Affinities between Fleck and Neurath

Abstract

First, there are some striking similarities in the history of reception of Fleck’s and Neurath’s ideas. Due to the style of their writings they were not or often not well welcome in their national philosophical communities, i.e., the Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School. This is especially true in the case of Fleck. On the other hand, some prominent logical positivists, like Hempel, are to some extent guilty of making of Neurath a clumsy thinker whose ideas needed to be clear by a more mature philosopher, i.e. Carnap. So their work was often considered as non-scientific. With a lack of response their theories were forgotten for many years, and even if not forgotten they were habitually ridiculed by critics. After a long period of seven thin years they have their renaissance. They are even quite popular. In the last 20 years a number of excellent books and papers on Neurath and Fleck have apperared. But one can hardly find a line of comparison. One might say that this is not surprising at all, as there is nothing to compare there. Neurath was a radical positivist while Fleck’s writing were aimed only against neopositivism. Accordingly, these are poles, and all we can say is that they are completely different. But even if Neurath was a follower of radical neopositivism that Fleck was fighting with, there are some common points in their programmes and I will try to show that even if they are in opposition, their paths intersected at certain points.