Elliott Sober, Stanford
University
This intriguing and
ground-breaking book is the first in-depth
study of the development of philosophy of
science in the United States during the Cold
War. It documents the political vitality of
logical empiricism and Otto Neurath's Unity
of Science movement when these projects
emigrated to the United States in the 1930s
and follows their depoliticization by a
convergence of intellectual, cultural and
political forces in the 1950s.
Students of logical empiricism and the
Vienna Circle often treat these as strictly
intellectual nonpolitical projects. In
fact, the refugee philosophers of science
were highly active politically and debated
questions about values inside and outside of
science, as a result of which their
philosophy of science was scrutinized
politically both within and without the
profession, by such institutions as J. Edgar
Hoover's FBI.
Based on extensive archival research, this
book constitutes a major chapter in American
intellectual history during the Cold War. It
reveals how an unlikely combination of
intellectual and political forces taking
root in Cold War anticommunism shaped both
the curricula of colleges and even the
research undertaken by leading philosophers.
It will prove absorbing reading to
philosophers and historians of science,
intellectual historians, and scholars of
Cold War studies.
George A. Reisch is an independent scholar.
