Berlin Circle

ReichenbachGroup of philosophers and scientists who gathered round Hans Reichenbach in late 1920s. Among its members were H. Reichenbach, K. Grelling, C. G. Hempel, D. Hilbert, R. von Mises. Berlin Circle — its name was Die Gesellschaft für empirische Philosophie (Society for empirical philosophy) — joined up with the Vienna Circle; together they published the journal Erkenntnis edited by Rudolf Carnap and H. Reichenbach, and organized several congresses on scientific philosophy, the first of which held in Prague in 1929.

Members of Berlin Circle were particularly active in analyzing contemporary physics, especially the theory of relativity, and in developing the frequency interpretation of the probability. After the rise of Nazism, several of them emigrated from Germany. Reichenbach moved to Turkey in 1933 and to USA in 1938; Hempel to Belgium in 1934 and to USA in 1939; Grelling was killed in a concentration camp. Hence the Berlin Circle was dispersed.