Logical Empiricism, Life Reform, German Youth Movement

Logical Empiricism is an important current of 20th century philosophy, which emerged in the 1920 in Germany and Austria. Life reform and the German Youth Movement had their climax already ten years before. However, philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, who became decisively important for the development of Logical Empiricism deeply influenced by life reformist and youth movement currents. Formative aspects of Logical Empiricism, therefore, become better understood against the background of these influences. This volume first takes a closer look on the intellectual biographies of Carnap and Reichenbach. In what sense did their early intellectual activities their talks, papers, and publications as well as their engagement in various student reformist initiatives emerge from life reform and the Youth Movement? In what sense did their reformist initiatives, in turn, had effects on the Youth Movement? Did the later work of Carnap and Reichenbach move away from their roots in the Youth Movement or are there any verifiable continuities here? Can certain ideas of Logical Empiricism be traced back to the time of the life reform and the German Youth Movement? Other topics of this volume are Otto Neuraths relationship with the Youth Movement and the role that intellectuals such as Karl Korsch, Wilhelm Flitner, Franz Roh, Hans Freyer, Leonard Nelson, Walter Benjamin, and Friedrich Jodl, who did not belong to Logical Empiricism, played in these discussions and interactions. The volume is supplemented with an appendix, which presents several early and to date hardly available texts and correspondence by Carnap and Reichenbach, together with contextualizing introductions. These texts are crucial for our understanding of the influence of the German Youth Movement on these intellectuals. The present volume is based on an international workshop that took place at the University of Vienna in 2016. Connections between Youth Movement/life reform and Logical Empiricism are investigated here for the first time. The contributions are written by the following researchers (in alphabetic order): Ingrid Belke (), Peter Bernhard, Michael Buckmiller, A.W. Carus, Christian Damböck, Gangolf Hübinger, Ulrich Lins, Flavia Padovani, Günther Sandner, Friedrich Stadler, Adam Tamas Tuboly, Meike Werner, Gereon Wolters.