Béla von Juhos and the concept of "Konstatierungen"

Artur Koterski

pp. 163-169

in: Friedrich Stadler (ed), The Vienna circle and logical empiricism, Berlin, Springer, 2003

Abstract

To avoid pitfalls, Juhos rejected the idea that some processes are timeless, so the act of "obtaining K" must take time; it's clear then that one can utter or write down any K — they are not designed as pre-linguistic entities. Because they have many features of ordinary hypotheses — they are intersubjectively testable (i.e. verifiable), they are accepted on empirical grounds (and let us assume that Juhos explained it appropriately) — there is still one question pending: how it is possible that one cannot revise them?Juhos thought that they cannot be subject to correction, and this thesis is the last (though the most important) link with Schlick's doctrine. In the end he repeats what we already know from his mentor: Konstatierungen do not appear as the effect of mistakes, so there is nothing to correct in them. They are incorrigible because of their nature. Then we have again the old question about the possibility of such sentences. Having thus gone in a big circle — just to avoid pitfalls — Juhos came back to the point of departure. That is why we may say that it seems Juhos was not successful in rescuing Konstatierungen as descriptions of reality that are absolutely certain.