FRANK, PHILIPP

FRANK, PHILIPP (1884–1966), philosopher and physicist. Born in Vienna, he was appointed professor of theoretical physics at the German University of Prague at 28, replacing Einstein. In 1938, he moved to the United States and taught mathematics and physics at Harvard. He established his reputation in physics by publishing with Richard von Mises, Die Differential-und Integralgleichungen der Mechanik und Physik (1925). Frank's most famous work was on philosophy of science. Following Duhem, Poincaré, Mach, and Einstein, Frank tried to clarify the philosophical foundations of the natural sciences. Frank's view is close to the positivism of the "Vienna Circle." He opposed the compartmentalization of individual sciences, stressing the unity of science. He also pointed out the neglected spheres between the individual sciences. Frank was a personal friend of Einstein and in 1947 wrote Einstein: His Life and Times. Frank opposed Mach's limited form of logical positivism and emphasized instead, relying on Einstein, that the principles of physics are the product of free human imagination and that they are symbols. These symbols are not arbitrary, but "true" ones, i.e., one should derive from them, by logical consequences, conclusions which are confirmed by experiment. This means that despite the emphasis on the empirical factor there still remains room for the researcher's productive activity. In his later years, he was especially interested in the sociological, historical, cultural, and psychological aspects of the natural sciences. Frank was a brilliant teacher and a lucid writer. A volume of Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (1965) was dedicated to him on his 80th birthday. Frank's writings are an important source for the history of logical positivism and empiricism in the 20th century. They include Das Kausalgesetz und seine Grenzen (1932), Théorie de la connaissance et physique moderne (1934), Das Ende der mechanistischen Physik (1935), Interpretations and Misinterpretations of Modern Physics (1938), Between Physics and Philosophy (1941), Modern Science and Its Philosophy (1949), Relativity: A Richer Truth (1950), and Philosophy of Science: The Link Between Science and Philosophy (1957). (Samuel Hugo Bergman)