Scientific Philosophies

At the beginning of the 20th century, engineers began to play an important role in Polish society and became an important part of the Polish intelligentsia. This was connected with the difficult political situation (the Polish state did not exist and was divided among neighboring countries) and attempts to modernize Polish society. A special role was played by the scientific center of Lwów (now Lviv), where the only Polish polytechnic was active. The community of Polish engineers had a great interest in science and the philosophy of science. This specific intellectual milieu developed in the shadow of the famous school of analytical philosophy of Kazimierz Twardowski (today known as the Lvov-Warsaw School)(Chybińska et al., 2016; Brożek, Stadler and Woleński, 2017; Woleński, 2019). The philosophical involvement of engineers was clearly evident during the polemics surrounding the reception of the theory of relativity in the early 1920s (Polak, 2012; 2016).
The most interesting figure in this milieu was the engineer Bronisław Biegeleisen (Polak, 2013). Biegeleisen was initially interested in the philosophy of mechanics, but under the influence of inspiration coming from Twardowski's circle, he took up philosophy of science directly. His work is an important contribution to the development of Polish philosophy of science. However, this contribution has not been analyzed in detail (only brief mentions are available), and the question of the milieu he represented has generally been ignored.
Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present Biegeleisen's achievements for the development of philosophy of science in Poland. The second purpose is to make a pioneering analysis of the role of engineering circles in the development of philosophy of science in Poland, using Biegeleisen as an example.
References
Brożek, A., Stadler, F. and Woleński, J. eds., 2017. The Significance of the Lvov-Warsaw School in the European Culture. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook. [online] Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52869-4.
Chybińska, A., Jadacki, J.J., Woleński, J. and Brożek, A. eds., 2016. Tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School: Ideas and Continuations. Polish Analytical Philosophy. Leiden; Boston: Brill-Rodopi.
Polak, P., 2012. 'Byłem Pana przeciwnikiem [profesorze Einstein]...': relatywistyczna rewolucja naukowa z perspektywy środowiska naukowo-filozoficznego przedwojennego Lwowa. Kraków: Copernicus Center Press.
Polak, P., 2013. Bronisław Biegeleisen - zapomniany lwowski inżynier i filozof. In: M. Przeniosło and L. Michalska-Bracha, eds. Znani i nieznani dziewiętnastowiecznego Lwowa. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach. pp.123–131.
Polak, P., 2016. Philosophy in science – a case study of the reception of the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Kraków and Lwów before 1925. Studia Historiae Scientiarum, [online] 15, pp.245–273. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/23921749SHS.16.010.6153.
Woleński, J., 2019. Lvov-Warsaw School. In: E.N. Zalta, ed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2019. [online] Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Available at: [Accessed 6 May 2019].

We align with the philosophical outlook that emphasizes the important relationship between philosophical investigations and scientific progress. However, the proof backing this assertion has chiefly been derived from the European context, which has presented a somewhat oversimplified and limited depiction of the diverse manifestations of these connections across universities worldwide.
In this presentation, we aim to provide a historical case study exploring the interrelation between scientists and philosophers in South America. We will be focusing on Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay between 1940 and 1960. Our intention is to present a distinctive set of philosophical discourses and trends that emerged alongside national concerns about the status of science, mainly physics, and its promotion.

More precisely, this study explores the rise of philosophical thought in South America, initiated by physicists aiming to restructure university systems, to nurture a professional scientific environment within their institutions. They actively participated in debates on national science education and advocated for national development through scientific pursuits. Notably, physicists such as Mario Bunge (1919-2020) in Argentina, Francisco X. Roser (1904-1967) in Brazil, and Félix Cernuschi (1907-1999) in Uruguay played pivotal roles in reshaping the philosophical traditions within their respective universities.

A dynamic interaction between the practice of physics and the formulation of novel philosophical inquiries is observed in all three cases. This communication facilitated a noticeable change in the broader philosophical outlook in these nations. For instance, Roser's examination of topics linked to the sciences began in the 1930s but reached its zenith during a very fruitful period commencing in 1950, during which he created one of Brazil's most substantial Physics Institutes at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro. Bunge, who attained his Ph. D. in physics int he early 1950s, focused the next twenty years on examining the foundations of quantum physics which eventually led to him becoming a renowned philosopher. In contrast, Cernuschi returned to Uruguay in 1950 after a distinguished scientific career in physics that included positions at various universities in Argentina, England, France, and the United States. He was appointed the Chair of Astronomy at the Universidad de la República. He developed a close association with Philipp Frank and became a prominent supporter of the Unity of Science movement in Uruguay.

Together, these three figures played crucial strategic positions in their individual nations and in the scientific and philosophical circles of their time, as we will strive to clarify.

My paper examines a little-known contribution to discussions on behaviourism within the framework of logical empiricism in the 1930s. It presents and comments an early work by Hans Reichenbach's student at Istanbul University, Nezahat Nazmi [Tanç], better known under her marital name Nezahat Arkun, and situates it in the context of the development of scientific philosophy in interwar Turkey, including Reichenbach's efforts to establish and develop scientific psychology at Istanbul University. Nezahat Nazmi's graduation thesis on "logistic behaviourism according to Carnap and Reichenbach" (Mantıkî Behaviorism'in Carnap ve Reichenbach'a Göre Tefsiri) was completed in 1938 and published in the unique issue of the journal of the Istanbul University Department of Philosophy, Felsefe Seminarı Dergisi (1939). This thesis documents the reception of behaviourism in the movement of logical empiricism, combined with Reichenbach's interest in Gestalt psychology. This constellation is visible in the sources used in the thesis, which discusses the works of Egon Brunswik, who established in Ankara the very first psychological laboratory in Turkey in the early 1930s, and of Edward C. Tolman, who studied with Kurt Koffka in Giessen and developed according to Reichenbach a "very convincing form of behaviorism" (Experience and Prediction, 1938: 163) . 
Another aspect taken into consideration in this paper is the development of scientific psychology at Istanbul University, where Reichenbach was able to establish two additional chairs for exiled professors before leaving for the University of California in 1938. Ernst von Aster, who was in his early career in München and in Giessen interested in experimental psychology and psychoanalysis, was thus appointed in 1936 to the Chair of History of Philosophy and the psychologist Wilhelm Peters was appointed in 1937 to a new Chair of Experimental Psychology. This chair and the related institute were initially meant to be directed by a Gestalt psychologist such as Wolfgang Köhler or Adhémar Gelb. Peter's assistant and translator, Mümtaz Turhan, had studied in Germany between 1928 and 1935 and written his doctorate thesis under the direction of Max Wertheimer. As for Nezahat Arkun, she wrote her doctoral thesis on "Statistical Study on Suicide in Istanbul" (1948), under the supervision of Wilhelm Peters. She became in 1968 professor of psychology at the Istanbul University Department of Psychology and mainly pursued studies in social psychology, using statistical methods.