Herbert Feigl | |
|---|---|
_In_1973.jpg) Herbert Feigl (1973) | |
| Born | (1902-12-14)14 December 1902 |
| Died | 1 June 1988(1988-06-01) (aged 85) Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Thesis | Chance and Law: An Epistemological Analysis of the Roles of Probability and Induction in the Natural Sciences (1927) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy Vienna Circle |
| Notable students | Hugh Mellor |
| Main interests | Philosophy of science |
| Notable ideas | Nomological danglers |
Herbert Feigl (/ˈfaɪɡəl/;German:[ˈfaɪgl̩]; December 14, 1902 – June 1, 1988) was anAustrian-Americanphilosopher and an early member of theVienna Circle.[1][2] He coined the term "nomological danglers".[3]
The son of a trained weaver who became a textile designer, Feigl was born inReichenberg (Liberec),Bohemia, into aJewish (though not religious) family.[1][4][2] He matriculated at theUniversity of Vienna in 1922 and studiedphysics andphilosophy underMoritz Schlick,Hans Hahn,Hans Thirring, andKarl Bühler.[1] He became one of the members of the Vienna Circle in 1924[1] and would be one of the few Circle members (along with Schlick andFriedrich Waismann[5]) to have extensive conversations withLudwig Wittgenstein andKarl Popper. Feigl received his doctorate at Vienna in 1927 for his dissertationZufall und Gesetz: Versuch einer naturerkenntnistheoretischen Klarung des Wahrscheinlichkeits- und Induktionsproblems (Chance and Law: An Epistemological Analysis of the Roles of Probability and Induction in the Natural Sciences).[1][4][2] He published his first book,Theorie und Erfahrung in der Physik (Theory and Experience in Physics), in 1929.[4][5][2]
In 1930, on an InternationalRockefeller Foundation scholarship atHarvard University,[5] Feigl met the physicistPercy Williams Bridgman, the philosopherWillard Van Orman Quine, and the psychologistStanley Smith Stevens,[2] all of whom he saw as kindred spirits. In 1931, withAlbert Blumberg, he published the paper "Logical Positivism: A New European Movement"[1] which argued forlogical positivism to be renamed "logical empiricism" based upon certainrealist differences between contemporaryphilosophy of science and the olderpositivist movement.[6]
In 1930, Feigl married Maria Kaspar[1] and emigrated with her to the United States, settling inIowa to take up a position in the philosophy department at theUniversity of Iowa.[2] Their son, Eric Otto, was born in 1933. In 1940, Herbert Feigl accepted a position as professor of philosophy at theUniversity of Minnesota, where he remained for 31 years.[1] His close professional and personal relationship withWilfrid Sellars produced many different collaborative projects, including the textbookReadings in Philosophical Analysis and the journalPhilosophical Studies, which he and Sellars (with other colleagues) founded in 1949.[5][2]
In 1953, he established theMinnesota Center for Philosophy of Science (the first center of its kind in the United States)[1][5] with a grant from the Hill Foundation.[2] He was appointed Regents Professor of the University of Minnesota in 1967.[5]
Feigl believed thatempiricism is the only adequate philosophy forexperimental science. Though he became a philosopher instead of a chemist, he never lost the perspective, and the scientific commonsense, of a practical scientist. He was one of the signers of theHumanist Manifesto[7] and he was, in the paradigmatic sense, a philosopher of science.
Feigl wrote the introduction to the 1974 edition of Moritz Schlick'sGeneral Theory of Knowledge[8] and wrote a memoir of Schlick for a published collection of Schlick's papers.[9]
Feigl retired in 1971 and died ofcancer on 1 June 1988 inMinneapolis.[1] He was joined in death by his wife Maria the following year; they were survived by their son Eric O. Feigl, a professor ofphysiology at the University of Washington.[2]
Smart (1959) credits Feigl with coining the term 'nomological danglers' for conscious properties, as they are conceived on the emergentist view.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[8] Albert Blumberg and Feigl suggested in their 1931 paper "Logical Positivism. A New European Movement" that logical positivism was renamed "logical empiricism" because of certain differences between the new and the older positivist movement.
