Abstract
I propose to reconstruct Neurath’s early economic theory as a genuinely theoretical, academic contribution to the epistemological controversies which were going on in the not yet well defined field of social science and economics before World War 1, rather than as an early, preparatory stage of his later ideas on socialism (as a planned economy in kind). Emphasizing the difference between his early theory and his later political activism can help us spell out the philosophical impact of Neurath’s highly original theoretical approach to economics and how his conceptual innovations there are related to his later contributions to logical empiricism. Tracing Neurath’s thought back to the debates on the subject matter of economics and social science before World War 1, also helps us to reconstruct the issues of these earlier debates that disappeared during the “short” 20th century.
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Notes
- 1.
See Thomas Uebel, “Introduction: Neurath’s Economics in Context”, in: Otto Neurath, Economic Writings. Selections 1904–1945 (ed. by Thomas Uebel and Robert S. Cohen). Dordrecht: Kluwer 2004, pp. 1-108. (The volume as a whole will refered to hereafter as “ONEW”.)
- 2.
Juan Martinez-Alier, Ecological Economics. Energy, Environment and Society. Oxford: Blackwell 1987.
- 3.
See, for example, John O’Neill, The Market: Ethics, Knowledge and Politics. London: Routledge, 1998, and Elisabeth Nemeth, Stefan Schmitz, Thomas Uebel (Eds.), Otto Neurath’s Economics in Context. Dordrecht: Springer 2007 (with further references). The volume as a whole will refered to hereafter as “ONEIC”.
- 4.
Some of the following considerations have been published in E. Nemeth, “Socially Enlightened Science. Neurath on Social Science and Visual Education”, in: Mélika Ouelbani (Ed.), Thèmes de philosophie analytique, Université de Tunis, Faculté des Humaines et Sociales 2006, pp. 83-112, and in “ ‘Freeing up One’s Point of View’: Neurath’s Machian Heritage Compared with Schumpeter’s”, 2007, in: ONEIC, pp. 13-36.
- 5.
James Lennox, “History and Philosophy of Science: a Phylogenetic Approach”, in: História, Ciêcias, Saúde – Manguinhos, vol. VIII(3), 2001, pp. 655-669, at p. 657.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 659.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 667.
- 9.
Otto Neurath, “Nationalökonomie und Wertlehre, eine systematische Untersuchung”, in: Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung 20, 1911, pp. 52-114, reprinted in Neurath, Gesammelte ökonomische, soziologische und sozialpolitische Schriften (I), ed. by R. Haller and U. Höfer, Wien 1998, pp. 470-518, at p. 471.
- 10.
Otto Neurath, “Das Begriffsgebäude der Wirtschaftslehre und seine Grundlagen”, in: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 73, 1917, pp. 484-520. Trans. “The Conceptual Structure of Economic Theory and its Foundations”, in: ONEW, pp. 312-341, at p. 313.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 318.
- 12.
Neurath, Was bedeutet rationale Wirtschaftsbetrachtung? Vienna: Gerold 1935. Trans. “What is Meant by Rational Economic Theory?”, in: Brian McGuinness (Ed.), Unified Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1987, pp. 67-109, at p. 96.
- 13.
Neurath, “Inventory of the Standard of Living”, in: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 6, 1937, pp. 140-151, reprinted in: ONEW, pp. 513-525.
- 14.
Neurath, “Die Wirtschaftsordung der Zukunft und die Wirtschaftswissenschaften”, Verlag für Fachliteratur, Berlin-Wien 1917, reprinted in: Neurath, Durch die Kriegswirtschaft zur Naturalwirtschaft. München: Callwey 1919. Trans. in: ONEW, pp. 241-261, at p. 244.
- 15.
Otto Neurath in the general discussion “Über die Produktivität der Volkswirtschaft”, in: Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik 132, 1910, pp. 599-602. Trans. “Remarks on the Productivity of Money”, in: ONEW, pp. 292-296, at p. 293.
- 16.
Ibid., pp. 293-294.
- 17.
Neurath, “Nationalökonomie und Wertlehre”, op. cit., at p. 489.
- 18.
Sabina Alkire, “Dimensions of Human Development”, in: World Development 30, 2002, pp. 181-205, at p. 185.
- 19.
An undated letter (probably from 1915) from Neurath to Mach, trans. in: John T. Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki and Setsuko Tanaka (Eds.), Ernst Mach’s Vienna 1895-1930, Dordecht: Kluwer 2001, at p. 106.
- 20.
See Elisabeth Nemeth, “ ‘Freeing up One’s Point of View’ ”, op. cit., at p. 27.
- 21.
Ernst Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung, historisch-kritisch dargestellt. Leipzig: Brockhaus 1883, 6. Aufl. 1908, S. 257. Trans. The Science of Mechanics. Chicago: Open Court 1960, at p. 293.
- 22.
Neurath, “The Conceptual Structure of Economic Theory”, in: ONEW, at p. 317.
- 23.
Ernst Mach, Erkenntnis und Irrtum (1905), trans. by T. J. McCormack as Knowledge and Error, Dordrecht: Reidel 1976, p. 10.
- 24.
There are further places to look for structural similarities with Neurath’s economics, e.g., the Machian “elements”, Mach’s view on the function of thought experiments, his “historic-critical way of looking at things”. See Nemeth, “Scientific Attitude and Picture Language. Otto Neurath on Visualisation in Social Sciences”, in: Richard Heinrich, Elisabeth Nemeth, Wolfram Pichler and David Wagner (Eds.), Image and Imaging in Philosophy, Science and the Arts, vol. 2, Frankfurt: Ontos 2011, pp. 59-83.
- 25.
For a discussion of how far the similarities between Neurath and Sen go, see Ortrud Lessmann, “A Similar Line of Thought in Neurath and Sen: Interpersonal Comparability”, in: ONEIC, pp. 115-130.
- 26.
See, e.g., Enrico Giovannini, Jon Hall, Adolfo Morrone, Giulia Ranuzzi, “A Framework to Measure the Progress of Societies”, OECD Working Paper 2009; the Human Development Report 2011 from the UN: Sabina Alkire, “Dimensions of Human Development”, op. cit., and other papers on poverty measurement by the same author.
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Nemeth, E. (2013). The Philosophy of the “Other Austrian Economics”. In: Andersen, H., Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W., Uebel, T., Wheeler, G. (eds) New Challenges to Philosophy of Science. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5845-2_27
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