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7 - Ethics and the Excluded Middle

Karl Menger and Social Science in Interwar Vienna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2013

Robert Leonard
Affiliation:
Université du Québec à Montréal
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Summary

Introduction

In the autumn of 1926, the twenty-four-year-old Viennese mathematician Karl Menger was on a two-year postdoctoral stay at the University of Amsterdam, as assistant to L. E. J. Brouwer, when he wrote to his girlfriend back in Vienna:

The Düsseldorf conference was, as far the mathematics section is concerned, so uninteresting and insignificant that I took the remaining 10 days to go to Paris for my intellectual refreshment. That, on the other hand, is quite fantastic…I liked Paris so much that I would like to return if it is at all possible. Just in passing, and to annoy you, I also visited Mondrian the painter, who paints only squares. He showed me photos of all his pictures; the development is quite interesting. Also his studio, whose walls are covered with large rectangles in different colours and sizes. I liked it very much.…

From there I returned to Amsterdam after all. I am lecturing on the calculus of variations. Personally, I am occupied by geometry of all kinds, furthermore by epistemology. I hope I'll get the energy to put together my views about the problem of truth. In the last weeks, I have had so many ideas that I don't have any time at all to write them down, and run away every evening to distract myself…in order not to overwork. Apart from that, I curse the fact that I am not in Vienna but rather here. I can't get used to living here, and I will try my best to leave here forever in the month of June.

Type
Chapter
Information
Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory
From Chess to Social Science, 1900–1960
, pp. 110 - 139
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • Ethics and the Excluded Middle
  • Robert Leonard, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Book: Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory
  • Online publication: 05 December 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778278.010
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  • Ethics and the Excluded Middle
  • Robert Leonard, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Book: Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory
  • Online publication: 05 December 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778278.010
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ethics and the Excluded Middle
  • Robert Leonard, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Book: Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory
  • Online publication: 05 December 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778278.010
Available formats
×