This open-access book is the first to investigate the roots of Logical Empiricism in the context of the Life Reform and the German Youth Movements. Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach are the key protagonists; they both belonged to the German Youth Movement and developed their early philosophical views in this setting. By combining scholarly essays with unpublished and hard to access manuscripts, letters, and articles, this volume recasts our understanding of the early years of Logical Empiricism.

Christian Damböck is Privatdozent at the Institute Vienna Circle, University of Vienna. Currently, he is working on an edition of Rudolf Carnap's diaries and scientific correspondence (FWF research grant P31716). His research interests are philosophy of science and the humanities in the 19th and 20th century in central Europe and the US; moral non-cognitivism and theories of democracy; philosophy of logic; the philosophies of Wilhelm Dilthey, Hermann Cohen, Chaim H. Steinthal, Richard Avenarius, Ernst Mach, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Thomas Kuhn, and Wolfgang Stegmüller.Günther Sandner is Research Fellow at the Institute Vienna Circle, University of Vienna. Currently, he is directing the research project Isotype. Origin, development, and legacy (FWF research grant P31500). He teaches at the University of Vienna and at the social academy of the chamber of labour. His research interests are politics of logical empiricism, higher education policy, Austro-Marxism, Social Democracy, and history of civic and political education. He is the author of Otto Neurath. Eine politische Biographie (Vienna, 2014). Meike G. Werner is Associate Professor of German and European Studies and Chair of the Department of French & Italian at Vanderbilt University (USA). She has published on German literature and culture, print media and intellectual history, including the German youth movement and life reform movement. Werner is co-editor of the journal Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur (IASL) and the series Studien und Texte zur Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur (STSL). Currently, she is working on two projects, a short book on "Young Carnap" and a book, entitled "The Making of Young Intellectuals, 1908-1920" (Flitner, Carnap, Freyer, Roh, Korsch and others).