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Letter to Henryk Mehlberg written in 15.02.1967

   c       THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
c            CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60637
c      DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

Chicago, 15/2/1967

 

c  c c  c    Dear Professor,

c  c  The letter you wrote in Rabka afforded me great joy, mainly because, as can be seen from the letter, you’re perfectly capable of managing the problem of personal time. I’d gladly read what you published recently – it hasn’t reached me. A lecture I gave in July 1966 at the International Symposium in Oberwolfach (near Freiburg im Breisgau) constitutes chapter 22 of a volume that Springer-Verlag has probably already published, entitled Studies in the Foundations and Philosophy of Science, Vol. II. The title of my chapter: ‘The Physical Reality of the XXX’. The volume contains only 6 chapters, some of them remarkable. A dissertation on quantum time, the most serious of my ‘production’ to date, will come out in the Czechoslovak Academy’s International Symposium on Time, probably before the end of 1967. I’m in good cosmopolitan company in this academic symposium, even though it includes people like Sartre. This event is western-eastern. À propos, the publisher of the Spencerian volume is Mario Bunge, whose book Causality you’re familiar with. Whatever I do is intended for my magnum opus, which is in an advanced stage. One-fourth concerns time. Nothing is repeated from ‘Essai sur la théorie causale du temps’ [French: Essay on the causal theory of time] (1935, 1937). This intensified theoretical activity (since 1964, more or less) may be the result of the return to health that occurred at that time.

c  c  You mention Augustynek, who’s (officially) supposed to spend May and June studying with me. I don’t expect much from his stay, as I am and probably will be completely absorbed in my own theoretical issues. Since there’s already been some gossip, I take the liberty of mentioning that a month ago I reported on the ‘Chicago Circle’, not devoid of analogy to ‘Wiener Kreis’ [German: the Vienna circle]. The only member belonging to both sections is Karl Menser. The two initial meetings went well.

c  c  I sense that this letter is getting too long; time to close, with best regards 2<–>2

Henryk Mehlberg