Otto Neurath between the Vienna Circle and marxism

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to approach Otto Neurath's thought as a member of the Vienna Circle and a Marxist thinker. Neurath had a leading role in the writing of the document through which the Vienna Circle entered the public life. The central axes of this document express what the Circle members called “the scientific conception of the world”, especially the perspectives of what have been recognized as the movement’s left wing. From these axes, we will refer to Neurath's epistemological thought as a social scientist and Marxist member of the Vienna Circle. We will analyze the relationship between his epistemology view and what can be considered a marxist conception of science through Marx's works in terms of the primacy of language proposed by Neurath and the primacy of ontology in Marx's perspective about science.