Background
Moritz Schlick was born in Berlin on April 14, 1832.
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( An authoritative exposition of the theory of relativity...)
An authoritative exposition of the theory of relativity, this volume is the work of the leader of the famed Vienna Circle, Moritz Schlick. It offers an accessible approach to the physical doctrines of the special and general theories of relativity, with particular focus on the theories philosophic significance. Beginning with an overview of the importance of the Einsteinian theory to the realm of physics, the author proceeds to explain the special principle of relativity, the geometrical relativity of space, the mathematical formulation of spatial relativity, the inseparability of geometry and physics in experience, and the relativity of motion and its connection with inertia and gravitation. Additional topics include the general postulate of relativity and the measure-determinations of the space-time continuum, enunciation and significance of the fundamental law of the new theory, the finiteness of the universe, and the relation of the relativity theory of philosophy. Both as a clear, nonmathematical introduction to a complex subject and a definition of the theories philosophical ramifications, this book is outstanding. It will benefit teachers and students of philosophy and physics, along with anyone else who wants a better understanding of the ideas behind Einsteinian physics.
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( First published in Germany in 1918, this acutely reason...)
First published in Germany in 1918, this acutely reasoned treatise attacks many of philosophys contemporary sacred cows, including the concept of metaphysics and Kants arguments for synthetic a priori knowledge. The book expounds most of the doctrines that would later be identified with the ?classical period of the Vienna Circle. Unlike many of his peers, Schlick displays a detailed and sensitive knowledge of the traditions he criticizes, displayed here in the chief work of this pioneering Viennese philosopher.
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Moritz Schlick was born in Berlin on April 14, 1832.
He educated in Berlin. His secondary school training was largely focused on mathematics and physics, and he pursued these subjects further in his university studies at Heidelberg, Lausanne, and Berlin. His doctoral thesis at Berlin, written under Max Planck, was Reflection of Light (1904).
By 1910 Schlick's interests had shifted from physics proper to epistemology and the philosophy of science. With his inaugural dissertation, "The Nature of Truth in the Light of Modern Physics, " he began his teaching career at Rostock. There he continued to follow developments in physics, partly through his friendship with Planck and Albert Einstein; and he wrote the first interpretation of the latter's relativity theory in 1917. Also during this period, Schlick worked out his fundamental ideas on scientific knowing and published them as The General Theory of Knowledge (1918). This earned him wide attention and a call to a professorship, first at Kiel in 1921 and a year later at Vienna.
At Vienna, Schlick quickly became the center of a group of men interested in scientific philosophy, logic, and mathematics. The group included among others Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Friedrich Waismann, and Kurt Gödel and later the English philosophers Alfred Ayer and Susan Stebbing and an American, Charles Morris. There were weekly meetings to discuss fundamental questions in logic and the philosophy of science. Setting very exact (critics would say "narrow") criteria for knowledge, the group rejected metaphysical propositions as meaningless and severely limited the range of significant speech in ethics and esthetics. In 1929, on the occasion of Schlick's return from a guest lectureship at Stanford, Calif. , he was presented with a pamphlet describing the history, membership, orientation, and goals of the group. It was called "The Scientific View of the World: The Vienna Circle. "
The reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus in 1921 fundamentally altered Schlick's conception of the task of philosophy. He now held that philosophy's task was the analysis of the concepts used in science and the language spoken in everyday life. Widely propagated by members of the Vienna Circle, this is the dominant view in English and American philosophy today.
Schlick was shot by a deranged former student while on his way to lecture at the University of Vienna on June 22, 1936. Owing to his death and to the hostility of the Nazi regime after the Anschluss, the members of the Circle were widely dispersed to Scandinavia, England, and the United States.
( First published in Germany in 1918, this acutely reason...)
( An authoritative exposition of the theory of relativity...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
(Original 1949 first edition hardcover)
Quotations: “The meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification. ”
He was the member of the Vienna Circle.
His humanity, good will, gentleness, and especially his encouragement have been documented by many of his peers.
Quotes from others about the person
"No other thinker was so well prepared to give new impetus to the philosophical questings of the younger generation. Though many of his students and successors have attained a higher degree of exactitude and adequacy in their logical analyses of problems in the theory of knowledge, Schlick had an unsurpassed sense for what is essential in philosophical issues. "
— Feigl and Blumberg, Introduction, General Theory of Knowledge, p. xxi
In 1907, he married Blanche Hardy.