Abstract
‘History’ and ‘Political Economy’ have not been differentiated on the basis of systematic reflection; rather, they have been quite different in origin and conceptual structure. Only on further development of both disciplines are they set closer together and merged into a single science, namely ‘Sociology’, which for about a hundred years past has been assimilating other fields of science.
[1931, Bibl. No. 201.-Ed.]. [The preface has been omitted - Ed.]
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[1931, Bibl. No. 201.-Ed.]. [The preface has been omitted - Ed.]
From: ‘Ways of the Scientific World-View’, (Wege der wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung), Erkenntnis, Vol. 1, 1930. ... The transition from magical to theological conceptions can be illustrated by two stories from the Old Testament. When Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, they competed, at Yahweh’s order, with Pharaoh’s magicians by means of empirically testable effects. Aaron threw down his staff, and it changed into a snake. But Pharaoh for his part summoned his wise men and sorcerers, and they likewise displayed their art: each threw down a staff, which changed into a big snake; but Aaron’s staff swallowed up theirs. In spite of this power of Aaron’s snake, Pharaoh’s spirit remained hardened. Now Aaron beat the waters of the Nile, and they became transformed into blood; all the fish died and the Egyptians could not drink water. But the black magicians of Egypt managed with their magic to achieve the same crucial experiment. Pharaoh’s spirit remained hardened. Aaron called forth frogs, and they covered the land of Egypt. But the black magicians with their magic achieved the same and likewise called forth the frogs over Egypt. Now Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and transformed all the dust on the ground into gnats throughout Egypt; for this the black magicians were too weak, and they said to Pharaoh: “This is God’s finger”; empirical fact had decided! The step towards the European religious attitude is shown in the Bible in the story of the prophet Jonah. It is told that Yahweh asked Jonah to go to the mighty city of Nineveh and to prophesy its downfall. But Jonah did not want to, in order to avoid being proved wrong. He entered a ship in order to escape from Yahweh, but Yahweh sent a storm and Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish, until in the end he was spat out onto the shore. Now he obediently accepted the command and preached: “Another forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” And the people in Nineveh did penance, men and animals fasted and were wrapped in mourning clothes. And then God did not carry out the unconditionally pronounced prophecy, which much annoyed the prophet and thus discredited him. In his anger he said that from the start he had not wanted to be a prophet, because it would later cause God some regret, in spite of his prophecy, to destroy a people. In order to soothe Jonah, God caused the growth of a shadow-giving tree, letting it die again the next day. When Jonah was greatly angered by this, God put it to him that if for a plant Jonah began such wailing, how would God not have pity on Nineveh? That is to say, God decides independently of the prophet, in a way which is ultimately unchallengeable and unaccountable. The prophet is no longer responsible if his prophecy does not come true; prophesying thenceforth stops in general. The prophets’ pronouncements can no longer be tested empirically. God is not bound by any priestly words. There is no reliability. Whereas Pharaoh was still converted to God by means of achievements perceivable by the senses, Christ asserts that such achievements prove nothing. Not even miracles prove anything in favor of those who perform them. “False Christs will arise, and false prophets, that will give great signs and miracles.” According to Catholic doctrine Antichrist will appear as a miracle worker. In this way Christian theologians retire from the domain of what is empirically testable. Their conception of God is not derivable from individual experiences — as might be possible in certain Manichaean conceptions of God — but there are also other kinds of transgressions of the empirical boundary. Thus, for instance, Mexican priests asserted that during certain periods that lasted for years they must twirl the sun’s fire or else the sun will become extinguished and humanity with all its accessories would perish. Here perhaps there is an incipient connection with totality; the empirical decidability really holds only for the case of continued twirling, since testing the other case is forbidden as too dangerous, and it is no longer possible if all life is destroyed, though we can formulate it today.
Ed. Note: At this point, Neurath inserted into his text the following passage from The German Ideology by Marx and Engels. He did not have the complete text available, since Empirische Soziologie was published in 1931 and the first full version of The German Ideology only in 1932 in the MEGA (Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe) Part I, Volume 5. It is likely that he used the long selections which had been published in the first volume of the short-lived journal Marx-Engels Archiv a few years earlier, in 1926. The English text below may be found scattered through Part I Feuerbach of the several translations, e.g. pp. 31–32–36–37–38–39–41–49–50–47 of the London (Lawrence and Wishart) and Moscow (Progress Publishers) edition of 1964, translated by W. Lough and edited by S. Ryazanskaya: it also appears on pp. 409–432 of Writings of the Young Marx, edited and translated by L. D. Easton and K. H. Guddat (Doubleday, New York: 1967)
J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, Vol. II, Book VI, Ch. 3, Sect. 2.
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Neurath, O. (1973). Empirical Sociology. In: Neurath, M., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Empiricism and Sociology. Vienna Circle Collection, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2525-6_10
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