Uebel, Thomas E., Overcoming Logical Positivism from Within. The Emergence of Neurath’s Naturalism in the Vienna Circle’s Protocol Sentence Debate. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1992. (Studien zur österreichischen Philosophie, Band XVII)

Abstract

The book under review is one of the most interesting and exhaustive in the entire literature on many of the principal issues debated by the Vienna Circle. Its main claim to the attention of philosophers and the feature making it unique is its heavy and entirely justified emphasis on Otto Neurath, the member of the Vienna Circle whose influence and organizational contribution has not been recognized in the scientific community. His writings have hardly been studied by academic philosophers because they were not formulated in the carefully-worded diction prized so highly among analytic philosophers. (In addition, Neurath had no academic position, but we may presume that conscientious scholars disregard status when evaluating the literature.) Attention to Neurath is especially instructive because his positions represent an aspect of the thinking of the Vienna Circle which has been ignored or suppressed by older treatments of the Vienna Circle and particularly by the analytic tradition in Britain and the U.S.A. which was otherwise heavily influenced by the Vienna Circle.