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Details
BORN, Max (1882-1970). Two autograph letters and one typed letter signed (‘M. Born’) to Moritz Schlick, Frankfurt-am-Main and Göttingen, 19 August 1919 – 16 April 1931, together 8 pages, 4to, in autograph and 1½ pages, folio, in typescript (the typed letter with minor wear to margins).
In 1919 Born urges Schlick to counter with an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung an idealistic, religious and anti-scientific tendency which has sprung up from the confusion of the post-war world, deprecating his own skills in writing (‘ich schreibe schwer und schwerfällig’), praising Schlick’s own capacities (‘Ich nannte Sie ja schon in meinem vorigen Briefe unseren Propheten’), and setting out a vision of the purposes of scientific research in the modern world: ‘Auch die Öffentlichkeit muss wissen, dass wir Naturforscher nicht nur Diener der Technik oder schrullenhafte Sammler von naturhistorischen Raritäten sind, sondern das eine bestimmte Weltauffassung hinter uns steht, der wir in dem Glauben dienen, dass sie die Menschheit höher führt’. In March 1931 Born writes in response to an article on causality in the natural sciences, criticising modern philosophy and praising Schlick’s philosophical works (‘Ihre Art zu Philosophieren ist eine Ergänzung, ja eine Krönung der Einzelforschung’). The typed letter, in the following month, recommends a young colleague, Paul Hertz, for a position.
Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), a founding further of logical positivism and the central figure in the Vienna Circle, became closely associated with the philosophy of science from the mid-1910s, distinguishing himself in particular with a paper in 1915 on Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The Moritz Schlick Nachlass, including copies of his correspondence, forms part of the Vienna Circle Archive at the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem.
In 1919 Born urges Schlick to counter with an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung an idealistic, religious and anti-scientific tendency which has sprung up from the confusion of the post-war world, deprecating his own skills in writing (‘ich schreibe schwer und schwerfällig’), praising Schlick’s own capacities (‘Ich nannte Sie ja schon in meinem vorigen Briefe unseren Propheten’), and setting out a vision of the purposes of scientific research in the modern world: ‘Auch die Öffentlichkeit muss wissen, dass wir Naturforscher nicht nur Diener der Technik oder schrullenhafte Sammler von naturhistorischen Raritäten sind, sondern das eine bestimmte Weltauffassung hinter uns steht, der wir in dem Glauben dienen, dass sie die Menschheit höher führt’. In March 1931 Born writes in response to an article on causality in the natural sciences, criticising modern philosophy and praising Schlick’s philosophical works (‘Ihre Art zu Philosophieren ist eine Ergänzung, ja eine Krönung der Einzelforschung’). The typed letter, in the following month, recommends a young colleague, Paul Hertz, for a position.
Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), a founding further of logical positivism and the central figure in the Vienna Circle, became closely associated with the philosophy of science from the mid-1910s, distinguishing himself in particular with a paper in 1915 on Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The Moritz Schlick Nachlass, including copies of his correspondence, forms part of the Vienna Circle Archive at the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem.
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