Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher, sociologist and political economist, a leading member of the Vienna Circle and a founder of the Isotype system of picture statistics. He argued that knowledge has no fixed foundation outside language: we are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, plank by plank, never able to put into dock. He championed the unity of science and a physicalist language for all sciences.

Key ideas

• Neurath's boat: we must revise our beliefs from within, never starting again from secure foundations.
• Protocol sentences recording observations are themselves revisable, not infallible foundations.
• Statements are compared with other statements, not with an unmediated reality.
• All sciences, including the social sciences, should be unified in a common physicalist language.

Major works

• Anti-Spengler (1921)
• Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis (1929, with Rudolf Carnap and Hans Hahn)
• Protocol Sentences (Protokollsätze, 1932)
• Foundations of the Social Sciences (1944)

In the conversation

• Question Why does asking “how do you know?” three times end every argument in our house? Thamarai Raman · 4 replies
• Discussion Why debates about first principles never end: notes from the high-school tournament circuit Sam Ellery · 5 replies
• Question Knowledge as a building or a raft? Neurath’s boat, seen from a community organiser’s chair Dana Whitfield · 5 replies