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Wilhelm Neurath’s Opposition to “Materialist” Darwinism

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Scientific Philosophy: Origins and Developments

Part of the book series: Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook [1993] ((VCIY,volume 1))

Abstract

Otto Neurath presents a very different picture from that of the standard logical positivist: not only with his mature theory of science, but also with his intellectual development. Given Neurath’s contribution to “the” philosophy of the Vienna Circle, the roots of logical empiricism must accordingly be located not only where they have long been recognized to lie, namely in the stunning advances of physical science and logic and mathematics in the late 19th and early 20th century, but also in the comparatively less satisfying state of social science at the time. Neurath’s non-reductively naturalistic theory of science may be understood as much as a response to the state of early 20th century social science as, say, Carnap’s logically oriented rational reconstructionism may be understood as a response to the advances of the then new physics and new logic1

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Notes

  1. For an analysis of the gradual articulation of Neurath’s mature theory, see my Overcoming Logical Positivism from Within. The Emergence of Otto Neurath’s Naturalism in the Vienna Circle’s Protocol Sentence Debate, Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1992, for a sketch of his overall intellectual development, see my “On Neurath’s Boat”, in: Nancy Cartwright et al., Empiricism Without Tears. Otto Neurath between Science and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

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  2. For rich surveys of the relevant areas, see Friedrich Stadler, Vom Positivismus zur “wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung”, Wien: Löcker, 1982, Rudolf Haller, “Zur Historiographie der österreichischen Philosophie”, in: J.C. Nyiri, ed., Von Bolzano zu Wittgenstein. Zur Tradition der österreichischen Philosophie, Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1986, pp.41–53, transi. “On the Historiography of Austrian Philosophy”, in: T.E.Uebel, ed., Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle. Austrian Studies on Otto Neurath, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991, pp. 41–50, Christian Fleck, Rund um “Marienthal ”. Von den Anfangen der Soziologie in Österreich bis zu ihrer Vertreibung, Wien: Verlag fir Gesellschaftskritik, 1990.

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  3. For biographical information, see Wilhelm Neurath, “Letter of June 30, 1880” and “Autobiographical Sketch of July 5, 1880”, in: Otto Neurath Empiricism and Sociologyed. by M. Neurath and R.S. Cohen, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973, pp.1–4, Sigmund Mayer Ein jüdischer Kaufmann 1831–1911. Lebenserinnerungen,Leipzig, 1911, pp.253–54, and, e.g., K. Ehrendorfer, “Neurath, Wilhelm”, in: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed., Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon. 1815–1950,Wien, 1978, vol. 7, p.103.

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  4. For a review of the treatment of Wilhelm Neurath in the literature - as far as it goes an argument for the existence of a father-son dialectic - here taken as established - and an investigation of the nature of this dialectic as it concerned economics and its methodology, see my “Otto Neurath’s Idealist Inheritance: The Social and Economic Thought of Wilhelm Neurath”, forthcoming in a special issue of Synthese on the background, edited by Juha Manninen.

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  5. Josef Popper-Lynkeus, Die allgemeine Nährpflicht als Lösung der sozialen Frage,Dresden: Reisner, 1912, p.79. (Marc Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 4th ed. 1985, p.295, also notes the unquestioned Malthusian assumptions of the then rising theory of marginal utility, assumptions which did not escape Wilhelm Neurath himself in his Fundamente der Volkswirtschaftslehre,Leipzig: Glockner, 1894, p.62.) For Otto Neurath on Popper-Lynkeus, see his “Josef Popper-Lynkeus: seine Bedeutung als Zeitgenosse”, in: Neues Frauenleben. 20 (1918), repr. in: Otto Neurath, Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schriften,ed. by R. Haller and H. Rutte, Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky,1981, pp.131–136.

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  6. Otto Neurath, Foundations of the Social Science, (Foundations of the Unity of Science II.1), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944, p. 19.

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  7. See my “Neurath’s Idealist Inheritance”, op.cit.

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  8. Wilhelm Neurath, “Autobiographical Sketch”, pp.3–4.

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  9. Otto Neurath, Zur Anschauung der Antike über Handel, Gewerbe und Landwirtschaft, (Teil 1), Jena: Fischer, 1906, p. 34.

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  10. Wilhelm Neurath, “Autobiographical Sketch”, p.1.

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  11. Mayer, p.254.

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  12. Wilhelm Neurath, Volkswirthschaftliche und socialphilosophische Essays,Wien: Faesy und Frick, 1880, p.viii, italics added.

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  13. Ibid.

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  14. Wilhelm Neurath, “Der Idealismus der Arbeit”, orig. 1878, in: Essays,p.13.

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  15. Ibid., p.14.

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  16. Ernst Mach, Geschichte und Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit, Prague, 1872, transi. History and Root of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, Chicago: Open Court, 1911.

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  17. Wilhelm Neurath, “Idealismus”, p.19.

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  18. Ibid., p.21.

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  19. Ibid., p.14.

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  20. Ibid., p.24.

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  21. See, e.g., H. R. von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen, “Wilhelm Neurath. Gedenkrede” in: Wilhelm Neurath, Vorträge, p.vii-xiii, and “Neuratte, Wilhelm”, in: A. Bettelheim, ed., Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog 6 (1904), pp.274–278, and Victor Böhmert, “Der österreichische Volkswirt Wilhelm Neurath und seine neue Lehre über die Lösung socialer Probleme”, in: Der Arbeiterfreund 40 (1902), pp. 27–32.

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  22. For Mach’s serene philosophy, see R.S. Cohen, “Ernst Mach: Physics, Perception and the Philosophy of Science”, Synthese 18 (1968), pp.132–179, repr. in R.S. Cohen and R.J. Seeger, eds., Ernst Mach: Physicist and Philosopher,Dordrecht: Reidel, 1970, for a description of Carneri’s early panpsychism, see C.M. Williams, A Review of Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution. London-New York: MacMillan, 1893, pp.143–175. For some comparative remarks on Mach and especially the later Carried, see my “Neurath’s Idealist Inheritance”, op.cit.

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  23. Wilhelm Neurath, “Die sociale Frage”, orig. 1879, in: Essays. p.46.

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  24. Ibid., p.107.

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  25. Ibid., p.144.

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  26. Ibid., pp.144–145. The name “hylozotheism” is chosen so as to preserve Neurath’s own characterization of his “pantheist-theist” conception.

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  27. Ibid., p.156. For discussion of his later credit-theoretical proposals see my “Neurath’s Idealist Inheritance”, op.cit.

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  28. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sociale Frage”, p.162.

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  29. Ibid.

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  30. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinismus und Socialökonomie”, orig. 1878, in: Essays. p.215.

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  31. Ibid., pp.213–214.

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  32. See Rudolf Virchow, Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat,Berlin, 1877, and Ernst Haeckel, Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre,orig. 1878, repr. in: Gemeinverständliche Werke,ed. by. H. Schmidt, Leipzig: Kröner, 1924, vol. 5; for a survey of contemporary views see Ludwig Woltmann, Die Darwinsche Theorie und der Sozialismus,Düsseldorf: Michels, 1899, for a spirited polemic see Popper-Lynkeus, op.cit., pp.75–88.

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  33. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinismus”, p.215.

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  34. Thomas Nagel, “Panpsychism”, in: Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 194.

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  35. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinismus”, pp.227, 229.

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  36. Ibid., pp.216–217.

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  37. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sociale Frage”, p.94.

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  38. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinismus”, p.218.

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  39. Ibid., p.223.

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  40. Ibid., p.218.

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  41. Ibid., p.235.

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  42. Ibid., p.224.

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  43. Ibid., p.225.

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  44. Wilhelm Neurath, “Das Sittliche in der Volkswirtschaft”, originally 1886, repr. in: Gemeinverständliche nationalökonomische Vorträge, ed. by E.O. v. Lippmann, Braunschweig: Vieweg und Sohn, 1903, p. 176.

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  45. Ibid., p.175.

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  46. Ibid.

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  47. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinismus”, p.236.

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  48. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sittliche in Volkswirtschaft”, p.167.

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  49. For a review of the debate about, e.g., the coadadaption of traits in the late 19th century see Mark Ridley, “Coadaptation and the Inadequacy of Natural Selection”, in: British Journal for the History of Science 15 (1982), pp.45–68, for the early 20th century state of the debate about the inheritance of acquired characteristics and other matters see various papers in: A.C. Seward, ed., Darwin and Modern Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909.

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  50. So, e.g., in Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 242.

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  51. Thomas H. Huxley, “Evolution and Ethics”, orig. 1893, in: Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays, (Collected Papers vol. 9 ), London: MacMillan, 1894, p. 80.

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  52. Thomas H. Huxley, “Criticism on `The Origin of Species’”, orig. 1864, repr. in: Darwiniana, (Collected Papers vol. 2 ), London: MacMillan, 1893, pp. 90–91.

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  53. In: Reden und Aufsätze naturwissenschaftlichen, pädagogischen und philosophischen Inhalts, ed. by Fritz Schulte, Berlin: Theob. Grieben, 1877.

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  54. Herbert Spencer, “Evolutionary Ethics”, orig. 1893, repr. in: Various Fragments (Works vol. 18 ), London: Williams und Norgate, 1907.

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  55. For discussions of some, but not all the complexities involved, see, e.g., Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960,London: MacMillan Press, 1982, chap.3, or Richards, op.cit., chap.7.

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  56. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinism”, p.208.

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  57. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sociale Frage”, p.102, “Darwinismus”, p.218; some Haeckel was thrown into the bargain (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), as suggested by “Darwinism”, p.227.

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  58. Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, Inheritance, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 684–685.

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  59. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinism”, p.235.

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  60. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sittlichkeit”, p.176.

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  61. On Roux, see Ridley, op.cit., or Weismann in: Seward, op.cit.

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  62. Wilhelm Neurath, “Darwinism”, p.236.

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  63. Ibid.

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  64. Ibid.

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  65. Wilhelm Neurath, “Autobiography”, p.4.

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  66. The German Sonderweg may well be a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, for no comparative studies are needed to establish its existence: German thinkers themselves stressed this cultural separateness. See, e.g., Fritz Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community 1890–1933,Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969, 2nd ed., Hannover-London: University Press of New England, 1990.

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  67. Consider, e.g., the dispute between Alfred Kelly, The Descent of Darwin. The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914,Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981, and Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism. Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League,London: Macdonald, 1971, over the interpretation and importance of Haeckel. Both parties strike me as too extreme in their positions: The Monist League was too variegated a movement to be reduced to its eugenicist wing, and Haeckel was more than just a purveyor of folk-Darwinism.

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  68. Ernst Haeckel, “Über die heutige Entwicklungslehre im Verhältnis zur Gesamtwissenschaft”, orig. 1877, repr. in: Werke,vol. 5, p.338.

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  69. Ernst Haeckel, “Freie Wissenschaft”, p.238.

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  70. Ernst Haeckel, “Über die Wellenzeugung der Lebensteilchen oder die Perigenesis der Plastidule”, orig. 1875, repr. in: Werke,vol. 5, pp.97–98.

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  71. Ernst Haeckel, “Freie Wissenschaft”, pp.268–270.

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  72. Wilhelm Neurath, “Idealismus der Arbeit”, p.24.

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  73. Ernst Haeckel, “Die Arbeitsteilung in Mensch-und Tierwelt”, orig. 1868, repr. in: Werke,vol. 5, p.67.

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  74. Wilhelm Neurath, “Sociale Frage”, p.94.

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  75. Ernst Haeckel, “Entwicklungslehre und Gesamtwissenschaft”, p.161.

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  76. Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, orig. 1869, 2nd ed. 1892, repr. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978, p. 376

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  77. Otto Neurath, “The Orchestration of the Sciences by the Encyclopedism of Logical Empiricism”, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 6 (1946), repr. in his Philosophical Papers 1913–1946,ed. by R.S. Cohen and M. Neurath, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983, p.230.

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  78. See note 5.

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  79. Otto Neurath, “Diskussionsbeitrag: Die Produktivität der Volkswirtschaft”, in: Verhandlungen des Vereins für Socialpolitik in Wien 1909. Schriften des Vereins fir Socialpolitik 132, Leipzig: Dunker und Humblot, 1910, pp.599–603, and “Über die Stellung des sittlichen Werturteils in der wissenschaftlichen Nationalökonomie”, in: Äußerungen zur Werturteilsdiskussion,ed. by Verein für Socialpolitik, Wien, 1913, pp.31–32, repr. in: Gesammelte Schriften,pp.69–70.

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  80. Otto Neurath, “Ludwig Hermann Wolframs Leben”, in: F. Marlow, Faust, ed. by O. Neurath, Berlin, Frensdorff, 1906, pp.V6, E30, and Otto Neurath and Anna Schapire-Neurath, “Einleitung”, in: Francis Galton, Genie und Vererbung, transi. by O. Neurath and A. Schapire-Neurath, Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1910, pp.vi-vii. Compare also Sebastian Meissl, “Vom Literarhistoriker zum Literaten–Wege und Umwege Otto Neuraths”, in: F. Stadler, ed., Arbeiterbildung in der Zwischenkriegszeit. Wien: Löcker, 1982, pp. 112–118.

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  81. Otto Neurath and Anna Schapire-Neurath, “Einleitung”, p.vi-vii.

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  82. Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius,p.338.

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  83. See Ernst Haeckel, Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte,orig. 1868, transl. The History of Creation. London, 1876, lecture 28, and Thomas H. Huxley, “Black and White Emancipation”, orig. 1865, trans’. in: Reden and Aufsätze,p.19. On the prevalence of these views in Britain, Germany and America see also, e.g., Nancy Stepan, op.cit., passim, Patrick Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Dark Continent”, in: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed., “Race”, Writing and Difference,Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Gasman, op.cit., chap.7, Kelly, op.cit., chap.6, Thomas F. Gossett, Race. The History of an Idea in America,New York: Schocken, 1965, chap.7.

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  84. Thus still in his “Introduction” to the 1978 reprint of Hereditary Genius,op.cit., H.J. Eysenck wrote that “Galton went on to extend his scrutiny to comparisons in mental equipment of different races, coming to conclusions which for the most part have been supported by modern research [sic!], although we may balk at his social Darwinistic conclusions.”

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  85. Otto Neurath, “Die Verirrten des Cartesius und das Auxiliarmotiv”, in: Jahrbuch der philosophischen Gesellschaft der Universität Wien,1913, transi. “The Lost Wanderers of Descartes and the Auxiliary Motive”, in: Papers,p.5.

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  86. Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis. Wien: Gerold, 1929, transi. “The Scientific World Conception: The Vienna Circle”, in: Otto Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology, ed. by M. Neurath and R.S. Cohen, Dordrecht: Reidel, p. 318.

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  87. E.g. Otto Neurath, Wirtschaftsplan und Naturalrechnung, Berlin: Laub, 1925, p. 114.

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  88. On the relation of Neurath’s politics and philosophy see also the essay by Nancy Cartwright and Jordi Cat in: Cartwright et al, op.cit.

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    Friedrich Stadler

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Uebel, T.E. (1993). Wilhelm Neurath’s Opposition to “Materialist” Darwinism. In: Stadler, F. (eds) Scientific Philosophy: Origins and Developments. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook [1993], vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2964-2_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2964-2_14

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