TheBerlin Circle (German:die Berliner Gruppe) was a group that maintainedlogical empiricist views aboutphilosophy.
The "Berlin Circle" had its roots in seminars byHans Reichenbach between 1926-1928, resulting in the formation of a group that included Reichenbach,Kurt Grelling andWalter Dubislav among others. Independently, theMachist philosopherJoseph Petzoldt and others founded thelocal Berlin group (German: "Berliner Ortsgruppe") of theInternational society for empirical philosophy (German: "Internationale Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie"), which was subsequently joined by the members of Reichenbach's group as well. The society was renamed in 1928 asBerlin society for empirical philosophy (German: "Berliner Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie"), and after Petzoldt's death in 1929, the society was essentially taken over by Reichenbach's group, who in 1931 rebranded it asBerlin society for scientific philosophy (German: "Berliner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Philosophie").[1][2][3] Additional members of the group include philosophers and scientists such asCarl Gustav Hempel,David Hilbert andRichard von Mises. Together with theVienna Circle, they published the journalErkenntnis ("Knowledge") edited byRudolf Carnap and Reichenbach, and organized several congresses and colloquia concerning thephilosophy of science, the first of which was held inPrague in 1929.[4]
The Berlin Circle had much in common with the Vienna Circle, but the philosophies of the circles differed on a few subjects, such asprobability andconventionalism. Reichenbach insisted on calling his philosophy logical empiricism, to distinguish it from the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. Few people today make the distinction, and the words are often used interchangeably. Members of the Berlin Circle were particularly active in analyzing the philosophical andlogical consequences of the advances in contemporaryphysics, especially thetheory of relativity. Apart from that, they denied thesoundness ofmetaphysics and traditional philosophy and asserted that many philosophical problems are indeed meaningless. After the rise ofNazism, several of the group's members emigrated to other countries, including Reichenbach, who moved toTurkey in 1933 and later to the United States in 1938; Dubislav emigrated toPrague in 1936; Hempel moved to Belgium in 1934 and later to the United States in 1939; and Grelling was killed in aconcentration camp. A younger member of the Berlin Circle or Berlin School to leave Germany wasOlaf Helmer who joined theRAND Corporation and played an important role in the development of theDelphi method used for predicting future trends, and other early forms ofsocial technology.[5]
After emigrating to various countries the group effectively came to an end, but not without influencing a wide range of philosophers of the 20th century, its method having been especially influential onanalytic philosophy andfuturology.[citation needed]
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