International Encyclopedia of Unified Science
The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (IEUS) was a series of publications started in the USA in 1938 and devoted to unified science. It was an ambitious project that was never completed.
The IEUS was an output of the Vienna Circle to address the "growing concern throughout the world for the logic, the history, and the sociology of science..."[1] Only the first section Foundations of the Unity of Science (FUS) was published; it contains two volumes for a total of nineteen monographs published from 1938 to 1969.
Volume I
Encyclopedia and Unified Science (FUS I-1)
Otto Neurath, Niels Bohr, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, and Charles Morris
Foundations of the Theory of Signs (FUS I-2)
Charles Morris
Foundations of Logic and Mathematics (FUS I-3)
Rudolf Carnap
Linguistic Aspects of Science (FUS I-4)
Leonard Bloomfield
Procedures of Empirical Science (FUS I-5)
Victor F. Lenzen
Principles of the Theory of Probability (FUS I-6)
Ernest Nagel
Foundations of Physics (FUS I-7)
Philipp Frank
Cosmology (FUS I-8)
E. Finlay-Freundlich
Foundations of Biology (FUS I-9)
Felix Mainx
The Conceptual Framework of Psychology (FUS I-10)
Egon Brunswik
Volume II
Foundations of the Social Sciences (FUS II-1)
Otto Neurath
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (FUS II-2)
Thomas S. Kuhn
Science and the Structure of Ethics (FUS II-3)
Abraham Edel
Theory of Valuation (FUS II-4)
John Dewey
The Technique of Theory Construction (FUS II-5)
Joseph H. Woodger
Methodology of Mathematical Economics and Econometrics (FUS II-6)
Gerhard Tintner
Concept Formation in Empirical Science (FUS II-7)
Carl G. Hempel
The Development of Rationalism and Empiricism (FUS II-8)
George De Santillana, Edgar Zilsel
The Development of Logical Empiricism (FUS II-9)
Joergen Joergensen
Bibliography and Index (FUS II-10)
Herbert Feigl, Charles Morris
Influence
Historian David Hollinger argued that the IEUS was a less comprehensive account of the sciences of the time than it could have been, and was especially weak in the social sciences.[2] Hollinger noted that the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, published around the same time, provided a much more comprehensive account of the social sciences: "The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (12 vols., New York, 1933–1937) was a prodigious endeavor brought to successful completion by Alvin Johnson. This encyclopedia is a much more important episode in the history of thought than The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science yet has attracted much less attention from historians than the abortive enterprise led by Neurath."[2] Hollinger also said that the scholarly journal Philosophy of Science, founded in 1934, provided a much more inclusive perspective on the sciences in those years than did the IEUS.[2]
American political theorist James Burnham refers to the Encyclopedia in Science and Style: A Reply to Comrade Trotsky (1940), his penultimate tract discussing his differences with Trotsky and marking Burnham's renouncement of dialectical materialism. In this text he responds to Trotsky's request to draw his attention to "those works which should supplant the system of dialectic materialism for the proletariat" by referring to Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead and "the scientists, mathematicians and logicians now cooperating in the new Encyclopedia of Unified Science".[3] Burnham resigned from the Workers Party three and a half months later declaring "that dialectical materialism, though scientifically meaningless, is psychologically and historically an integral part of Marxism" and that he had "for several years had no real place in a Marxist party."[4]
See also
References
- ↑ Neurath, Otto; Carnap, Rudolf; Morris, Charles W., eds. (1969) [1938]. Foundations of the unity of science: toward an international encyclopedia of unified science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 103. ISBN 0226575861. OCLC 186129.
- 1 2 3 Hollinger, David A. (May 2011). "The unity of knowledge and the diversity of knowers: science as an agent of cultural integration in the United States between the two world wars". Pacific Historical Review. 80 (2): 211–230 [216–217]. doi:10.1525/phr.2011.80.2.211.
- ↑ Burhham J. (1940a) Science and Style: A Reply to Comrade Trotsky, in In Defence of Marxism by Leon Trotsky, London 1966, pp.232–256.
- ↑ Burhham J. (1940b) "Resignation letter" (21 May 1940).
Further reading
- Morris, Charles W. (1962) [1960]. "On the history of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science". Logic and language: studies dedicated to Professor Rudolf Carnap on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Synthese library. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. pp. 242–246. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-2111-0_16. ISBN 9789048183197. JSTOR 20114366. OCLC 23127209.
- Nemeth, Elisabeth; Stadler, Friedrich, eds. (1996). Encyclopedia and utopia: the life and work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945). Vienna Circle Institute yearbook. 4. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0792341619. OCLC 36219438.
- Neurath, Otto (1983) [1936]. "An international encyclopedia of unified science". In Cohen, Robert S.; Neurath, Marie; Fawcett, Carolyn R. Philosophical papers, 1913–1946. Vienna Circle collection. 16. Dordrecht; Boston: D. Reidel. pp. 139–144. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-6995-7_12. ISBN 9027714835.
- Neurath, Otto (1983) [1936]. "Encyclopedia as 'model'". In Cohen, Robert S.; Neurath, Marie; Fawcett, Carolyn R. Philosophical papers, 1913–1946. Vienna Circle collection. 16. Dordrecht; Boston: D. Reidel. pp. 145–158. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-6995-7_13. ISBN 9027714835.
- O'Neill, John (September 2003). "Unified science as political philosophy: positivism, pluralism and liberalism". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. 34 (3): 575–596. doi:10.1016/S0039-3681(03)00048-7.
- Pombo, Olga (2011). "Neurath and the encyclopaedic project of unity of science". In Symons, John; Pombo, Olga; Torres, Juan Manuel. Otto Neurath and the unity of science. Logic, epistemology and the unity of science. 18. Dodrecht; New York: Springer Verlag. pp. 59–70. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0143-4_5. ISBN 9789400701427. OCLC 723045353.
- Potochnik, Angela (May 2011). "A Neurathian conception of the unity of science" (PDF). Erkenntnis. 74 (3): 305–319. doi:10.1007/s10670-010-9228-0.
- Reisch, George A. (June 1994). "Planning science: Otto Neurath and the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science". The British Journal for the History of Science. 27 (2): 153–175. doi:10.1017/S0007087400031873. JSTOR 4027433.
- Zolo, Danilo (1989) [1986]. "The unity of science as a historico-sociological goal: from the primacy of physics to the epistemological priority of sociology". Reflexive epistemology: the philosophical legacy of Otto Neurath. Boston studies in the philosophy of science. 118. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 83–106. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-2415-4_5. ISBN 0792303202. OCLC 19814200.