Abstract
Ernest Nagel played a key role in bridging the gap between American philosophy and logical empiricism. He introduced European philosophy of science to the American philosophical community but also remained faithful to the naturalism of his teachers. This paper aims to shed new light on Nagel’s intermediating endeavors by reconstructing his philosophical development in the late 1920s and 1930s. This is a decisive period in Nagel’s career because it is the phase in which he first formulated the principles of his naturalism and spent a year in Europe to visit the key centers of logical empiricism. Building on a range of published and unpublished papers, notes, and correspondence—including hundreds of pages of letters to his close friend Sidney Hook—I reconstruct Nagel’s philosophical development, focusing especially on the philosophical influence of John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Reichenbach.
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Notes
- 1.
In addition to Nagel’s early publications, this paper is based on material from the Ernest Nagel Papers at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library (hereafter, ENP), the Hans Reichenbach Papers at the Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh (hereafter HRP), the Otto Neurath Nachlass at the Wiener Kreis Archiv in Haarlem (ONN), the Rudolf Carnap Papers at Pittsburgh’s Archives of Scientific Philosophy (RCP), and, most importantly, hundreds of pages of correspondence between Nagel and Sidney Hook (Box 22, Folders 8–9, Sidney Hook Papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, hereafter SHP). Transcriptions are mine unless indicated otherwise.
- 2.
See Suppes (1994, pp. 258–259). In focusing on Cohen and Dewey, I do not want to suggest that they were the only U.S. philosophers to influence Nagel’s development. A more complete account would also have discussed the influence of, for example, C. S. Peirce, F. J. E. Woodbridge, and George Santayana. For Nagel’s early views on Peirce, see Nagel (1933b). Nagel briefly discusses Santayana’s and Woodbridge’s influences in Remmel Nunn’s interview (this volume).
- 3.
- 4.
In an unpublished radio lecture titled “The Philosophy of Science”, Nagel makes a similar point, arguing that it is the “prime concern of the philosopher” to analyze and understand “the logical and physical method” of the sciences (May 1932, ENP, Box 7).
- 5.
For a detailed analysis of Nagel’s theory of measurement, see Michell (2004, Chap. 5).
- 6.
Remmel Nunn’s interview with Nagel (this volume). See Pincock (2017) for a more detailed reconstruction of Nagel’s early views about logic.
- 7.
One difficulty with interpreting the account defended in the first chapter of Cohen and Nagel’s An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method is that it is very unclear to what extent Nagel contributed to the book. Archival evidence does not settle the issue, unfortunately. In a letter to Sidney Hook, Nagel complains that only a few phrases in the book are actually his (March 7, 1935, SHP). Carnap, on the other hand, reports that Nagel told him that he wrote the book almost by himself (November 14, 1934, RCP, 25-75-12).
- 8.
- 9.
See Brown (2012) for an excellent overview of Dewey’s philosophy of science.
- 10.
For an overview, see Cooney (1986) and Reisch (2005, Chap. 3). Nagel’s own engagement with political and social affairs is evinced by his regular contributions to the above-mentioned periodicals. See, for example, “Dialectical Materialism in Science” (1939/1956), “The Historian as a Moralist” (1940/1956), and “On the Philosophical Battlefront” (1948/1956).
- 11.
Dewey’s notion of ‘logic’ was more continuous with the traditional conception of Aristotle, Kant, and Mill. See Brown (2012, Sect. 4) for a reconstruction.
- 12.
See, for example, Nagel’s reviews of Die Form des Erkennens by Wilhelm Grebe (1930), Das Unendliche in der Mathematik und seine Ausschaltung by Felix Kaufmann, and Geschichte der Naturphilosophie by Hugo Dingler (1932).
- 13.
- 14.
For a reconstruction of the friendly opposition between Dewey and Cohen, see Rosenfield (1962, Chap. 10).
- 15.
A 1928 bibliography of Cohen lists more than 50 publications in the New Republic between 1914 and 1927 (Lazar 1928, pp. x–xi).
- 16.
The authors of the paper, Albert Blumberg and Herbert Feigl, were both former students of Schlick and had recently adopted positions at American universities. Schlick himself also spent a period in the United States, accepting a visiting professorship at Berkeley in the 1931–32 academic year. The joint efforts of Blumberg, Feigl, and Schlick contributed greatly to the American reception of logical positivism in the early 1930s. For a reconstruction, see Verhaegh (2020a).
- 17.
Nagel’s Erkenntnis paper (“Measurement”) was a revised version of a chapter in his dissertation. Paul Weiss, also a former student of Morris Cohen, published a paper in the same issue (Weiss 1931).
- 18.
Unfortunately, Hook’s letters to Nagel from the late 1920s are lost. Nagel’s responses to Hook, however, reveal that the former started reading Philosophie der Raum-Zeit Lehre in the fall 1928, shortly after Hook had arrived in Germany (Nagel to Hook, September 4, 1928, SHP). Hook must also have told Reichenbach about Nagel’s work. For a few months later, Nagel writes that Reichenbach sent him a reprint of “Ziele und Wege der physikalischen Erkenntnis” (Reichenbach 1929). See Nagel to Hook (July 23, 1929, SHP).
- 19.
- 20.
Note that Carnap never talks about ‘atomic propositions’ in the Aufbau. Nagel’s choice of words here is probably influenced by Blumberg and Feigl, who described the Aufbau as a book in which “all complex propositions are reduced to sets of atomic propositions which are unanalyzable” (Blumberg & Feigl, 1931, p. 287).
- 21.
- 22.
Carnap’s diary shows that he and Nagel met fifteen times between November 10 and December 5, meetings that often started early in the afternoon and lasted until late in the evening (RCP, 25-75-12).
- 23.
See, for example, Carnap’s diary entry for November 18, 1934 (RCP, 25-75-12) and Nagel’s letter to Hook from November 19, 1934 (SHP).
- 24.
Between January and April, Nagel’s only seems to have briefly met Federigo Enriques and George Santayana. In a letter to Hook, Nagel writes: “[W]hen I think of other people going off for a year and returning home with well filled note-books or finished manuscripts … I wish I would never have to return. It will take years for me to catch up” (Nagel to Hook, March 14, 1935, SHP).
- 25.
See Nagel to Reichenbach (July 22, 1935, HRP, 013-51-02). Hook had offered his old friend a one-year position at New York University. For a reconstruction, see Verhaegh (2020c).
- 26.
See also Nagel to Cohen (June 4, 1935): “I am a little disappointed with what I have found in Cambridge […] perhaps in the days when Russell was here it may have been worth the pilgrimage. I still find the atmosphere invigorating. […] But I am hankering for thicker air” (cited in Rosenfield 1962, p. 400).
- 27.
See Nagel to Hook (ca. May 1935 and July 9, 1935, SHP).
- 28.
See Misak (2016) for a reconstruction of Cambridge pragmatism in this period.
- 29.
In a later report for the Guggenheim Foundation, Nagel would write that Carnap represented the wing of the Wiener Kreis “which converged on the ideas familiar from Peirce and Dewey” (“Impressions of European Universities: The Nineteen-Thirties”, undated document, ENP, Box 4).
- 30.
In addition, most of Nagel’s teachers at Columbia disliked logical positivism. In a letter to Neurath, Nagel explains that “the ‘old-timers’ distrust it, dislike it, and pretend that it has nothing very interesting to say” (January 2, 1936, ONN, item 275).
- 31.
See Carnap’s diary (RCP 025–82-01) and Nagel’s letter to Neurath (January 2, 1936, ONN, item 275).
- 32.
See Reichenbach to Nagel (February 15, 1936, HRP, 013–51-01) and Reichenbach (1936). Reichenbach’s negative portrayal of Carnap’s position was not a surprise to Nagel. In Europe, Nagel had already noted that Reichenbach and Carnap respected each other but were far from friends. In a letter to Hook, Nagel wrote: “I don’t think [Carnap] and Reichenbach love one another, I had that impression from Reichenbach when I saw him, and get hints of it from mrs. Carnap; he of course is the essence of courtesy and admiration. I think R[eichenbach]’s cock[i]ness gets on the Carnaps’ nerves, while Carnap’s preciseness must irritate R[eichenbach]” (December 3, 1934, SNP).
- 33.
Unlike Quine, who, after spending a few weeks in Prague in 1933, came to perceive himself as Carnap’s “disciple” for a number of years. See Quine (1970/1976, p. 41).
- 34.
- 35.
This is not to say that Nagel’s assessment is correct. Carus (2007), for example, argues that Carnap did incorporate his socio-political views into his philosophy.
- 36.
Indeed, in one of his rare retrospectives, Nagel writes that that the “vigorous and technically precise” methods of the logical empiricists were “salutary stimuli” to his own development, compelling him to “re-examine assumptions” and “to take a stand on a number of issues on which [his] earlier teachers were […] unclear” (1956, p. xii).
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Acknowledgements
An early version of this paper was presented at the conference “Ernest Nagel and the Making of Philosophy of Science” at the BTK Institute of Philosophy, Budapest. I would like to thank the audience at this event as well as Fons Dewulf, Matthias Neuber, and Ádám Tamás Tuboly for their valuable comments and suggestions. This research is funded by Dutch Research Council (grant 275–20–064). Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Tilburg University, Department of Philosophy, Warandelaan 2, 5037AB, Tilburg, The Netherlands or to A.A.Verhaegh@tilburguniversity.edu.
Funding
Ernest Nagel Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
Hans Reichenbach Papers. Archives of Scientific Philosophy. Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh.
Otto Neurath Papers. Wiener Kreis Archiv, Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem.
Rudolf Carnap Papers. Archives of Scientific Philosophy. Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh.
Sidney Hook Papers. Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.
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Verhaegh, S. (2022). Nagel’s Philosophical Development. In: Neuber, M., Tuboly, A.T. (eds) Ernest Nagel: Philosophy of Science and the Fight for Clarity. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81010-8_3
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