Human Knowledge A Classic Statement of Logical Empiricism

Finnish philosopher Eino Kaila wrote a classic statement of logical empiricism. Having experienced the foundational debates of the Vienna Circle in 1929, Kaila was a keen follower of the further developments of the Circle. His synoptic presentation and analysis of the basic themes, or “theses,” of the movement was based on his lectures as professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. The work appeared as a book in Finnish in 1939 and a Swedish translation by Georg Henrik von Wright followed immediately. Earlier, a translation of his philosophical essays from the original German, entitled Reality and Experience, appeared in 1979. However, this is the first translation of Kaila's major epistemological work, which remains a source for re-evaluations of Logical Empiricism.

Finnish philosopher, critic, and teacher Eino Kaila (1890–1958) worked in numerous fields, including psychology, physics, and theater, and attempted to find unifying principles behind various branches of human and natural sciences. Anssi Korhonen is the author of Logic as Universal Science: Russell's Early Logicism and its Philosophical Context. Juha Manninen is the editor of The Vienna Circle in the Nordic Countries: Networks and Transformations of Logical Empiricism. Ilkka Niiniluoto is the author of Truthlikeness. Korhonen, Manninen, and Niiniluoto live in Helsinki, Finland. George A. Reisch is the author of How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic. He lives in Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Preface by Eino Kaila

Part I. Theory Formation

1. Search for Invariances
2. How the Search for Invariances Created Greek Science
3. The Aristotelian Conception of Knowledge
4. The Galilean Conception of Knowledge
5. Induction

Part II. Formal Theory of Truth

6. Logical Truth
7. Mathematical Truth

Part III. Empirical Theory of Truth

8. The Principle of Testability
9. The Logic of Physical Theories
10. Logical Behaviorism