Abstract
Otto Neurath’s early work on the classification of systems of hypotheses in optics provided some of the key insights of Neurath’s later philosophy of science. The chapter investigates how Neurath developed his theory of theory-classification in response to inconsistencies he stumbled upon while studying the historical theories. Neurath’s empiricism and thoroughgoing fallibilism informed his mapping of the group of theories, locating “elementary notions” of theories and taking into account the “blurred margins” of theories. To replace false dichotomies the project provided a finer-grained analysis of theories and could be utilized to locate unconceived alternatives of a domain. The first sections discuss the close links between Neurath’s optical essays, his notion of an “auxiliary motive,” and his attack on pseudorationalism in the “Lost Wanderers of Descartes” paper. The last sections provide a comparison of the two essays, with an extended table of the elementary notions Neurath listed, and discuss Neurath’s two-tier methodology for historical reconstruction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This example has been analysed in detail in Zemplén (2006). Recently the problem of underdetermination with respect to Newton and Goethe’s competing views on color has been taken up by Olaf Müller (2015) in detail. His decidedly Quinean approach (Müller 2016) has also been critically scrutinized (Lampert 2017).
- 2.
The Neurath Principle extended the problem of underdetermination to observation reports: “Science is ambiguous – and is so on each level. When we have removed the contradictory groups of statements, there still remain several groups of statements with differing protocol statements that are equally applicable; that are without contradictions in themselves but exclude each other. Poincaré, Duhem and others have adequately shown that even if we have agreed on the protocol statements, there is an unlimited number of equally applicable, possible systems of hypotheses. We have extended this tenet of the uncertainty of systems of hypotheses to all statements, including protocol statements that are alterable in principle. (Neurath 1934/1983, 105, translation from Howard 2006, 11)
- 3.
Although coming from very different angles, an impressive amount of commonality can be established between the early Carnap and Neurath. Before Carnap was working on logically conceivable models of the world (Stone 2010), Neurath worked out a method to localize logically conceivable theories of a domain (for the sources see Jordi Cat’s chapter in the present volume).
- 4.
I thank Ádám Tamás Tuboly for pointing out this passage to me, as well as the later cited letter to Carnap.
- 5.
One of the questions raised in the optical essays and also addressed to Mach is the history of the sound-light analogy, one of the main themes of the informed history of optics by Darrigol (2012).
- 6.
See Neurath to Carnap, 30 April 1936 (RC 102-52-29). Rudolf Carnap Papers, 1905–1970, ASP.1974.01, Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh) All rights reserved.
- 7.
“[In KH and PO] Neurath asserts that the historian of science as well as the scientist should attempt a classification of systems of hypotheses arranged according to logical alternatives which – or so I shall argue – could ultimately be resolved by an auxiliary motive. Within Neurath’s radical pragmatist conception of science, ‘on board of his boat’, the auxiliary motive also plays a role in establishing such a system of hypotheses. In the latter case, the auxiliary motive acts in the same way as inductive or abductive modes of inference. It replaces them if there is no basis at all for their standard application due to lack of relevant information or if they only yield equally probable alternatives ” (Stöltzner 2000, 25).
- 8.
A first list of “elementary notions” could simply have been derived from the table of contents in (Whewell 1840) that Neurath consulted.
- 9.
See Neurath’s unpublished essay, “Argumentation and Action,” in the Otto Neurath Nachlass (K.39–41), and the “CHESSBOARD OF ATTITUDES” and the “CHESSBOARD OF THREE SOCIAL QUALITIES” there. Otto Neurath Nachlass, Wiener Kreis Archiv, Rijksarchief in Noord- Holland, Haarlem, The Netherlands. All rights reserved.
- 10.
Recognizing Newton’s vagueness on the issue could also have been a reason for dropping the “Emission” rubric in the second table. Neurath in later works often revisited the role of contradictions: they do not destroy the entirety of a system, and might be useful asset for a later (consistent) set.
- 11.
“By philosophical assumptions of a very general kind about the structure of the world we can possibly obtain foundations for the classification of systems of hypotheses but, as can be seen at once, this assumes much intellectual preparation” (Neurath 1916/1983, 27).
- 12.
The revival of early nineteenth century German Idealism, and Weimar Classicism has not only impacted Neurath from the Vienna Circle. For example, on Schlick and Schiller see Ambrus (forthcoming).
References
Ambrus, Gergely. forthcoming. Schlick on the Meaning of Good. In The Socio-Ethical Dimension of Knowledge: The Mission of Logical Empiricism, ed. Christian Damböck and Adam Tamas Tuboly. Cham: Springer. Forthcoming.
Biddle, Justin. 2013. State of the Field: Transient Underdetermination and Values in Science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44: 124–133.
Carnap, Rudolf, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath. 1929/1973. The Scientific Conception of the Word: The Vienna Circle. In Empiricism and Sociology, ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen, 299–318. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Cartwright, Nancy, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck, and Thomas Uebel. 1996. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cat, Jordi. 2005. Modeling Cracks and Cracking Models: Structures, Mechanisms, Boundary Conditions, Constraints, Inconsistencies and the Proper Domains of Natural Laws. Synthese 146 (3): 447–487.
———. 2014. Otto Neurath. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=neurath
Darrigol, Olivier. 2012. A History of Optics from Greek Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Haller, Rudolf. 1982/1991. The Neurath-Principle: Its Grounds and Consequences. In Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle: Austrian Studies on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle, ed. Thomas Uebel, 117–129. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Howard, Don. 2006. Lost Wanderers in the Forest of Knowledge: Some Thoughts on the Discovery-Justification Distinction. In Revisiting Discovery and Justification. Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on the Context Distinction, ed. Jutta Schickore and Friedrich Steinle, 3–22. Berlin: Springer.
Ibarra, Andoni, and Thomas Mormann. 2003. Engaged scientific philosophy in the Vienna Circle: The case of Otto Neurath. Technology in Society 25: 235–247.
Koterski, Artur. 2018. Neurath’s Decisionism and the Earliest Reviews of Logical Empiricism. In Rationality and Decision Making: From Normative Rules to Heuristics, ed. Marek Hetmański, 314–336. Leiden: Brill Rodopi.
Lampert, Timm. 2017. Underdetermination and provability: A reply to Olaf Müller. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (2): 389–400.
Mach, Ernst. 1921. Die Prinzipien der physikalischen Optik. Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth.
Meheus, Joke, ed. 2002. Inconsistency in Science - Studies in the Sources of Scientific Creativity. Vol. 2. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mormann, Thomas. 1996. Encyclopedism as an Anti-Cartesian Account of Language and Science. In Encyclopedia and Utopia the Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945), ed. Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler, 87–97. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1999. Neurath’s Opposition To Tarskian Semantics. In Alfred Tarski and the Vienna Circle, ed. Jan Woleński and Eckehart Köhler, 165–178. Dordrecht: Springer.
Müller, Olaf. 2015. Goethe mit Newton im Streit um die Farben. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fisher.
———. 2016. Prismatic Equivalence – A New Case of Underdetermination: Goethe vs. Newton on the Prism Experiments. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24: 322–346.
Neurath, Otto. 1913/1983. The Lost Wanderers of Descartes and the Auxiliary Motive (On the Psychology of Decision). In Neurath and Cohen (1983): 1–12.
———. 1915/1973. On the Foundations of the History of Optics. In Neurath and Cohen (1973): 101–112.
———. 1916/1983. On the Classification of Systems of Hypotheses (With Special Reference to Optics). In Neurath and Cohen (1983): 13–31.
———. 1932/1983. Protocol Statements. In Neurath and Cohen (1983): 91–99.
———. 1934/1983. Radical Physicalism and the ‘Real World’. In Neurath and Cohen (1983): 100–114.
———. 1935/1983. The Unity of Science as a Task. In Neurath and Cohen (1983): 115–120.
———. 1937a. Unified science as Encyclopedic Integration. In International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, ed. Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris, and Otto Neurath, 1–27. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1937b. Unified Science and Its Encyclopedia. Philosophy of Science 4 (2): 265–277.
———. 1941. The danger of careless terminology. The New Era 22 (7): 145–150.
———. 1981. Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schriften, Gesamtausgabe der Schriften Neuraths. ed. Rudolf Haller and Heinrich Rutte. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky. Band 1.
———. 2010. From Hieroglyphics to Isotype: A Visual Autobiography, ed. Matthew Eve and Christopher Burke. London: Hyphen Press.
Neurath, Marie, and Robert S. Cohen, eds. 1973. Empiricism and Sociology. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
———. eds. 1983. Otto Neurath: Philosophical Papers 1913–1946. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Reisch, George A. 1997. How Postmodern was Neurath’s Idea of Unity of Science? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 28 (3): 439–451.
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. 2010. Historical Epistemology. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Stanford, P. Kyle. 2006. Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stöltzner, Michael. 1996. The Auxiliary Motive in the Forest and in Optics. In Encyclopedia and Utopia the Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882–1945), ed. Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler, 113–126. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 2000. An Auxiliary Motive for Buridan’s Ass: Otto Neurath on Choice without Preference in Science and Society. Conceptus 33 (82): 23–44.
———. 2001. Otto Neurath. In Ernst Mach’s Vienna 1895–1930. Or Phenomenalism as Philosophy of Science, ed. John Blackmore, Ryoichi Itagaki, and Setsuko Tanaka, 105–111. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stone, Abraham D. 2010. On the Sources and Implications of Carnap’s Der Raum. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41: 65–74.
Uebel, Thomas. 2000. Vernunftkritik und Wissenschaft: Otto Neurath und der erste Wiener Kreis. Wien: Springer.
Whewell, William. 1840. Geschichte der inductiven Wissenschaften. Vol. 3. Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung.
Zemplén, Gábor Á. 2006. The development of the Neurath-principle: Unearthing the Romantic link. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37: 585–609.
———. 2018. Theory-Containment in Controversies: Neurath & Müller on Newton, Goethe, and Underdetermination. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 49 (4): 533–549.
Zolo, Danilo. 1989. Reflexive Epistemology: The Philosophical Legacy of Otto Neurath. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zemplén, G.Á. (2019). Neurath’s Theory of Theory Classification: History, Optics & Epistemology. In: Cat, J., Tuboly, A. (eds) Neurath Reconsidered. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 336. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02128-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02128-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02127-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02128-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)