Otto Neurath Quotes

Otto Neurath on Happiness

• “All content of science, and also their protocol statements that are used for verification, are selected on the basis of decisions and can be altered in principle.”

  Otto Neurath (1934:102), as cited in: Cartwright (2008;199)

Otto Neurath on Knowledge

• “We are like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea.”

  Otto Neurath (1921), "Spengler's Description of the World," as cited in: Nancy Cartwright et al. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 28 Apr. 2008 p. 191

• Attributed to Otto Neurath:

  “The unity of science is the unity of our daily lives.”

• Attributed to Otto Neurath:

  “Statistics are the foundation of social science.”

• Attributed to Otto Neurath:

  “Visual education makes knowledge accessible to all.”

• Attributed to Otto Neurath:

  “Philosophy must be practiced as a public, cooperative activity.”

• “If one could only fly over the Earth and show everybody, Chinese gardeners live side by side in old fashion. Next to them a capitalist germ cell which puts its feelers out into the country! See the factory chimney smoking! Ships come and go. And in the North, nomads and tribes of hunters who don’t know anything of a capitalist order even though they sell furs to entrepreneurs. A sharpened eye would be able to grasp this. All of this can be grasped and represented in pictures!”

  Otto Neurath (1928), "Kolonialpolitische Aufklärung durch Bildstatistik," Arbeit und Wirtschaft , Vol. 15: p. 677 (reprinted in Neurath 1991, Bildpädagogische Schriften : 130); Translated and cited in Nikolow (2013; 88)

• “If one could only fly over the Earth and show everybody, Chinese gardeners live side by side in old fashion. Next to them a capitalist germ cell which puts its feelers out into the country! See the factory chimney smoking! Ships come and go. And in the North, nomads and tribes of hunters who don’t know anything of a capitalist order even though they sell furs to entrepreneurs. A sharpened eye woul”

  Otto Neurath (1928), "Kolonialpolitische Aufklärung durch Bildstatistik," Arbeit und Wirtschaft , Vol. 15: p. 677 (reprinted in Neurath 1991, Bildpädagogische Schriften : 130); Translated and cited in Nikolow (2013; 88)

• “Although what is called ‘philosophical speculation’ is undoubtedly on the decline, many of the practically minded have not yet freed themselves from a method of reasoning, which, in the last analysis, has its roots in theology and metaphysics. No science which pretends to be exact can accept an untested theory or doctrine; yet even in an exact science there is often an admixture of magic, theology”

  Otto Neurath (1931) "Physicalism: The Philosophy of the Viennese Circle," in: The Monist, Vol. 41, No. 4 (October, 1931), pp. 618-623; Lead paragraph

• “Science as a system of statements is always an object of discussion. Statements are to be compared with statements, and not with 'experience', or with 'the world', or with something else. All that meaningless doubling belongs to more or less subtle metaphysics and as such must be rejected. Every new statement is to be confronted with existing ones, already brought to a state of harmony between the”

  Otto Neurath (1931), "Soziologie im Physikalismus", in Erkenntnis , Vol. 2. p. 403; as cited in: Schaff (1962;84)

• “Finally it should be noted that the picture education, especially the pictorial statistics, are of international importance. Words carry more emotional elements than set pictures, which can be observed by people of different countries, different parties without any protest; Words divide, pictures unite.”

  Otto Neurath (1931), "Bildstatistik nach Wiener Methode", Die Volksschule 27 (1931): 569 ; Translated and cited in Sybilla Nikolow (2013) "‘Words Divide, Pictures Unite.’Otto Neurath’s Pictorial Statistics in Historical Context.

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Otto Neurath on Nature

• “We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”

  Otto Neurath (1921), "Spengler's Description of the World," as cited in: Nancy Cartwright et al. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 28 Apr. 2008 p. 191

• “Science as a system of statements is always an object of discussion. Statements are to be compared with statements, and not with 'experience', or with 'the world', or with something else. All that meaningless doubling belongs to more or less subtle metaphysics and as such must be rejected. Every new statement is to be confronted with existing ones, already brought to a state of harmony between themselves. A statement will be considered correct if it can be joined to them.”

  Otto Neurath (1931), "Soziologie im Physikalismus", in Erkenntnis , Vol. 2. p. 403; as cited in: Schaff (1962;84)

Otto Neurath on Politics

• “Quite a few political economists advocate the thesis that a Robinson Crusoe — or what amounts to the same thing, a controlled economy — calculates in terms of profits and losses.”

  1930s | Otto Neurath (1935) "What is Meant by a Rational Economic Theory?" 1935/1987, p. 95; as cited in Cat (2014)

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Otto Neurath on Time

• “The motivationless theory of goods [transfers] can bridge the gulf between history and exact research by securing the important continuity of the research, being linked to both.”

  Otto Neurath Economic Writings. Selections 1904-1945(2004) | p. 278