Autobiographical Remarks (1976)

Hugo Dingler was one of my first loves in the philosophy of science. When I was 16 I picked up his Grundlagen der Geometrie (1st ed.) in a second hand bookstore, and I was caught. I must have read all his books (though I never found his book on the Jewish question) and I was a determined Dinglerian for years afterwards. I think that his book Das Experiment, his Zusammenbruch der Wissenschaft and, of course, his Grundlagen der Geometrie are well worth reading. I also learned a lot from his short essay on Mach (with excerpts from Mach’s diaries). Dingler was a fascinating lecturer who presented matters in a vivid and picturesque way. I still remember his frequent references to the “Fleckenteppich des Positivismus”.