Jordi Cat, Adam Tamas Tuboly (Ed.) Neurath Reconsidered: New Sources and Perspectives. Cham: Springer Nature, 2019

Abstract

Due to his manifold achievements, Otto Neurath has become a figure of interest in many fields – architecture, biography, economics, graphic design, philosophy of science, political history, among others. Scholars in many of these disciplines are among the contributors to this weighty volume, which is intended to offer ‘new sources and perspectives’. The new sources it provides are most valuable: the first English translations of Neurath and Olga Hahn’s articles on logic (1909–10), and a selection of the correspondence between Neurath and Rudolf Carnap (1940–5), which occupies 174 pages of the book’s 706 pages. These letters touch on various matters, both philosophical and personal, and – being written originally in English – reflect the tension between adaptation and continuity that affected both men in their respective new homes in the UK & USA. With an informative introduction by the editors, and with useful footnotes, the publication of this correspondence is a stimulating resource for further research. (More extensive publication of Carnap’s correspondence will follow, edited by Christian Damböck.)