Otto Neurath (Vienna, December 10, 1882 - Oxford, December 22, 1945) was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. Before he was to flee his native country in 1934, Neurath was one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle.

Biography[link]

Neurath was born in Vienna, the son of Wilhelm Neurath (1840–1901), a well-known political economist at the time. He studied mathematics in Vienna and gained his Ph.D. in the department of Political Science and Statistics at the University of Berlin.

He married Anna Schapire in 1907. She died as a result of childbirth (Paul Neurath) in 1911, and he married a close friend, the mathematician and philosopher Olga Hahn. Perhaps because of Olga's blindness and then because of the outbreak of war, his son, Paul Neurath was sent to a children's home outside Vienna, where Neurath's mother lived, and returned to live with his father and Olga when he was nine years old.

Neurath taught political economy at the Neue Wiener Handelsakademie (New College of Commerce, Vienna) until war broke out. Subsequently he became director of the Deutsches Kriegwirtschaftsmuseum (German Museum of War Economy, later the Deutsches Wirtschaftmuseum) at Leipzig. Wolfgang Schumann, known from the Dürerbund for which Neurath had written many articles, urged him to work out a plan for socialization.^[1] Neurath joined the German Social Democratic Party in 1918-19 and ran an office for central economic planning in Munich. When the Bavarian Soviet Republic was defeated, Neurath was imprisoned but returned to Austria after intervention from the Austrian government. While in prison he wrote "Anti-Spengler", a critical attack on Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West".

In Red Vienna, he joined the Social Democrats and became secretary of the Austrian Association for Housing and Small Gardens (Verband für Siedlungs-und Kleingartenwesen), a collection of self-help groups that set out to provide housing and garden plots to its members. In 1923, he founded a new museum for housing and city planning called Siedlungsmuseum. In 1925 he renamed it Gesellschafts-und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien (Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna) and founded an own association for it, in which the Vienna city administration, the trade unions, the Chamber of Workers and the Bank of Workers became members, then mayor Karl Seitz having acted as first proponent of the association. Julius Tandler, city councillor for welfare and health, served at the first board of the museum together with other prominent social democratic politicians. The museum was provided with exhibition rooms at buildings of the city administration, the most prominent being the People's Hall at the Vienna City Hall. To make the museum understandable for everybody, Neurath worked on graphic design and visual education. With the illustrator Gerd Arntz and with Marie Reidemeister (who he would marry in 1941), Neurath created Isotype, a symbolic way of representing quantitative information via easily interpretable icons. At international conventions of city planners, Neurath presented and promoted his communication tools.

During the 1920s, Neurath also became an ardent logical positivist, and was the main author of the Vienna Circle manifesto. He was the driving force behind the Unity of Science movement and the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. During the 1930s, he also began promoting Isotype as an International Picture Language, connecting it both with the adult education movement and with the Internationalist passion for new and artificial languages, although he stressed in talks and correspondence that Isotype was not intended to be a stand-alone language, and was limited in what it could communicate.

During the Austrian Civil War of 1934, Neurath had been working in Moscow. Anticipating problems, he had asked to get a coded message in case it would be dangerous for him to return to Austria. As Marie Reidemeister reported later, after receiving the telegram "Carnap is waiting for you" Neurath chose to travel to The Hague instead of Vienna, where he could continue his international work. His Vienna team soon dispersed, the museum's work came to a hold.

His wife fled to Holland as well. There Olga died and after the Luftwaffe bombing of Rotterdam he fled with Marie Reidemeister to England, crossing the Channel with other refugees in an open boat. He and Marie married in 1941, after a period interned on the Isle of Man (Neurath was in Onchan camp). In England, he and Marie set up the Isotype Institute in Oxford and he was asked to advise on, and design Isotype charts for, the intended redevelopment of the slums of Bilston, near Wolverhampton.

Neurath died, suddenly and unexpectedly in December 1945. After his death, Marie Neurath continued the work of the Isotype Institute, publishing Neurath's writings posthumously, completing projects he had started and writing many children's books using the Isotype system, until her death in the 1980s.

Work[link]

Most work by and about Neurath is still available only in German. However he also wrote in English, using Ogden's Basic English. His scientific papers are held at the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem; the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection is held in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading in England.

Philosophy of science and language[link]

In one of his later and most important works, Physicalism, Neurath completely transformed the nature of the logical positivist discussion of the program of unifying the sciences. Neurath delineates and explains his points of agreement with the general principles of the positivist program and its conceptual bases:

• the construction of a universal system which would comprehend all of the knowledge furnished by the various sciences, and
• the absolute rejection of metaphysics, in the sense of all propositions not translatable into verifiable scientific sentences.

He then rejects the positivist treatment of language in general and, in particular, some of Wittgenstein's early fundamental ideas.

First Neurath rejects isomorphism between language and reality as useless metaphysical speculation, which would call for explaining how words and sentences could represent things in the external world. Instead, Neurath proposed that language and reality coincide—that reality consists in simply the totality of previously verified sentences in the language, and "truth" of a sentence is about its relationship to the totality of already verified sentences. Either a sentence failing to "concord" (or cohere) with the totality of the sentences already verified, should be considered false, or that some of that totality's propositions must in some way be modified. He thus views truth as a question of internal coherence of linguistic assertions, rather than anything to do with facts or other entities in the world. Moreover, the criterion of verification is to be applied to the system as a whole (see semantic holism) and not to single sentences. Such ideas exercised a profound influence over the holistic verificationism of W.V.O. Quine.

In fact, it was Quine, in Word and Object (p. 3f), who made famous Neurath's analogy which compares the holistic nature of language and consequently scientific verification with the construction of a boat which is already at sea:

We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.

Stanovich discusses this metaphor in context of memes and memeplexes and refers to this metaphor as a "Neurathian bootstrap".^[2]

Neurath also went on to reject the notion that science should be reconstructed in terms of sense data, since perceptual experiences are too subjective to constitute a valid foundation for the formal reconstruction of science. The phenomenological language that most positivists were still emphasizing was to be replaced, in his view, with the language of mathematical physics. This would allow for the objective formulations required because it is based on spatio-temporal coordinates. Such a physicalistic approach to the sciences would facilitiate the elimination of every residual element of metaphysics because it would permit them to be reduced to a system of assertions relative to physical facts.

Finally, Neurath suggested that since language itself is a physical system, because it is made up of an ordered succession of sounds or symbols, it is capable of describing its own structure without contradiction.

These ideas helped form the foundation of the sort of physicalism which is still today the dominant position with regard to metaphysics and, especially, the philosophy of mind.

See also[link]

• Kurt Gödel
• Incompleteness theorems
• Ship of Theseus

Publications[link]

Otto Neurath wrote several books and articles. Books, a selection:

• 1913. Serbiens Erfolge im Balkankriege : eine wirtschaftliche und soziale Studie. Wien : Manz.
• 1921. Anti-Spengler. München, G.D.W. Callwey.
• 1926. Antike Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Leipzig, Berlin : B. G. Teubner.
• 1928. Lebensgestaltung und Klassenkampf. Berlin : E. Laub.
• 1933 Einheitswissenschaft und Psychologie. Wien.
• 1936. International Picture Language; the First Rules of Isotype. London : K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd., 1936
• 1937. Basic by Isotype. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd.
• 1939. Modern Man in the Making. Alfred A. Knopf
• 1944. Foundations of the Social Sciences. University of Chicago Press
• 1944. International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. With Rudolf Carnap, and Charles W. Morris (eds.). University of Chicago Press.
• 1946. Philosophical Papers, 1913–1946. Marie Neurath and Robert Cohen, with Carolyn R. Fawcett, eds.
• 1973. Empiricism and Sociology. Marie Neurath and Robert Cohen, eds. With a selection of biographical and autobiographical sketches by Popper and Carnap. Includes abridged translation of Anti-Spengler.

Articles, a selection:

• 1912. The problem of the pleasure maximum. In: Cohen and Neurath (eds.) 1983
• 1913. The lost wanderers of Descartes and the auxiliary motive. In: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1916. On the classification of systems of hypotheses. In: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1919. Through war economy to economy in kind. In: Neurath 1973 (a short fragment only)
• 1920a. Total socialisation. In: Cohen and Uebel 2004
• 1920b. A system of socialisation. In: Cohen and Uebel 2004
• 1928. Personal life and class struggle. In: Neurath 1973
• 1930. Ways of the scientific world-conception. In: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1931a. The current growth in global productive capacity. In: Cohen and Uebel 2004
• 1931b. Empirical sociology. In: Neurath 1973
• 1932. Protokollsätze (Protocol statements).In: Erkenntnis, Vol. 3. Repr.: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1935a. Pseudorationalism of falsification. In: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1935b. The unity of science as a task. In: Cohen and Neurath 1983
• 1940. Argumentation and action. The Otto Neurath Nachlass in Haarlem 198 K.41
• 1941. The danger of careless terminology. In: The New Era 22: 145–50
• 1942. International planning for freedom. In: Neurath 1973
• 1943. Planning or managerial revolution. (Review of J. Burnham, The Managerial Revolution). The New Commonwealth 148–54
• 1943–5. Neurath–Carnap correspondence, 1943–1945. The Otto Neurath Nachlass in Haarlem, 223
• 1944b. Ways of life in a world community. The London Quarterly of World Affairs, 29–32
• 1945a. Physicalism, planning and the social sciences: bricks prepared for a discussion v. Hayek. 26 July 1945. The Otto Neurath Nachlass in Haarlem 202 K.56
• 1945b. Neurath–Hayek correspondence, 1945. The Otto Neurath Nachlass in Haarlem 243
• 1945c. Alternatives to market competition. (Review of F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom). The London Quarterly of World Affairs 121–2
• 1946a. The orchestration of the sciences by the encyclopedism of logical empiricism. In: Cohen and. Neurath 1983
• 1946b. After six years. In: Synthese 5:77–82
• 1946c. The orchestration of the sciences by the encyclopedism of logical empiricism. In: Cohen and. Neurath 1983
• 1946. From Hieroglyphics to Isotypes. Nicholson and Watson. Excerpts. Rotha (1946) claims that this is in part Neurath's autobiography.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Cartwright Nancy, J. Cat, L. Fleck, and T. Uebel, 1996. Otto Neurath: philosophy between science and politics. Cambridge University Press
• Cohen R. S. and M. Neurath (eds.) 1983. Otto Neurath: philosophical papers. Reidel
• Cohen, R. S. and T. Uebel (eds.) 2004. Otto Neurath: economic writings 1904–1945. Kluwer
• Matthew Eve and Christopher Burke: Otto Neurath: From Hieroglyphics to Isotype. A visual Autobiography, Hyphen Press, London 2010
• Kraeutler, Hadwig. 2008. Otto Neurath. Museum and Exhibition Work – Spaces (Designed) for Communication. Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Vienna, Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.
• Nemeth, E., and Stadler, F., eds., "Encyclopedia and Utopia: The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945)." Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol. 4.
• O'Neill, John, 2003, "Unified science as political philosophy: positivism, pluralism and liberalism," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.
• Rotha, Paul, 1946, "From Hieroglyphs to Isotypes".
• Vossoughian, Nader. 2008. Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis. NAi Publishers. ISBN 978-90-5662-350-0
• Danilo Zolo, 1990, Reflexive Epistemology and Social Complexity. The Philosophical Legacy of Otto Neurath, Dordrecht: Kluwer

External links[link]

• Shalizi, C R, "Otto Neurath: 1882–1945". Includes references and links.
• Gerd Arntz Web Archive with more than 500 Isotypes
• Bibliography Pictorial Statistics
• Mundaneum in Netherlands
• Article discussing Gödel's Incomplete theorems as a refutation to Neurath and the Vienna Circle's logical Positivism

Gerd Arntz (11 December 1900, Remscheid – 4 December 1988, The Hague) was a German Modernist artist - famous for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives he was also a council communist.^[1] The Cologne Progressives participated in the revolutionary unions AAUD (KAPD) and its offshoot the AAUE in the 1920s,^[2] and in 1928 Arntz was contributing anti-parliamentary prints to its paper Die Proletarische Revolution which called for workers to form and participate in worker's councils.^[3] These political prints depicted the life of worker's and the class struggle in abstracted figures in woodcuts.^[4]

Biography[link]

Born into a family of merchants, Arntz was educated at a private academy in Düsseldorf and later attended the school of applied arts in Barmen (1921). He acquired the Düsseldorf studio of Otto Dix in 1925, when Dix moved to Berlin. Arntz travelled widely through Europe, and lived in Vienna, Cologne, and Moscow among other cities. Arntz was a core member of the Cologne Progressive Artists Group.^[5] From 1926 Otto Neurath sought his collaboration in designing pictograms for the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics (Wiener Methode der Bildstatistik; later renamed Isotype). From the beginning of 1929 Arntz worked at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Social and economic museum) directed by Neurath in Vienna. Eventually, Arntz designed around 4000 pictograms. Between 1931 and 1934 he travelled periodically to the Soviet Union (along with Neurath and Marie Reidemeister) in order to help set up the 'All-union institute of pictorial statistics of Soviet construction and economy' (Всесоюзный институт изобразительной статистики советского строительства и хозяйства), commonly abbreviated to IZOSTAT (ИЗОСТАТ). After the brief civil war in Austria in 1934 he emigrated to the Netherlands, joining Neurath and Reidemeister in The Hague, where they continued their collaboration at the International Foundation for Visual Education. Arntz cultivated a wide acquaintance among the artists and political activists of his generation. In 1943, while living in The Hague, he was conscripted into German military service and later was a prisoner of war.^[6]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• 'Gerd Arntz, graphic designer' 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 2010. 288 pages. Awarded with "Bronze Medal, Best Book Design from all over the World" Leipzig 2011. Awarded with 'The best Dutch book designs 2010'. Edited by Ed Annink (Ontwerpwerk) and Max Bruinsma.
• Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft. Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk,, Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1932.

• Bohnen,Ulli and Kees Vollemans, Politieke prenten tussen twee oorlogen, Nijmegen: Socialistische Uitgeverij Nijmegen, 1973
• Gerd Arntz, 60 Holzschnitte aus den Jahren 1924 - 1938, Bremen: Galerie Rolf Ohse, 1975
• Bool, Flip and Broos, Kees (eds),Gerd Arntz, Kritische grafiek en beeldstatistiek, Kritische Grafik und Bildstatistik, Nijmegen: SUN and Den Haag: Haags Gemeentemuseum, Sunschrift 113, 1976
• Broos, Kees, Symbolen voor onderwijs en statistiek, 1928 - 1965, Wenen, Moskou, Den Haag, Den Haag: Spruijt, 1979 (?)
• Stadler, Friedrich (ed.), Arbeiterbildung in der Zwischenkriegszeit, Otto Neurath und sein Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien 1925-1935, Politische Grafik von Gerd Arntz und den Konstruktiven, Wien, München: Löcker, 1982. see also:
• Stadler, Friedrich and Elisabeth Nemeth, eds., Encyclopedia and Utopia, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996. and
• Stadler, Friedrich, Studien zum Wiener Kreis. Frankfurt a. M., 1997
• Gerd Arntz, Monographie-Reihe Remscheider Künstler, Nr. 2, Remscheid: Stadt Remscheid, 1982
• Broos, Kees (ed.), Gerd Arntz. De tijd under her mes. Hout- en linoleumsneden 1920-1970, Nijmegen: SUN, 1988, in German:
• Gerd Arntz, Zeit unterm Messer. Holz- und Linolschnitte 1920-1970,Köln: Leske, 1988
• (Roth, Lynette), Painting as a Weapon: Progressive Cologne 1920-33/ Seiwert - Hoerle - Arntz, Köln: Walter König, 2008. Catalogue for an exhibition at the Museum Cologne, curated by Lynette Roth.
• (Friedrich, Julia, ed.), Gerd Arntz, Holzschnitte, Graphische Sammlung, Museum Ludwig, No. 4, Köln: Museum Ludwig, 2008, 20 p. With a short essay by Lynette Roth, Gerd Arntz, Ausdruck in Holz.
• Galerie Glöckner, Köln. "Gerd Arntz, Frühe Grafik. Ausstellung zum 100.Geburtstag von Gerd Arntz (November 2000 - Januar 2001) . Katalog 132 S., über 90 Abb. mit Text zu allen ausgestellten Werken

External links[link]

• The Gerd Arntz Web Archive with more than 500 Isotypes
• Gerd Arntz tag at the Libertarian Communist Library
• Gerd Arntz International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam
• Isotype revisited
• Paul J. Lewi's essay on the Neurath method
• Gerd Arntz bio and graphics, a german gallery site