously located in a boundary area of the history of the humanities) provide a sufficient basis for qualifying its author as a teacher in philosophy”. (Letter from the Dean, May 10, 1924) Cassirer was clearly impressed and indicated that “in general I received from it the most favourable impression. (...) I learned many new things with respect to the content of the work as well as its method guiding its subject”. On the crucial question of whether the study had philosophical merit his answer was an unequivocal yes. He wrote: “For even in the richness of historical details, which are indispensable in such a work, the selection of the material and the manner of weighing and questioning is consistently determined by general topics related to the history of the humanities and the philosophy of culture. I believe therefore, that the work in question - in line with Zilsel’s former works, which I highly esteem as valuable contributions to logic and philosophy of science - is to be considered as a fully valid basis for a philosophical habilitation”. Heinrich Scholz gave a lukewarm response. Scholz originally was a philosopher of religion who had turned to the new logic and to a rigid style of applying it to traditional philosophical problems. Though he admitted possessing a concept of philosophy radically different from that of Zilsel’s, he did not doubt the philosophical value of the MS. Adolf Dyroff, a philosopher of culture who had the chair for ‘catholic philosophy’ at the University of Bonn supported Zilsel’s critics: “The statistics are not without value ... but they need to be more strongly tied to the heart of the subject matter”. Dyroff tried to build a golden bridge. “So it would be deplorable, if the great intellectual power and sophistication of the author would be lost for the university”, and suggested that Zilsel should be allowed to revise the MS. With respect to the controversial point as to whether the MS could be rated as a proper piece of philosophical work, these experts represented exactly the variety of opinions already present on the committee. (All quotes are from ZF/VU). The complete text of the Cassirer letter can also be found in Dvotak, op. cit., p. 131, n. 14
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and published it in 1926 as The Development of the Concept of Genius. It became his most influential book and was reviewed by, among others, Benedetto Croce and Georg Lukacs. [83] Zilsel developed in this work the new empirical methods necessary for what he saw as the goal of his empirical historical research: the discovery of historical laws. Historical material about beliefs, attitudes, professional activities, and economic structure are collected and grouped together in each chapter. At the end of each chapter ‘results’ are formulated, followed by ‘provisional explanations’. At the end of the book a ‘final result’ is formulated: ‘Laws on the concept of genius’. [84] The structure of these laws is a thesis-like summary in which all information on spatial and temporal locations is omitted so as to attain the character of a general ‘if-then’ proposition. The crux of the scientific validity of these laws rested upon their testability through cross-cultural comparisons. They were meant as provisional scientific hypotheses, to be confirmed, rejected, or modified through research. He considered the analysis of ‘renaissances’ in different cultures and times as a suitable field for testing the laws he had tentatively formulated. It is exactly this point that offended his enemies. Zilsel’s method carried a dramatic shift of perspective in its wake: People, professional work, and cultural periods would lose their uniqueness and come to be seen as mere variables in a temporal development. Even if the resulting laws only barely met the minimum theoretical requirements of lawlike statements, they were of paradigmatic significance to Zilsel for establishing a socio-historical science that is fueled by cooperation and applies comparative cross-cultural methods. In his essay ‘Physics and the Problem of Historico-Sociological Laws’ [85] he pursues this topic and provides examples of the kinds of laws he was looking for in his book on The Development of the Concept of Genius.
3. Zilsel and the
Zilsel’s attempt to combine philosophical analysis with
detailed historical research directed toward the tentative articulation of
general laws caused his Habilitation to falter, and, to a certain
extent, it also distanced him from the central figures of the
[83] For a complete list of the reviews we have been able to locate of
this book see appendix III, pp. 235-242.
[84] The Development of the Concept of Genius, pp.
101ff, 209f, 323ff.
[85] This volume, pp. 200-208.
[86] HR 013-38-31,
[87] See Erkenntnis,
Vol. 1, 1930, p. 70.
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enna Circle. His observation however that its members were predominantly interested
in the methodology of the sciences and not in the study of new fields is not
completely unjustified. For Zilsel, the
An exchange between Zilsel and Reichenbach concerning
an essay submitted by Zilsel for the first volume of Erkenntnis [92] also sheds some light
on this issue. Zilsel’s
essay was on the relationship between history and biology. [93] Reichenbach
was short of space in the journal and by letter of
There is no other way than to describe the historical
facts and examples. Were I to omit the
examples, nothing but a formal program would be left. This may appeal to some readers with purely
natural scientific interests, but it would be scientifically sterile and not
convince any expert. I regard the
customary content-free methodology and logic of science, as practiced today, to
be so detrimental that I certainly could not delete the material content of my
own work and publish merely the “principal considerations”. [94]
[88] Lehrbuch der
materialistischen GeschichtsaufJassung.
[89] E. Zilsel, ‘Partei, Marxismus, Materialismus, Neukantianismus’, DerKampf, 1931,24, pp. 2 13-220, p. 21; republished in Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung, op. cit.,
1992, pp. 88 - 98.
[90] Empirische Soziologie, the bulk of this book is translated in O. Neurath Empirical Sociology, M. Neurath
and R. S. Cohen, (eds.) (Riedel:
[91] E. Zilsel ‘Review of O. Neurath Empirische Soziologie’, Der Kampf, 1932, 25, pp. 91-94, p. 93, republished
in Wissenschafi und Weltanschauung, op.
cit., pp 145-9. Apart from his
methodological queries, Zilsel did not have the
highest opinion of Neurath’s book. Reichenbach asked
him to review it in Erkenntnis (HP
013-38-18, November 18, 1931) and Zilsel replied: “By
the way, Neurath’s book does not seem to me to be
worked out very well and I don’t believe Erkenntnis
would lose a lot if a review were omitted”. (HR 013-38-17,
[92] Reichenbach was the main
editor of the new journal.
[93] The MS at issue was published in 1931 as
‘Geschichte und Biologie, Uberlieferung
und Vererbung’, Archivfiir
Sozialwissenschafl und Sozialpolitik,
65, pp. 475-524; republished in Wissenschafi
und Weltanschauung, op. cit., pp 10 1-44. The later fate of this essay was already
mentioned in section II.5. 94 HR 0 13-38-22,
His dislike of abstract
philosophical argument and his belief in accurate case studies does not imply
any serious doubts about the validity of the basic ideas of logical empiricism.
Zilsel most
certainly did agree with them. He
however did harbor doubts as to whether the plan for a unified science could be
advanced on the basis of a theory-of-science-program alone. The core of his criticism was directed against
Carnap’s construction of a spatio-temporal
universal language. [95] He made the point that such a
language would still allow the possibility of more than one unified science. Therefore, one had to raise the “far more
difficult question”
whether
all areas of contemporary specialized sciences can be linked together through
unified laws. This is an empirical
problem... Laws should first be found in the field of the socio-cultural
sciences (Representatives of the present-day “Geistes
“- Wissenschaften object, above
all, to such laws). The discovery of cultural laws would bring about a far more
interesting unification of the sciences than the spatio-temporal
universal language. [96]
Zilsel realized in his own historical research how difficult
the task of linking the social with the natural sciences was. This made him sceptical
about the usefulness of formulating a program of unity as compared to
generating unity by means of empirical research. The program of the
[95] Due to lack of space we will not deal with this exchange of ideas
at any great length. We are referring to
Zilsel’s reply, ‘Bemerkungen
zur Wissenschaftslogik’, (Erkenntnis, 1932, 3, 2/3, pp. 143-61) to R. Carnap’s essay ‘Die Physikalische
Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaft’, (Erkenntnis 1931,
2, (5/6), pp. 432-65). Carnap in turn replied in his ‘Erwiderung
auf die vorstehenden AufsAtze
von E. Zilsel und K. Duncker’,
(Erkenntnis, 1932,3,2/3,
pp. 177-88). For an extensive analysis
see H. Rutte, ‘Zu Zilsels erkenntnistheoretischen Ansichten in der Phase des Wiener
Kreises’, pp. 447-66 in Wien-Berlin-Prag:
Der Aufstieg der Wissenschaflhichen Philosophie; Zentenarien Rudolf Carnap - Hans Reichenbach –Edgar
Zilsel, R. Haller & F. Stadler(ed.).(Wien: Verlag HOlder-Pichler-Tempsky,
1993).
[96] ‘Bemerkungen zur
Wissenschaftslogik’, op. cit., p. 154.
[97] Quoted from: Otto Neurath
et. al., Wissenschaflliche
Weltauffassung - der
Wiener Kries, in: O. Neurath,
Wissenschafiliche Weltauffassung,
Sozialismus und Logischer Empirismus, R. Hegselmann
(ed.), (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979), pp. 81-102, p.
87. An English translation of the
[98] Ibid., p. 98.
[99] “Nur Schritiflir Schritt weiter dringende Forschung der Erfahrungswissenschafi
kann uns darüber belehren, in weichem Grade die Welt gesetzmässiig
ist. “ Ibid., p. 95.
xlvi
Our point is not to
insinuate any serious unbridgeable opposition between the
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