Schlick, Moritz : General Theory of Knowledge

Translated by Albert E. Blumberg.
With an Introduction by A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl.

"Thinking does not create the relations of reality; it has no form that it might imprint on reality," reasoned Viennese philosopher Moritz Schlick. "And reality permits no forms to be imprinted upon itself, because it already possesses form." In this acutely reasoned treatise from 1918, Schlick demolishes Kant's arguments for synthetic a priori knowledge, expounds a persuasive solution to the mind-body problem, and prepares the way for the modern analytic movement. Although logical positivism (which Schlick founded several years after writing his General Theory) is now viewed as untenable, admiration for the General Theory itself, with its anticipations of Popper, Russell, and Hempel, continues to grow. The book expounds most of the doctrines that would later be identified with the "classical period" of the Vienna Circle, and unlike many of his peers, Schlick displays a detailed and sensitive knowledge of the traditions he criticizes.