adopted a Neo-Kantian stance (Passmore, 1968: 333). The popular pronounce-
ments of relativity physicists such as Eddington and Jeans in the 1920s and
1930s, like those of Einstein, continued a tradition of reconciling physics with
religion. The physics of the 1920s did not create the themes of the Vienna
Circle, although by giving greater attention to the philosophy of science, it
helped make them famous.
The Vienna Circle grew directly from the network of the leading German
physicists (see Figure 13.5). Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, Planck, Boltzmann, and
Einstein were their teachers or grandteachers. Institutionally too these physi-
cists created the arena in which the struggle would be carried on. The chair of
History and Theory of Inductive Sciences, crossing over from physics to
philosophy, was established in 1895 to lure Mach to Vienna. The second
incumbent was Boltzmann (1902–1906), who used the chair to sponsor public
debates against the Machians; the third was Schlick, who arrived in Vienna in
1922 in the wake of his attack on Cassirer. It is the focus of arguments that
counts, not the inheritance of positions; Schlick began as Planck’s student, even
though he eventually switched to the Machian side. The allied group at Berlin
formed around Reichenbach, an Einstein protégé working on the mathematical
philosophy of space-time relativity (EP, 1967: 11:355–356). Additional net-
work ingredients besides physics resulted in the distinctiveness of the Vienna
Circle. The Machians were not concerned with the foundations of mathematics
FIGURE 13.5. PHYSICISTS’ METHODOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIESThe Post-revolutionary Condition^ •^723