ABSTRACT
Conventionalism is a source of influence explicitly mentioned in the Vienna Circle’s manifesto. Yet its meaning is often misunderstood or its scope misconstrued due to a lack of a historical understanding which would place the emergence of conventionalism in its scientific context. This chapter sets out to give such a historical reconstruction of conventionalism as well as of its link to logical empiricism. The historical line of interpretation takes us back to the discussions at the turn of the twentieth century between Poincaré, Duhem, Le Roy, and others and scrutinizes the various channels of transmission of these discussions to the Vienna Circle. Such recourse to history reveals the shortcomings of an approach strictly based on rational reconstruction.
