Nikolay Milkov, Volker Peckhaus (eds): The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume 273): Springer, New York, 2013, 332 pp, €106.95, ISBN: 978-94-007-5484-3

摘要

Someone's first encounter with Logical Empiricism is very likely to be through a book or an article on the Vienna Circle. This is not surprising because research about Logical Empiricism is in most cases research about the Vienna Circle. There is no question that this is an important research field for the history of scientific philosophy but the overwhelming quantity of literature may obscure the fact that the history of Logical Empiricism is not just the history of the Schlick Circle. Exactly this is the starting point of The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism: Edited by Volker Peckhaus and Nikolay Milkov, the book reminds us that at least one other group took part in this scientific endeavor and their book investigates (and promotes) the philosophy of its members. The Berlin Group is not unknown to scientific philosophers but investigations on the group are still scarce (compared to the mass of literature on the Vienna circle). The question is whether or not the book by Peckhaus and Milkov can contribute new material to the interesting discussion about the "unknown" part of Logical Empiricism.