Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle and the Mathematical Colloquium: 20 (Vienna Circle Collection, 20) - Hardcover

Menger, Karl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 079232711X ISBN 13: 9780792327110

Publisher: Springer, 1994

Synopsis

Karl Menger was born in Vienna on January 13, 1902, the only child of two gifted parents. His mother Hermione, nee Andermann (1870-1922), in addition to her musical abilities, wrote and published short stories and novelettes, while his father Carl (1840-1921) was the noted Austrian economist, one of the founders of marginal utility theory. A highly cultured man, and a liberal rationalist in the nine­ teenth century sense, the elder Menger had witnessed the defeat and humiliation of the old Austrian empire by Bismarck's Prussia, and the subsequent establishment under Prussian leadership of a militaristic, mystically nationalistic, state-capitalist German empire - in effect, the first modern "military-industrial complex. " These events helped frame in him a set of attitudes that he later transmitted to his son, and which included an appreciation of cultural attainments and tolerance and respect for cultural differences, com­ bined with a deep suspicion of rabid nationalism, particularly the German variety. Also a fascination with structure, whether artistic, scientific, philosophical, or theological, but a rejection of any aura of mysticism or mumbo-jumbo accompanying such structure. Thus the son remarked at least once that the archangels' chant that begins the Prolog im Himmel in Goethe's Faust was perhaps the most viii INTRODUCTION beautiful thing in the German language "but of course it doesn't mean anything.

About this title

Synopsis

Karl Menger (1902-1985), a pure mathematician, also took an active interest in both philosophy and economics. In this memoir, which he was composing at the time of his death, he relates how all these subjects developed and flourished against the Viennese background (described in depth), and did so despite the political developments of the 20s and 30s, which depressed but did not silence him. He continued his work in the United States. The memoir describes his membership of the Vienna Circle (the scientifically minded philosophers that gathered around Moritz Schlick) for whom he was an intermediary, bringing them into contact with Brouwer's intuitionism, with the work of the Polish logicians, especially that of Tarski, but more generally with rigorous mathematical thinking. Indeed, the other Viennese group described here is the Mathematical Colloquium, which he founded, whose Proceedings show it to have been a powerhouse of ideas. There are also chapters on philosophy and mathematics in the Poland of the 20s and 30s and the United States of the 30s and 40s.

The memoir devotes particular attention to Wittgenstein (with whose family Menger was acquainted) and to Goedel, whom he was instrumental in bringing to America. The genesis of Menger's own writings on philosophy is also described and the work features many mathematical examples applied to that subject. This volume gives an impression of the interdisciplinarity of the tradition to which he partly belonged and partly created. A brief account of his life is given in an introduction by the editors (all of whom knew him personally), and his contribution to the social sciences - only touched on in the text - is elucidated by Professor Lionello Punzo.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 079232711X
• ISBN 13: 9780792327110
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 270
• Editor: Golland L., McGuinness B.F., Sklar Abe