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graubenh's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.25
Great history of a fascinating period of scientific enquiry.
sethlynch's review against another edition
5.0
Interesting overview of the lives and thoughts of the members and associates of the Vienna Circle
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
3.0
Ideally, a 3.5 star book. With rating averages at nearly 4.5 stars, I bumped downward rather than upward.
It's pretty informative about the background of the Vienna Circle, about actual or would-be fellow travelers like Wittgenstein and Gödel (Witty goes down even further in my book with a vignette or two here, and gets even more confirmed as a lifelong Platonist), and the pressures from outside on it, many related to inter-war Austrian politics.
But, if you're expecting a detailed background of what logical positivism is, you won't get it. Oh, you'll get a basic-level explanation, which should satisfy people who have no more than a moderate interest in philosophy.
But, you won't get more than that. You won't get any analysis of whether or not (I say yes) logical positivism was an early form of scientism.
You'll need another book for that.
It's pretty informative about the background of the Vienna Circle, about actual or would-be fellow travelers like Wittgenstein and Gödel (Witty goes down even further in my book with a vignette or two here, and gets even more confirmed as a lifelong Platonist), and the pressures from outside on it, many related to inter-war Austrian politics.
But, if you're expecting a detailed background of what logical positivism is, you won't get it. Oh, you'll get a basic-level explanation, which should satisfy people who have no more than a moderate interest in philosophy.
But, you won't get more than that. You won't get any analysis of whether or not (I say yes) logical positivism was an early form of scientism.
You'll need another book for that.
jared_davis's review against another edition
2.0
I liked the idea of this book, but the prose didn’t mesh with me. I also realize I have much more familiarity’s with the thinkers of the Vienna Circle and their actual ideas than the book had to offer. This might be better as a first read on the topic.
tlockney's review
3.0
I'm really torn on this one. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did, but on reading it, I realize the people I wanted to learn more about where all the figures at the periphery: Gödel, Wittgenstein, and Popper. But the actual members of the Vienna Circle just weren't that interesting to me. This is no fault of the book or the author, who clearly knows his material and tells the tale effectively, but it was hard to be compelled by people who I only vaguely recognize and few of whom had enough life breathed into their stories to make me want to know more.
isovector's review against another edition
1.0
Life's too short for lots of things, and this book is one of them. It doesn't get around to explaining what the vienna circle was, or why I should care. There are some amusing anecdotes about some neat people, but the majority of it is banal discussions of their early lives, the girls they dated, and such blither. What's worse is Sigmund is an English professor, and needs to prove it by writing in a style so affected it actually pained me to read.
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