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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Brian McGuinness

From passages quoted in Giandomenica Becchio's excellent introduction, it will be clear that I found Karl Menger an ideal subject when I was a series editor (of the Vienna Circle

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From passages quoted in Giandomenica Becchio's excellent introduction, it will be clear that I found Karl Menger an ideal subject when I was a series editor (of the Vienna Circle Collection) and he a contributor. He produced splendid copy, did his own translations, found his own references and was altogether easy to deal with – when he had his own way, of course, but that was usually the best course in any case. Alas he died before he and we could assemble a full set of reminiscences. The volume we brought out is still in demand and was greeted with enthusiasm by those interested in the intellectual history of its period. All the more it is a joy to learn that further papers of this nature have now been made available for publication.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Book part
Publication date: 16 November 2009

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

Karl Menger (1902–1985) was the mathematician son of the famous economist Carl Menger. He was professor of geometry at the University of Vienna from 1927 to 1938. During that…

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Karl Menger (1902–1985) was the mathematician son of the famous economist Carl Menger. He was professor of geometry at the University of Vienna from 1927 to 1938. During that period, which was crucial from a historical and philosophical point of view, he joined the Vienna Circle and founded his Mathematical Colloquium. Menger's memoirs of those Viennese years are recollected in his Reminiscences of the Vienna Circle, appeared in 1994 as the twentieth volume of the Vienna Circle Collection.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

[In Menger's Reminiscences this part is Chapter Five (‘Vignettes of the members of the Circle in 1927’), where Moritz Schlick is described as ‘an extremely refined, somewhat

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[In Menger's Reminiscences this part is Chapter Five (‘Vignettes of the members of the Circle in 1927’), where Moritz Schlick is described as ‘an extremely refined, somewhat introverted man’; Hans Hahn, ‘a strong, extroverted, highly articulate person who always spoke with a loud voice’; Olga Hahn Neurath, ‘always smoking a big cigar’; Otto Neurath, ‘a man of immense energy and curiosity, very fast in grasping new ideas, through an often distorting lens of socialist philosophy’; Rudolf Carnap, ‘systematic, sometimes to the point of pedantry…a truly liberal and completely tolerant man’; Victor Kraft ‘[who] like Schlick, Feigl and myself, by no means shared all the political ideas and ideals of Neurath’; Friedrich Waissman, ‘a very clear expositor [who] unfortunately dragged out his studies [of mathematics and philosophy] at the University’; Herbert Feigl, ‘[who] did probably more than anyone else to make some of the Viennese ideas known in America’; Theodor Radakovic, ‘a student of Hahn's…too shy to take part in the discussion of the Circle, although he attended the meetings regularly’; Edgar Zilsel, ‘a militant leftist [who] wanted to be considered only as close to, and not as a member of, the Circle’; and Felix Kaufmann, ‘a philosopher of law, an ardent phenomenologist, the only participant with a true sense of humour’ (Menger, 1994, pp. 55–68). These following parts are those unpublished].

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

In 1923, an issue entered the discussion between Schreier2 and myself, though hardly anyone else in Vienna was interested in it at that time. Historically, the topic was connected…

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In 1923, an issue entered the discussion between Schreier2 and myself, though hardly anyone else in Vienna was interested in it at that time. Historically, the topic was connected with the question of intuition or Wesensschau, but substantially, in my opinion, the two were quite distinct. Elaborating on ideas of the 19th century algebraist L. Kronecker and eloquently supported by Weyl,3 the Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer developed what he called intuitionistic mathematics, the mathematical controversy centred on existential propositions. But those who closely associated intuitionism in mathematics with the intuition in Husserl's pure phenomenology or Bergson's metaphysics were misled by the similarity of the two words. Whatever, if anything, Brouwer's reconstruction of mathematics and the phenomenology in Husserl's Ideas had in common, they certainly had opposite effects: Husserl claimed for his Wesensschau (and Bergson for his intuition) insights that empiricists such as Schilck denied or regarded as empty words. Brouwer, to the contrary, rejected statements that everyone else claimed to be solid parts of mathematics, and he denied or regarded as empty words theorems proved by men such as Hilbert.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

The Vienna Circle and the work of Brentano, Meinong and Husserl were only indirectly related and mainly by opposition. The present chapter is devoted to Mach, Boltzmann and…

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The Vienna Circle and the work of Brentano, Meinong and Husserl were only indirectly related and mainly by opposition. The present chapter is devoted to Mach, Boltzmann and Mauthner, three precursors of the Circle, though quite unequally treated by the group. Mach was extolled, while the other two were practically ignored.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

Menger disagreed with this view for various reasons. Also, the subjective expectation is infinite. There are many cases where man's behaviour fails to conform to mathematical…

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Menger disagreed with this view for various reasons. Also, the subjective expectation is infinite. There are many cases where man's behaviour fails to conform to mathematical expectations: games in which a player can win only one very large amount with a very small probability or games offering a single moderate amount with a very high probability. Furthermore, we can always find a sequence of payoffs x1, x2, x3,…, which yield infinite expected value, and then propose, say, that u(xn)=2n, so that expected utility is also infinite. Menger therefore proposed that utility must also be bounded above for paradoxes of this type to be resolved.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

For better understanding the connections between the Viennese circles in which Menger was involved, it is necessary to make some remarks on the Viennese context where they…

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For better understanding the connections between the Viennese circles in which Menger was involved, it is necessary to make some remarks on the Viennese context where they developed. Since the end of the 19th century up to the interwar period, Vienna was a very lively city from a cultural point of view, the birthplace of modernism (Janik & Toulmin, 1973). In the age of the late Habsburg monarchy as well as in the post-First War ‘Red Vienna’, the intellectual, scientific and artistic life of the Austrian capital was so fervent that those years are recalled by historians as the Viennese Enlightenment, the gay apocalypse and the golden autumn: ‘two generations were enough to cover the whole period. The economist Carl Menger (1841–1920) shaped the beginning, and his son, the mathematician Karl Menger (1902–1985), witnessed the end’ (Golland & Sigmund, 2000, p. 34). After the First World War, from an economic point of view, a high inflation overwhelmed the country; while from a political point of view, ‘the new Austria was fragmented and labyrinthine’ (Leonard, 1998, p. 6): the Christian socialists were the conservative part of the society, but one third of citizens supported the new social-democratic party, which had the majority in Vienna.

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
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ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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Publication date: 16 November 2009

Giandomenica Becchio

Before talking about the Vienna Circle, I wish to sketch the earlier history of philosophy in Austria insofar as it is connected with ideas of the circle – by contrast or by…

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Before talking about the Vienna Circle, I wish to sketch the earlier history of philosophy in Austria insofar as it is connected with ideas of the circle – by contrast or by similarity – but without any claim as to completeness of the list of authors considered or the work described.1

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Unexplored Dimensions: Karl Mengeron Economics and Philosophy (1923–1938)
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-998-1

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