Edgar Zilsel (August 11, 1891,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

– March 11, 1944,

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n- American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and a

philosopher of science A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He is known for his Zilsel Thesis, a scientific proposal which traces the origins of western science to the interactions between scholars and skilled artisans, which melded practical experimentation with analytical thought. As part of the left wing of the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...

, a group of early twentieth-century philosophers, he endorsed historical materialism and sought to establish empirical laws in history and in society. He was also Jewish and a Marxist, which rendered him unable to pursue an academic career in Austria. Fleeing persecution, he escaped to the United States where he received a Rockefeller Fellowship Membership. During this time, he published many papers, including ''Sociological Roots of Modern Science''. In 1943, he was invited to teach physics at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

in California. Zilsel committed suicide on March 11, 1944.

Life

Edgar Zilsel was the youngest child of Jacob Zilsel, a lawyer, and Ina Kollmer. He had two older sisters, Wallie Zilsel and Irma Zilsel. He attended high school at the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium between 1902 and 1910 and then attended the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

where he studied philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In 1914, He also served in the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

for four months and in 1915, he received his PhD while under the supervision of Heinrich Gomperz.Elisabeth Nemeth.
Logical Empiricism and the History and Sociology of Science
' in Alan W. Richardson and Thomas Uebel (eds.). ''The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

. p. 293; . Google Books; retrieved on April 19, 2011. His dissertation was entitled "A Philosophical Investigation of the Law of Large Numbers and related Laws". After working as a mathematician at an insurance company for a few months, he found a position as a teacher on February 16, 1917. He passed his teacher's examination on November 18, 1918 in mathematics, physics, and natural history.Raven, Diederick and Wolfgang Krohn
"Edgar Zilsel: His Life and Work (1891-1944)"''The Social Origins of Modern Science''
ed. Diederick Raven, Wolfgang Krohn and Robert S. Cohen (Dordrecht: Kuwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. xix-lix. Although linked to the

, Zilsel critiqued the views of Circle members. He participated actively in working people's education, teaching philosophy and physics at the Vienna People's University. Following the defeat of the

Austrian Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...

in the Austrian Civil War in 1934, Zilsel was arrested. Although only detained briefly, he was dismissed from his job. He then taught mathematics and physics at a secondary school (''Mittelschule'') in Vienna. As a philosopher, he combined Marxist views with the logical positivism of the

. He regularly published articles in academic and

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

journals. An extended version of his PhD thesis was published as a book (''The Application Problem: a Philosophical Investigation of the Law of Large Numbers and its Induction''). Two other books, ''The Religion of Genius: A Critical Study of the Modern Ideal of Personality'' and ''The Development of the Concept of Genius: a Contribution to the Conceptual History of Antiquity and Early Capitalism'' were published in 1918 and 1926, respectively. Zilsel managed to escape from Austria after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

, first to England and in 1939 to the United States where he received a

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Ca ...

enabling him to devote time to research. He published many papers during these years of exile, including ''Sociological Roots of Modern Science''. In 1943, he was invited by

Lynn White Lynn Townsend White Jr. (April 29, 1907 – March 30, 1987) was an American historian. He was a professor of medieval history at Princeton from 1933 to 1937, and at Stanford from 1937 to 1943. He was president of Mills College, Oakland, from 1943 ...

to teach physics at

in California, but shortly thereafter committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills.

Thought

Zilsel proposed the Zilsel Thesis as an explanation for the rise of Western science. Zilsel claimed that the rise of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

led to the interaction of

craftspeople An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...

with scholars. This interaction in turn led to the beginnings of early modern science. The craftspeople had been for the most part illiterate and looked down upon by the educated classes. The scholars were ignorant of practical craft activity. The intellectual theorizing of the crafts and the absorption of craft knowledge into the investigation of nature led to the development of experimental science. Another of Zilsel's theories was that the rise of the notion of laws of nature in early modern science was a product of the generalization of the juridical concept of law to natural phenomena. Just as the king lays down the legal laws for the nation,

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

lays down the laws of nature for the universe. Zilsel's ideas were used by historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham to account for the lack of experimental science in traditional China, despite the Chinese being in advance of the West in both technology and in many areas of natural history observation. Zilsel has been praised by historian Clifford D. Conner Clifford D. Conner, A People's History of Science, Nation Books 2005. for having been the first to stress the role of artisans and craftsmen in the development of modern science. According to Conner, the theses of Zilsel were met with resistance at the time of their publication, also due to the author's early death, and his works were later revalued by historians such as Pamela H. Smith.Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan, University of Chicago Press, 2004.

References

Bibliography

*Johann Dvorak, Edgar Zilsel, Wissenschaft und Volksbildung. In: ''Erwachsenenbildung in Österreich. Fachzeitschrift für Mitarbeiter in der Erwachsenenbildung'', 45. Jg., 1994, H. 3, S. 7-14. *J. Dvorak, ''Edgar Zilsel und die Einheit der Erkenntnis'' (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1981). *Pamela O. Long, ''Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600'' (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2011), 11–15. *Edgar Zilsel,
The Social Origins of Modern Science
'. eds. Diederick Raven, Wolfgang Krohn, and Robert S. Cohen (Dordrecht:

Kluwer Academic Publishers Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

, 2000); .

External links

* "Portrait Of My Father" by Paul Zilsel, (in the journal
Schmate
'
Volume 1, Issue 1, April/May 1982

Biography (with photo)
adulteducation.at; accessed August 26, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zilsel, Edgar Historians of science Vienna Circle Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery Austrian Jews Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States Writers from Vienna 1891 births 1944 suicides 1944 deaths Drug-related suicides in California Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I