Otto Neurath: Empire

Otto Neurath was austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist. Explore interesting quotes on empire.
Otto Neurath: 46   quotes 5   likes

“The attempt to construct a fundamental taxonomy of the sciences encounters great difficulties. For instance, logicians and mathematicians disagree among themselves about the objects of their respective research; there is no agreement on the relation of theoretical physics to empirical knowledge and to mathematics. The so-called social sciences are particularly difficult to classify. They have not been demarcated by systematic considerations. In Duhem and Poincarè, general considerations are not only exemplified, but the origins of the concepts and of the problems are traced right from the initial observation of facts if at all possible.”

Otto Neurath

Source: 1940s and later, Otto Neurath Economic Writings. Selections 1904-1945 (2004), p. 269

Mathematics , Knowledge , Problem , Science

“When devotion to men with an urge for new social organization replaces devotion to men with theological illumination and a way of life pleasing to God, then the actions of the innovator and his formulations are often gauged by their significance for human happiness. Behaviour is examined through the happiness it produces, which is an empirical matter; transcendence is overcome.”

Otto Neurath

Source: 1930s, "Empirical Sociology" (1931), p. 327-328

Life , Men , God , Way

“What we have of systematic and orderly action and speech … seems to go back to primeval systematic orderliness as found in magic. The scientific tendency to link everything with everything else, to regard nothing as indifferent, clearly already belonged to the age of magic. If we reach the dependence of human fate on empirical describable conditions, we are much closer in our way of thinking to the men of the magical times that we are commonly apt to suspect.”

Otto Neurath

Source: 1930s, "Empirical Sociology" (1931), p. 320; as cited in: Cartwright (2008;199)

Men , Fate , Age , Way

“Overcoming magic often takes the form of theology. From animals and ancestors the path leads to all kinds of spirits. The hypothesis (which already appeared in the magical age) of the little man alongside man, the “soul', and of the special being, 'God', more and more often seeks a parallel process 'behind' processes. Whereas in the magical age, empirically given facts were linked with each other on the basis of primitive theories without the introduction of uncontrollable elements, now their introduction becomes essential.”

Otto Neurath

Source: 1930s, "Empirical Sociology" (1931), p. 322

God , Age , Soul , Appearance