Unity of Science and Logical Empiricism: A Reply [to Max Horkheimer] (1937)

Abstract

This text, "Unified Science and Logical Empiricism: A Replica", was written in German in 1937 to be included in an eventual publication in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, but it was not published until 2011 (after being translated into English by Thomas Bonk). It was written in response to Max Horkheimer's general arguments on logical empiricism, in his text Der neueste Angriff auf due Metaphysik ("The Last Attack on Metaphysics"). Its main objective was to clarify misinterpretations and to describe faithfully his conception of the Movement of the Unity of Science. In the same year, Neurath's study "Inventory of the Standard Living'' was published in the journal of the Institut für Sozialforschung, and the previous year, in the 1936, he was invited to the Institute's headquarters in New York to give two lectures. However, Horkheimer (the editor of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung) refused to continue the debate by refusing to publish Neurath's response. We believe that the publication in Spanish may shed a light to reconsider substantively the disputes between Critical Theory and Empiricism.