Circle network, proclaimed the end of the verification criterion and its replace-
ment by falsification.^27 The moment when Popper made his debut was the time
when Gödel demolished the hopes of Russell-Carnap logicism for providing
an unassailable foundation and hence as a possible demarcation criterion.
Popper’s ideas no doubt received an immediate and friendly welcome from
some factions of the Circle because he stepped into a gap. Soon Carnap,
Neurath, and Wittgenstein were announcing the abandonment of earlier pro-
grams for major new directions.
It is characteristic of creative circles that one innovation spawns another;
and major creations must go in different directions, even in oppositions (see
Figure 13.7). Gödel’s undecidability proof was a fundamental defeat for the
Frege-Russell logicist program; and it was formulated in the heart of the group
where, of all the world, that program was most actively being pursued. Gödel’s
work was the result of the network mixture which constituted the Vienna
Circle, a case of creativity by superimposed oppositions. In the field of funda-
mental issues which is philosophical turf, creativity is tightly focused conflict
boring in on problems until deep faults are found; around these reconceptu-
alization takes place. In this sense Popper accurately recognized in falsification
something central to intellectual life—perhaps not in the actual histories of
scientific discovery, but in the world of the philosophers that surrounded him.
The Stimulation of Insoluble Puzzles
Encapsulating the conflicts which had built up in the Vienna Circle, Gödel’s
meta-mathematics catalyzed a new round of creativity. Russell’s paradox hadFIGURE 13.7. VIENNA CIRCLE: COMPOSITE NETWORK728 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths