The Murder of Professor Schlick

The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle

By: David Edmonds

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

On June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick's, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck himself argued in court that his onetime teacher had promoted a treacherous Jewish philosophy. David Edmonds traces the rise and fall of the Vienna Circle - an influential group of brilliant thinkers led by Schlick - and of a philosophical movement that sought to do away with metaphysics and pseudoscience in a city darkened by fascism, anti-Semitism, and unreason.

The Vienna Circle's members included Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, and the eccentric logician Kurt Gödel. On its fringes were two other philosophical titans of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. The Circle championed the philosophy of logical empiricism, which held that only two types of propositions have cognitive meaning, those that can be verified through experience and those that are analytically true. For a time, it was the most fashionable movement in philosophy. Yet by the outbreak of World War II, Schlick's group had disbanded and almost all its members had fled. Edmonds reveals why the Austro-fascists and the Nazis saw their philosophy as such a threat.

©2020 Princeton University Press (P)2021 Tantor

great addition to the history of 20th century thought

using the pivotal event of Schlick's murder, the author focuses on the ideas and relationships of the many philosophers who made up the Vienna Circle. worth listening to more than once.

An Epic… no less

With depth and a very clear and enjoyable narrative the author dispenses the quality results of his magnificent opus. A must read…

A brilliant amalgamation of history and philosophy

The book gives a satisfactory overview of the lives of the members of the Vienna circle, and the historical circumstances in which it operated. While not focusing so much on philosophy per se, it presents the circle’s philosophy in a detailed and clear way, which could be easily understood.