Notebooks
Otto Neurath, 1882--1945
(Fri Jul 25 12:48:59 1997)
Austrian sociologist, political economist and anti-philosopher; possibly the
most unorthodox Marxist ever. Having developed some theories about a moneyless
``economy in kind'' before the war, he was assigned by the Austrian government
to work in what was, effectively, the planning ministry during the Great War.
This led to his working for the governments of Bavaria and Saxony towards
socializing their economies after the war, a project he attacked with great
enthusiasm, continuing through two coups that brought to power two different
``Soviet Republics''. (He had cleverly arranged to be hired as a civil
servant...) Eventually the central German government restored order and arrested
him as a collaborator in high treason, but they had to let him go when it became
evident that he didn't care about anything except his work, and had barely
noticed the changes in government. (The intervention of Max Weber and various
Austrian officials helped.) When he got back to Vienna, we became involved in a
project which evolved into the ``Social and Economic Museum'', which tried to
convey complicated social and economic relations to the largely un-educated
Viennese public. (The didn't call it Red Vienna for nothing.) This led to some
very interesting work on graphic design, visual education and the visual display
of quantitative information, indeed, a whole ``Vienna Method'' for such
displays, also called Isotype. During this period he also became one of the most
logically positive of the Logical
Positivists, to the point of being main author of their manifesto and
writing lots of philosophical papers about the principle of verification and
``protocol statements''. He was the driving force behind the ``Unity of
Science'' movement and its Encyclopedia of Unified Science, which
was explicitly conceived on the model of the French Encyclopedie.
Visual education, physicalism, unified science, moral liberation and socialism
were all inextricably linked in his mind, and while the results could be
exceedingly curious, they were also sometimes very useful and even compelling,
as in his book Modern Man in the Making.
On top of all this he wrote some good works on the history
of science, and a line from one of those essays, made famous by Quine, will
probably be his claim to posterity. As such, it can bear one more repetition (I
quote the version given at Institute Vienna Circle
--- Picture Base, since it's convenient):
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their
ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken
away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is
used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship
can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
Despite this, and despite his (exceedingly harsh and sensible)
polemics against Spengler, part of his dream for unified science was to put the
social sciences on a causal, predictive footing, like physics or astronomy.
Naturally, this failed (see Prophecy),
and I suspect parts of Popper's
The Poverty of Historicism of being directed against Neurath.
Austria after the Anschluss was no place for a man like Neurath, and he
escaped, first to Holland, and then England (crossing the Channel with a number
of other refugees in an open boat, on which he did not, so far as I know, make
any repairs), where he came to work for a public housing authority with what us,
under the circumstances, remarkable enthusiasm. He died in 1945 with none of his
project come to fruition.
Recommended:
- Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler (eds.), Encyclopedia and
Utopia: The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882--1945). Vienna Circle
Institute Yearbook, vol. 4. [Review]
- Marie Neurath and Robert Cohen (eds.), Empiricism and Sociology.
With a Selection of Biographical and Autobiographical Sketches [The
sketchers include Popper and
Carnap; abridged translations of two books, Anti-Spengler (which
features the boat again) and Empiricism and Sociology]
- Marie Neurath and Robert Cohen with Carolyn R. Fawcett (eds.),
Philosophical Papers, 1913--1946
- Otto Neurath, Modern Man in the Making. Alfred A. Knopf, 1939
[I don't suppose anyone out there has a copy they'd be willing to part with?]
- Bertrand Russell, Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, pp. 133ff,
for a critique of Neurath's views of ``protocol sentences'' and the idea that
(as Neurath put it) ``we can't get behind language.''
To read:
- Nancy Cartwright et al., Otto Neurath: Philosophy between Science
and Politics B3309 N394 O88 [part of the ``Ideas in Context'' series,
which I ought to look up]
- Karl H. Muller, Symbole, Statistik, computer design: Otto Neuraths
Bildpadagogik im Computerzeitalter LB1028.5 M84 [unfortunately, I don't
read a word of German...]
- Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap and Charles Morris (eds.), International
Encyclopedia of Unified Science [Only two volumes were ever published,
the first in two parts. I bought my copy a few months ago for $20 total.]
- Danilo Zolo, Reflexive Epistemology: The Philosophical Legacy of
Otto Neurath Q175 B73 v.118 [but the Italian original is titled
Scienza e politica in Otto Neurath, which sounds altogether more
sensible.]