Otto Neurath
There is no secure foundation for knowledge: we can only test statements against other statements and rebuild our knowledge piece by piece while relying on the rest.
Placement
Viennese economist, social reformer and organiser of the Vienna Circle: the sciences should share one physicalist language of public statements, none of them beyond revision – “like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea”. He also devised the picture statistics later called Isotype.
Key ideas
- Physicalism and unified science
- Protocol sentences, revisable
- Neurath’s boat (no foundations)
- Isotype picture statistics
- Economy in kind
Influence
Influenced by 2
Karl Marx
influenced by
Neurath treated Marx’s historical materialism as a model of empirical, anti-metaphysical sociology (Empirische Soziologie, 1931) and argued for a planned economy calculated in kind (1919). O. Neurath, Durch die Kriegswirtschaft zur Naturalwirtschaft (1919); Empirische Soziologie (1931); SEP “Otto Neurath”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Ernst Mach
influenced by ✓
Neurath co-founded the Verein Ernst Mach (1928) and, in the manifesto he co-wrote, named Mach among the forerunners of an anti-metaphysical, unified science (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung, 1929). H. Hahn, O. Neurath and R. Carnap, Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (1929); SEP “Otto Neurath”; SEP “Vienna Circle”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Ernst Mach › 1838–1916
Influenced 2
Rudolf Carnap
influenced
Carnap adopted Neurath’s physicalism, making physical language the universal language of science (1932), and came round to his view that protocol sentences are revisable. R. Carnap, “Die physikalische Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaft”, Erkenntnis 2 (1932); “Über Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932); O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932); SEP “Otto Neurath”
Evidence: AI draft
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
W. V. O. Quine
influenced
Quine set Neurath’s image of sailors rebuilding their ship on the open sea as motto of Word and Object (1960), summing up a naturalism without foundations outside science. W. V. Quine, Word and Object (1960); O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932); SEP “Otto Neurath”
Evidence: AI draft
W. V. O. Quine › 1908–2000
Criticism
Criticized by 1
Karl Popper
criticised by
Popper welcomed Neurath’s view that protocol sentences are revisable, but objected that without rules for discarding them empiricism is thrown overboard (Logik der Forschung, 1934). K. Popper, Logik der Forschung (1934), § 26; O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932/33)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Popper › 1902–1994
Criticizes 1
Moritz Schlick
criticised
Neurath rejected Schlick’s ‘affirmations’ as an unshakeable foundation of knowledge: all statements, protocol sentences included, remain revisable (‘Radikaler Physikalismus und „wirkliche Welt“’, 1934). O. Neurath, “Radikaler Physikalismus und »wirkliche Welt«”, Erkenntnis 4 (1934); M. Schlick, “Über das Fundament der Erkenntnis”, Erkenntnis 4 (1934); O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932/33)
Evidence: AI draft
Moritz Schlick › 1882–1936
Works
The manifesto of the Vienna Circle, signed by Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap: unified science, logical analysis, no metaphysics – and an alliance with social reform.
There is no bedrock of certain experience: even records of observation can be discarded – the essay with the ship that must be rebuilt at sea.
Position
Neurath gave the empiricism of the Vienna Circle a social and anti-foundational turn. “Unified science” meant for him not a pyramid that reduces all sciences to physics but an encyclopedia of sciences that share a physicalist language of statements about observable events in space and time, so that predictions from economics, biology and physics can be combined. In “Protocol Sentences” (1932) he denied that knowledge rests on a bedrock of certain experience: even protocol statements, which record an observation together with the observer’s name and the time, may be discarded if they conflict with the rest of the system. Hence his image of sailors “who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea, without ever being able to take it apart in dry dock”. This brought him into dispute with Carnap over phenomenalist foundations, with Moritz Schlick, who defended indubitable “affirmations” (Konstatierungen), and with Karl Popper over basic statements. He regarded Marxism as a model for an empirical sociology and argued for a planned “economy in kind” calculated without money; Ludwig von Mises replied in 1920 with his essay on economic calculation, the beginning of the socialist calculation debate. Isotype was meant to make social and economic facts readable for everyone. Carnap took over physicalism from him, and W. V. O. Quine put the ship at the head of Word and Object (1960).
Life & context
Otto Neurath was born in Vienna on 10 December 1882, the son of the economist Wilhelm Neurath. He studied mathematics, economics and history in Vienna and Berlin and took his doctorate in Berlin in 1906 with Gustav Schmoller and Eduard Meyer, on ancient economic history. In 1917 he qualified as a lecturer at Heidelberg. In 1919 he headed the central planning office of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic; after its fall he was imprisoned, wrote Anti-Spengler in prison and returned to Austria after the Austrian government intervened. In “Red Vienna” he worked for the settlers’ movement and from 1924 to 1934 directed the Social and Economic Museum, where he developed, with Marie Reidemeister and the artist Gerd Arntz, a method of picture statistics later called Isotype. He co-founded the Ernst Mach Society in 1928 and wrote the Vienna Circle’s manifesto of 1929 with Hans Hahn and Rudolf Carnap. In 1934 he fled to The Hague, in 1940 to England, where he was interned for nine months. With Carnap and Charles Morris he edited the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science from 1938. He married Marie Reidemeister in 1941 and died in Oxford on 22 December 1945.
Further main works
- Anti-Spengler (1921)
- Empirical Sociology (Empirische Soziologie, 1931)
- International Picture Language (1936)
- Foundations of the Social Sciences (1944)
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