Sander Verhaegh investigates development of American intellectual climate after arrival of academic refugees

One of the most exciting, unexpected discoveries Verhaegh made in the archives thus far is a collection of hundreds of letters from five young American philosophers who sailed the ocean in opposite direction. They were in Germany for their studies and they wrote about their experiences to their parents, teachers and loved ones. Universities like Heidelberg, Jena, and Berlin were considered the place to be in academia in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to writing about European science and philosophy, the young Americans described the social and political climate. They marveled at the different ideas about philosophy and science. In particular, they were attracted by the positivist approach, which prescribed strongly experimental and quantitative research. Philosophers and scientists should not indulge in speculation but work strictly empirically. But they also wrote about the terrifying rise of fascism and how that affected the academy. The Nazi parades, the pictures of Hitler that were everywhere, the harassment of scientists at universities.

Their observations mark the context and the climate in which the European philosophers operated before their flight to the United States.

Verhaegh: ‘I am particularly interested in how Americans thought about the European refugees. After all, it were the Americans who decided to offer some refugee philosophers prestigious  positions and research funding but not others. The American-European networks that emerged at that time are of great importance in understanding the success of some refugees in the US.'

How did you choose this topic?

'In previous projects, I investigated the development of 20th-century philosophy and psychology. It struck me that there was a total upheaval in the American intellectual climate between the 1930s and the 1950s, from which ideas emerged that are still prevalent today. I wondered what was behind that. Historians of philosophy typically look at how ideas develop within philosophy: they examine how philosophers react to their predecessors and assume that arguments determine which theories become successful and which do not. But such an approach cannot explain why some ideas are popular on one continent and not on another. You also have to look at context: the economic, political and psychological background in which ideas are formed. The philosophers of the 1930s did not live in a social vacuum either. They witnessed the years of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and the arrival of thousands of refugees fleeing from Europe. To explain how the intellectual climate developed, you have to include that context. My question is: what factors contributed to the success of this small group of philosophers whose names are not so well known today: Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Hans Reichenbach, and Philipp Frank? The German brain drain changed American science forever. And with it, the intellectual climate in northwestern Europe, since we were strongly influenced by the new Anglo-Saxon way of thinking after World War II. The positivist approach to science had a lasting influence on us as well.

Not an easy task to measure context and success, what does your methodology consist of?

'I use a 2-stage methodology. First, data analysis (computational research): when exactly did the intellectual revolution take place in the US? You can only answer this question by mapping large numbers of publications, citations, and concepts from journals from this period. By using new techniques that allow us to analyze hundreds of thousands of articles at once, we create something like a map of the intellectual climate starting in the 1920s and we reconstruct how it developed in subsequent decades.

Then I continue my research not quantitatively but in the archives, looking for instance for correspondence between European and American philosophers and scientists before they emigrated. Indeed, it is not enough to look only at publications. Just as people present the best version of themselves when they post a picture on Instagram, publications are also highly stylized. To know how people really thought, you also want to be able to look behind the scenes: the gossip, the academic culture, the zeitgeist. That is only possible with archival work. That's how I combine quantitative and qualitative research.'

Indeed, many of the ideas we have today about what a philosopher should do can be traced back to the turbulent period in the years before and after World War II

What can we learn from this research?

'Ultimately, I hope that this research will give us more insight into the development of philosophy and the sciences. Indeed, many of the ideas we have today about what a philosopher should do can be traced back to the turbulent period in the years before and after World War II. Globally, tens of thousands of students each year take a course in philosophy of science, including in Tilburg, regardless of whether they are studying physics, economics or biology. But the discipline ‘philosophy of science’ did not exist 100 years ago, certainly not in its present form. The idea that it should be philosophers who reflect on science, rather than sociologists or historians, emerged in that period. By getting to know the past better, we also understand our own world a little better.'

More info on the project: https://exiledempiricists.com

By Tineke Bennema