American pragmatism was strongest earlier in the 20th century, as was the logical postivism of the [Vienna Circle](https://iep.utm.edu/viennacr/). Weltanschauung is associated with the Vienna Circle. The mid 20ths century saw the rise of British [analytic philosophy](https://iep.utm.edu/analytic-philosophy/).
The Vienna Circle was sympathetic to ideas coming from American pragmatics, wrote Thomas Uebel in 2015. “[American Pragmatism and the Vienna Circle: The Early Years](https://doi.org/10.15173/jhap.v3i3.39)” _Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy_ 3 (3) . The open question is whether post-WWI philsoophers were in direct contact with American pragmatists, or via a Central European pragmatist movement. > In this paper I wish to bring together two investigations undertaken elsewhere. These are, > * first, a study of the reception that American pragmatism found among members of the Vienna Circle prior to the process of internationalization of logical empiricism that had set in by the time of the 8th International Congress of Philosophy in Prague in September 1934; and, > * second, a study of some of the ideas and doctrines arrived at by some of the few Central European philosopher-scientists with whom American pragmatism had found an at least partially sympathetic reception prior to World War I. [1] > * [1] See Haller (1985), Stadler (1997/2001, §4) and Uebel (2000). > The result of the first study was that it was not until late in the 1920s—but still before 1934—that selected aspects of American pragmatism were explicitly endorsed by certain members even though some similarity in outlook already seems to have been discerned by them in the years before World War I. > The result of the second study was that to the very limited extent that there was a positive reception of American pragmatism by German or Austrian philosophers and scien- tists before World War I it was one that sprang from the recognition on their part that pragmatism agreed with conclusions they had arrived at independently. > The thesis I wish to present for consideration here is that the early sympathies for pragmatism on the part of some Vienna Circle members were based to a large extent on their appreciation of the work of these Central European philosopher-scientists rather than merely the then prominent key text of pragmatism. [p. 83, editorial paragraphing added]
In the systems movement, [Ludwig von Bertalanffy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Bertalanffy) was connected to the Vienna Circle, but emphasized a biological orientation towards a unified science. In the second edition of _Systems Thinkers_ in 2000, [Magnus Ramage](https://www.open.ac.uk/people/mr888) and [Karen Shipp](https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Karen-Shipp-46809352) wrote a [chapter on von Bertalanffy](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7475-2_6): > Bertalanffy took his PhD in physics and philosophy at the University of Vienna. His supervisor was Moritz Schlick, founder of the celebrated Vienna Circle who developed and championed the theory of logical positivism (which argued that empirical science was the only valid form of knowledge, and that discussion of values had no place in science). The Circle was also committed to a ‘unified science’ with a common language in which all scientific principles could be expressed. Bertalanffy came to reject the reductionism and valueneutrality of the Vienna Circle, but was strongly influenced by the goal of unified science. On receiving his PhD in 1926, he became a professor at the University of Vienna, where he remained until 1948. > Bertalanffy spent a year from autumn 1937 to 1938 in the US, where he gave his first public presentation on GST, at the University of Chicago. During his time in the US, the Nazis annexed Austria, and as the situation in Austria and Germany worsened, American funds for visiting scholars were principally allocated to those experiencing direct persecution, which did not apply to Bertalanffy. He tried to have his funding extended, but was unsuccessful and he therefore returned to Vienna, where he spent the war years as an academic. [p. 54] > [....] > He moved in 1948 to Switzerland to complete his book Das _Biologische Weltbild_ (_Problems of Life_), which was the fullest outline of his organismic biology. Through a biologist who had been highly influenced by his earlier work, Joseph Woodger, he obtained a year’s stay at the University of London Medical School. While in London he received a grant to move to Canada as a professor of biology at the University of Ottawa, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1954. Crucially, he had a year’s fellowship in 1954–1955 at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioural Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford, California, where he came together with the group who with him founded the Society for General Systems Research (the story of this founding is discussed further in the chapter on Kenneth Boulding). This society, later the International Society for the Systems Sciences, was never large but was highly influential in its development and propagation of GST. Bertalanffy co-edited its annual journal from the society’s inception in 1956 until his death. [p. 54-55] Thus, the rise of the systems movement can be seen as a blend of ties between the Vienna Circle, and American pragmatism.
From the entry on [Analytic Philosophy from the Intenet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://iep.utm.edu/analytic-philosophy/), ... > When [G.E.] Moore and [Bertrand] Russell articulated their alternative to Idealism, they used a linguistic idiom, frequently basing their arguments on the “meanings” of terms and propositions. Additionally, Russell believed that the grammar of natural language often is philosophically misleading, and that the way to dispel the illusion is to re-express propositions in the ideal formal language of symbolic logic, thereby revealing their true logical form. Because of this emphasis on language, analytic philosophy was widely, though perhaps mistakenly, taken to involve a turn toward language as the subject matter of philosophy, and it was taken to involve an accompanying methodological turn toward linguistic analysis. Thus, on the traditional view, analytic philosophy was born in this _linguistic_ turn.
The break in favour of analytic philosophy is described in “[Philosophy and Weltanschauung](https://www.kainielsen.org/uploads/1/1/9/0/119098149/philosophy_and_weltanschauung.pdf)”, _The Journal of Value Inquiry_, vol. 21, 1993, pp. 179-186 , available on the [website of Montreal-based philosopher Kai Nielsen](https://www.kainielsen.org/articles.html). > I want to consider the relation between philosophy and _Weltanschauung_. I begin by attending to a discussion on that topic between four well-known Oxford philosophers held during the heyday of so-called Oxford Philosophy or ordinary language philosophy (1955).[1] One of them, Anthony Quinton, put forth the bold thesis (a thesis rejected by the other three discussants) that the real object of attack by analytic philosophy (logical empiricism, Oxford Philosophy - all of linguistic philosophy) was not, as was then widely supposed, metaphysics but _Weltanschauung_. By "_Weltanschauung_" Quinton meant "recommendations of a moral, political and religious order" (p. 417). By this, as becomes clear from his later remarks, Quinton is speaking of "the presentation of attitudes to life" (p. 496). Some but not all of the great philosophers of the past showed concern for _Weltanschauung_- considerations, but that, claims Quinton, was always and necessarily logically independent of their theoretical doctrines as philosophers. Quinton's claim is "that there is no _logical_" connection between philosophical doctrines and moral or political attitudes (p. 500, italics mine). > * [1] Isaiah Berlin et al., "Philosophy and Beliefs," _The Twentieth Century_ (June 1955): 495-521. Future references to this discussion will be given in the text. See also Stuart Hampshire, "The Progress of Philosophy," _Polemic_ 5 (1946). > [....] > _Weltanschauung_-issues matter because human beings generally have wanted to make sense of their lives, to become as clear as they can about what ultimate commitments, if any, or almost ultimate commitments, are worthy of their allegiance. This calls for some understanding of good and evil, justice and injustice, and of what we human beings are and can become. We want to understand what we can know about the world, including ourselves, and to know what we can reasonably do about what we know or plausibly believe. We ask, linking philosophy firmly with _Weltanschauung_ and a quest (however skeptical) for wisdom, such fundamental, if you will, hedgehoggish questions as: What am I to become? To what (if anything) am I to give my allegiance? In what kind of society do I want to live? What would a through and through good and just society look like, and how can it be, if it can be, attained? [p. 184]