Coffee house
ÖNB/Wien, 002_35_013_01_011_E_1A_00b
Many meetings and discussions between members of the Vienna Circle took place in coffee houses. The notes and correspondence of the participants show that cafés near the university were the most frequented – after classes, lectures, the Schlick Circle, or without any particular occasion. The coffee houses were forums where people discussed with each other and with guests from many countries, places where knowledge was spontaneously generated. The open atmosphere also facilitated chance encounters; they were social networks in a pre-digital age.
The café thus became a place for personal exchange and aca- demic communication in a public space, reinforcing the dynamics of the (concentric) circles. The term “coffee house philosophy” does justice to the importance of this place for the Vienna Circle.
The coffee house is a club for everyone.
Otto Neurath
Café Josephinum, 9., Währinger Straße 33–35 / Corner Sensengasse
Due to its proximity to Boltzmanngasse, this café with its Art Nouveau interior was the most popular meeting place after the Schlick Circle. Kurt Gödel lived in the same building from 1927 to 1928.
Wien Museum, Inv.-Nr. 78079/114
6–7 Boltzmanngasse board meeting Mach Society. Afterwards Josephinum with Schlick.
Carnap’s diary, 20 June 1930
Arkaden-Café, exterior shot with a view of the town hall, 1., Reichsratstraße 17 / Corner Universitätsstraße, 1905
Schlick, Carnap, and other members of the Vienna Circle often frequented the Arkaden Café, located directly behind the university’s main building, after lectures and met there with guests from abroad. In Carnap’s diaries, it is by far the most frequently mentioned coffee house.
Wien Museum, Inv.-Nr. 32511/51
At the end of the second semester, I was sitting in Cafe 'Arkaden', next to some colleagues, namely Feigl, Natkin, and Carnap, who had just moved to Vienna. We were talking about plans for the future, and I said 'I would like to go to Freiburg next semester. To study with Husserl'. Natkin started to laugh and said, 'So there are still people who go to Freiburg, while people from all over the world are flocking to Vienna, the new Mecca of philosophy.'
Heinrich Neider, in conversation with Rudolf Haller
Diaries of Rudolf Carnap, 1908–1970
Rudolf Carnap kept a diary for more than five decades. His notes form the most detailed source for Carnap’s network. They reveal the places, times, people, and topics of conversation at his meetings. They illustrate the great importance of the coffee house as a place of intellectual exchange but also show the precarious situation of many members of the Vienna Circle.
Digital edition of the diaries
Rudolf Carnap Papers, 1905-1970, ASP.1974.01, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digital edition of Carnap's diaries: https://valep.vc.univie.ac.at/valepPlus/project/62
10:30 Café Arkaden, Kraft until 12. | On Popper; Kraft says that he has already advocated deductivism in lectures and in his book, and that he is now largely in agreement with Popper and Hahn. On Wittgenstein. Schlick had expressed reservations about Semantics V.
Carnap’s diary, 14 December 1932
Conversation with Waismann, 4 Sept 37, 7–10 in the evening Café Arkade [sic] [...] Hopes to be finished with his book in 6 weeks. It should be 300 p. long. Would like to give me a few more chapters to read, especially about hypotheses.
Gödel‘s "Protokolle", 4 September 1937
Café Reichsrat – interior view , 1., Rathausplatz 7–9 / Corner Stadiongasse, c. 1880
It was in Café Reichsrat – a frequent meeting place – on 26 August 1930 that Carnap and Feigl were probably the first to learn of the most important logical- mathematical insight of the 20th century: Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.
Wien Museum, Inv.-Nr. 78079/114
Tues 26th [...] 6–8:30 Café Reichsrat with Feigl, Gödel, then Waismann. Travel plan with ship to Königsberg. Gödel‘s discoveries: Incompleteness of the system of PM; difficulty of proving freedom from contradiction.
Carnap’s diary, 26 August 1930
She [Rose Rand] thinks this is a particularly dreadful café (both people and appearance) [...] Her work on Real. probl. was finally accepted by Bühler and will be published. So far Leszniewski has received about 8 subscriptions. But she will make more copies (50p). They will be typed on wax paper. One page 30 g? She received a lovely letter from Kotarbninski. She would also donate a copy for the maths seminar.
Gödel‘s "Protokolle", 5 January 1938
Künstler-Café, 1., Schreyvogelgasse 5 / Corner Ring, 1910
Kurt Gödel and Rose Rand, among others, are known to have met in this coffee house on the Ring opposite the university. Felix Kaufmann performed his philosophical Viennese songs here.
Archiv Lunzer / brandstaetter images / picturedesk.com
Page from Kurt Gödel’s “Protokolle” (notebooks) with notes on a meeting with Rose Rand, 5 January 1938
Kurt Gödel wrote thousands of pages of notes in Gabelsberger shorthand. The “Protokolle” from 1937 and 1938 document several meetings with Rose Rand, Olga Taussky, as well as other members of the Vienna Circle and mathematicians such as Abraham Wald and John von Neumann.
One can (assuming that classical mathematics is free of contradictions) even give examples of theorems (specifically, those of Goldbach’s or Fermat’s type) that are correct in terms of content but cannot be proven within the formal system of classical mathematics. If one therefore adds the negation of such a theorem to the axioms of classical mathematics, one obtains a contradiction-free system in which a theorem that is false in content can be proven’.
Kurt Gödel, Erkenntnis
Excerpt from the essay from Rose Rand, “Logik der Forderungssätze“, with a dedication to Susanne K. Langer
This essay by Rose Rand on the logic of norms was published in the journal edited by Hans Kelsen in exile. Rand dedicated a copy to the philosopher Susanne K. Langer, who became known for her philosophy of symbols and art theory under the influence of Ernst Cassirer.
Wiener Kreis Gesellschaft
Kurt Gödel, “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I”
The first publication of Gödel’s work on the incompleteness theorem, which he later submitted as his habilitation. He showed that in any sufficiently strong system without contradictions, there are sentences that are true but cannot be proven. In doing so, he revolutionised mathematics and laid important foundations for information technology, including artificial intelligence.
Copyright: Springer Verlag
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