The Vienna Circle's ‘Anti-Foundationalism’

Thomas E. Uebel has recently claimed that, contrary to popular opinion, none of the philosophers of the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists were proponents of epistemological foundationalism. According to the considerations of the current discussion, however, Uebel's conclusion is erroneous, especially with respect to the work of Moritz Schlick. The chief reason Uebel offers to support his conclusion is that current attempts to portray Schlick's epistemology as foundationalist fail to overcome its ‘ultimate incoherence’. In contrast, it is argued that current interpretations, based on the unpublished as well as the published record, provide understandings of Schlick's foundationalist epistemology as not only coherent, but plausible. In closing, Uebel's own treatment of Schlick's work, which purports to show that the most feasible candidates for foundational statements are ‘meaning-theoretic’ clarifications of the content of expressions, itself fails to accurately represent Schlick's own characterizations, and pictures Schlick's epistemology as a confused mix of epistemic and semantic insights.

Epistemology · Foundationalism · Meaning (existential) · Positivism · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History

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  Open Access•Paul Livingston, Paul M Livingston•Synthese•2002

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  T E Uebel•The British Journal for the…•1999

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  Thomas Oberdan•The British Journal for the…•1999

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• The Logical Syntax of Language

  A P Ushenko, Rudolph Carnap•The Philosophical Review•1937

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• Anti-Foundationalism and the Vienna Circle's Revolution in Philosophy

  Thomas Uebel, Thomas E Uebel•The British Journal for the…•1996

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