Hilbert's program to axiomatize physics (in analogy to geometry) and its impact on Schlick, Carnap and other members of the Vienna circle

Ulrich Majer

pp. 213-224

in: Michael Heidelberger, Friedrich Stadler (eds), History of philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 2002

Abstract

In recent years the works of Friedman, Howard and many others have made obvious what perhaps was always self-evident. Namely, that the philosophy of the logical empiricists was shaped primarily by Einstein and his invention of the theory of relativity, whereas Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to the exact sciences had comparatively little impact on the logical empiricists and their understanding of science — if they had any effect at all. This is in one respect quite astonishing, insofar as Einstein himself confessed 1921 in his famous lecture before the Prussian Academy of Science that "without it [the axiomatic point of view] it would have been impossible for me to propound the theory of relativity".² Hence the simple question arises: why didn't the logical empiricists pay more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic point of view, than they in fact did? It is an aim of this paper to answer this question and in part to correct this one-sided view in the hypothetical or contra-factual sense that the logical empiricists would have done better, if they had paid somewhat more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to science.

Cited authors

Schlick Moritz

Hilbert David

Carnap Rudolf