JEAN CAVAILLÈS AND THE VIENNA CIRCLE
Abstract
JEAN CAVAILLES AND THE VIENNA CIRCLE Santiago RAMIREZ National University of Mexico I. Introduction We propose "mathematical philosophy" as a new way for the philosophy of mathematics. Its sources are manifold: stoicism, Pascal, and more recently Cavailles and Lautman. The purpose of this paper is to show the relation between Cavailles and Lautman's works and Wittgenstein's Tractatus in the common ground of their criticism of the Vienna Circle. The main sources will be the simultaneous works of Cavailles and Lautman, "L'ecole de Vienne au Congres de Prague" and "Le Congres International de Philosophie des Sciences", published in the Revue de Mhaphysique et de Morale (T. XLII, no. 1, 1935 and T. XLIII, no. 1, 1936). They are both related to the "petit Congres" that the Vienna Circle organised immediately before the VIII International Congres of Philosophy. 11. Cavailles' Wittgenstein Cavailles started out his work by explaining Wittgenstein's Tractatus since it "played a determinant role in the birth" ofthe Vienna Circle. His view of Wittgenstein claims that there are three essential points in the Tractatus: 1. Language is the image of the world, 2. Purely logical propositions have no content, 3. There are no propositions about propositions. Following Cavailles,