The Institute Vienna Circle (IVC) ("Society for the Advancement of the Scientific World Conception") was founded in October 1991 as an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the work and influence of the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism.
[1] Since 2011 the IVC was established as a subunit (Department) of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education at the University of Vienna.
The Institute’s founder and scientific director of the VCS is Friedrich Stadler, who serves as a permanent fellow of the IVC in parallel.
Its goal is the documentation and continued development of the Vienna Circle's work in science and public education, areas that have been neglected until now, as well as the maintenance and application of logical-empirical, critical-rational and linguistic analytical thought and construction of a scientific philosophy and world view in conjunction with general socio-cultural trends.
One of the Institute's main objectives is to democratize knowledge and science as a process of enlightenment, counteracting all forms of irrational, dogmatic or fundamentalist thought, in a societal context and taking into account the latest developments in international research.