Abstract
The monistic movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are most often studied as aiming at a comprehensive world-view, a Weltanschauung. Typically, monists tried to generate such a worldview by transforming their scientific expertise in a particular field into an all-encompassing explanation and interpretation of the world. Monism thus needed to strike a balance between the specialist depth in studying one area of science and the breadth that is the hallmark of a worldview.
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Notes
See Joachim Radkau, Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler (München, Wien: Hanser, 1998).
The approach of analytical philosophy itself came under attack in the 1950s, in particular through the work of W. V. O. Quine. Recent historiography has made important progress in relating the apparently highly self-contained development of the analytical picture to a broader context. For a first criticism of the traditional picture of logical empiricism, see W. V. O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” The Philosophical Review 60 (1951): 20–43; for a general historical account, see Alan W. Richardson and Ronald N. Giere, Origins of Logical Empiricism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).
Wilhelm Ostwald, “Zur Theorie der Wissenschaft,” Annalen der Naturphilosophie 4 (1905): 3–27; Wilhelm Ostwald, Esquisse d’une philosophie des sciences, trans. M. Dorolle (Paris: Alcan, 1911). The “Avant-propos du traducteur” stresses just the issues discussed in this chapter: “Il est un moment où la construction des systèmes scientifiques ne peut utilement se poursuivre que si l’on fait retour sur le passé, pour comprendre l’origine et l’évolution des notions, en établir par là la valeur, et mettre en relief les conceptions vraiment fécondes. W. Ostwald a montré dans des livres bien connus du public français combien il excelle en ces vues d’ensemble et quelles larges généralisations il sait en tirer.”—An interesting characterization of the relationship between the new “methodology” and the old philosophy of nature is given in a review of Walter Marvin’s chapter on “philosophy of nature” in his Introduction to Systematical Philosophy— again, this review places Ostwald alongside Russell and other figures of the official philosophy of science: “Philosophers seem hardly to have realised the important fact that some of the ablest special workers in these branches of knowledge—Russell, Couturat, Ostwald, Duhem, Poincaré, to mention only these—have begun to devote themselves with concentrated energy to discussions of the epistemological and ‘methodological’ aspects of the conceptions with which they have such an intimate practical acquaintance; and when compared with this work, what has hitherto passed for: ‘Philosophy of Nature’ seems really almost ridiculous.” (S. H. Mellone, review of An Introduction to Systematic Philosophy, by W. T. Marvin, Mind N.S. 14 [1905]: 272–273).
Rudolf Carnap, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt (Berlin-Schlachtensee: Weltkreis-Verlag, 1928): 4, 247. See also Thomas Mormann, “Carnap’s Logical Empiricism, Values, and American Pragmatism,” Journal for General Philosophy of Science 38 (2007): 127–146, for Carnap’s reference to Ostwald’s theory of values. Ostwald’s view of reality might be called, in modern terms, a form of “scientific realism”: “We call such things real that we can fit into the experience-based laws of nature that we accept”; Wilhelm Ost wald, Moderne Naturphilosophie. I. Die Ordnungswissenschaften (Leipzig: Akad. Verlagsgesellschaft, 1914): 101.
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus appeared, under the title “Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung,” and in a version with which Wittgenstein was very dissatisfied, in the 1921 issue of the Annalen der Naturphilosophie, and, with a facing English translation, in 1922 in the series The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Both versions contain an introduction by Bertrand Russell. On the publication history of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, see Brian McGuinness, Wittenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig 1889–1921 (London: Duckworth, 1988): 296; here also the reference to Ostwald’s letter to Russell.
Carnap, Aufbau, v; anon. [Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn,] Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis (Wien: Artur Wolf, 1929).
Ian Hacking coined the cogent formula that “not even unity is united” (Hacking, “Disunities,” 42). For an overview over the history of the idea of the unity of science, see Jordi Cat, “The Unity of Science,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-unity/ (accessed September 30, 2010). See also Charles W. Morris, “On the History of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science,” Synthese 12 (1960): 517–521. Earlier developments in the systematization of the sciences will not be discussed here; see Paul Ziche, Wissenschaftslandschaften um 1900: Philosophie, die Wissenschaften und der nicht-reduktive Szientismus (Zürich: Chronos, 2008).
See also the series “Einheitswissenschaft,” also initiated by Neurath; a modern edition of the relevant texts is Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness, eds., Einheitswissenschaft (Frankfurt a. M.: suhrkamp, 1992).
Otto Neurath, “Unified Science as Encyclopedic Integration,” International Encyclopedia of Unified Science I, no. 1 (1938): 1–2.
Neurath, “Unified Science,” 2–3. See also Walter Tega, “Atlases, Cities, Mosaics—Neurath and the Encyclopédie,” in Encyclopedia and Utopia: The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945), eds. Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer, 1996), 63–77.
See, in particular, Ostwald’s historical psychology of great scientific minds: Wilhelm Ostwald, Grosse Männer (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1909).
For an overview, see Paolo Mancosu, “Hilbert and Bernays on Metamathematics,” in From Brouwer to Hilbert: The Debate on the Foundations of Mathematics in the 1920s, ed. Paolo Mancosu (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998), 149–188; Roman Murawski, “Leibniz’s and Kant’s Philosophical Ideas and the Development of Hilbert’s Programme,” http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/∼rmur/torun1.ps (accessed October 15, 2010). Volker Peckhaus has emphasized Hilbert’s efforts to develop the University of Göttingen into a center for “systematic philosophy” with a close interaction between mathematics and philosophy; Volker Peckhaus, Hilbertprogramm und Kritische Philosophie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), ch. 6.
The theory of “manifolds” was introduced by the mathematician Hermann Grassmann and proved of enormous importance for fields such as algebra, differential geometry, and logic. On the reception of Grassmann’s ideas see Ziche, Wissenschaftslandschaften; Paul Ziche, “New Forms of Science and New Sciences of Form: On the Non-Mathematical Reception of Grassmann’s Work,” in Hermann Grassmann. From Past to Future: Grassmann’s Work in Context, eds. Hans-Joachim Petsche, Albert Lewis, Jörg Liesen, and Steve Russ (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2011), 131–140.
Paul Ziche, “Wilhelm Ostwald als Begründer der modernen Logik: Logik und künstliche Sprachen bei Ostwald und Louis Couturat,” in Ein Netz der Wissenschaften? Wilhelm Ostwalds “Annalen der Naturphilosophie” und die Durchsetzung wissenschaftlicher Paradigmen, eds. Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, Heiner Kaden, and Nikos Psarros (Leipzig: Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 46–66; Paul Ziche, “Alternative Claims to the Discovery of Modern Logic: Coincidences and Diversification,” in Foundations of the Formal Sciences VII: Bringing together Philosophy and Sociology of Science, eds. Karen François, Benedikt Löwe, Thomas Müller, and Bart van Kerkhove (London: College Publications, 2011), 243–267.
Wilhelm Ostwald, Die Pyramide der Wissenschaften (Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta, 1929). Neurath distanced himself from the model of the pyramid because he sensed too strong reductive undertones in it. See George A. Reisch, “Planning Science: Otto Neurath and the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science,” The British Journal for the History of Science 27 (1994): 153–175. Ostwald’s use of the model of the pyramid would, however, fit rather comfortably with Neurath’s “mosaic” picture.
Max Weber, “‘Energetische’ Kulturtheorien,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Max Weber (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1988), 412.
See Paul Ziche, “Wilhelm Ostwalds Monismus: Weltversicherung und Horizonteröffnung,” Jahrbuch für Europäische Wissenschaftskultur 3 (2007): 117–134.
I follow the condensed presentation in Wilhelm Ostwald, Grundriß der Naturphilosophie (Leipzig: Reclam, 1908).
Wilhelm Ostwald, Die Wissenschaft: Vortrag gehalten auf dem Ersten Monisten-Kongress zu Hamburg am 10. September 1911 (Leipzig: Kröner, 1911).
For an overview over Ostwald’s acitvities in this field, see Thomas Hapke, “Ostwald and the Bibliographic Movement,” in Wilhelm Ostwald at the Crossroads between Chemistry, Philosophy and Media Culture, eds. Britta Görs, Nikos Psarros, and Paul Ziche (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2005), 115–134.
Wilhelm Ostwald, Das Gehirn der Welt (München: Die Brücke, 1912). Here, too, lies a clear parallel with analytical philosophy and its interest in improving scientific communication and the exchange of information. Examples are Neurath’s code for visual languages, the endeavors to develop an artificial language for use in everyday communication, or the setting up of standards for library organization. See also the references in Hacking, “Disunities,” 70, to Maxwell’s ideas as to the unification of science via information exchange among scientists.
Paul Oppenheim and Hilary Putnam, “Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2 (1950): 3.
It is worthwhile to note that Ostwald was on excellent personal terms with a thinker who approached Weltanschauungs issues from the perspective of the humanities and who propounded a strongly spiritual form of monism, namely Rudolf Eucken. On the Eucken-Ostwald relationship, see Uwe Dathe, “Rudolf Eucken—Ein Gegner des Monismus und Freund des Monisten,” in Monismus um 1900. Wissenschaftskultur und Weltanschauung, ed. Paul Ziche (Berlin: VWB-Verlag, 2000): 41–59.
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Ziche, P. (2012). Monist Philosophy of Science: Between Worldview and Scientific Meta-Reflection. In: Weir, T.H. (eds) Monism. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011749_7
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