PHYSICALISM: The Philosophy of the Viennese Circle

Author(s): Otto Neurath

Source: The Monist , October, 1931, Vol. 41, No. 4 (October, 1931), pp. 618-623
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27901327

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The Monist

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 PHYSICALISM:
The Philosophy of the Viennese Circle

ALTHOUGH what is oncalled

tion" is undoubtedly "philosophical
the decline many of the prac specula
tically minded have not yet freed themselves from a me
thod 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, and philosophy. It is one of the tasks of
our time to aid scientific reasoning to attain its goal with
out hindrance. Whoever undertakes this is concerned not
so much with "philosophy," properly speaking, as with
"anti-philosophy." For him there is but one science with
subdivisions-a unified science of sciences. We have a
science that deals with rocks, another that deals with
plants, a third that deals with animals, but we need a
science that unites them all.
All these disciplines are constructed of the same bricks,
as it were. Our knowledge of phenomena is controlled
by sight, hearing, tasting-our sense organs. In any such
consistent empiricism psychology must concern itself with
human behavior, just as mineralogy (together with chem
istry, physics, etc.) is concerned with the "behavior" of
stones.
The followers of this method of reasoning invariably

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 PHYSICALISM 619
ask : What do I mean by a positive statement, and how can
I test it? A statement which cannot be controlled is a
thesis devoid of sense. Those who thus succeed in formu
lating a system of laws which they apply in predicting
events were best regarded as "representatives of a scien
tific conception of the universe" (wissenschaftliche Welt
auffassung). Mach, Poincar , Peano and others, as fol
lowers of Plume, in a certain sense, have done their best
to sweep away the last vestiges of theology and meta
physics. Their work is now being continued by many of
the younger intellects, especially in Europe, intellects busi
ly engaged in analyzing the language of science and the
system of signs and building up a system of symbols with
the aid of logic and mathematics. Bertrand Russell's work
has been of decisive value in this effort.
All these adherents of a rigorous empiricism reject any
thing that smacks of the "absolute," whether the subject
matter relates to the world of the a priori, or the world
of the categorical imperative. "School philosophy," with
its definite conception of the fundamental basis of being
or thinking, presumes to sit in judgment on science as if
it were a court of last resort, and this presumption the re
presentatives of a scientific Weltauffassung summarily re
ject. They know only science and the clarification of sci
entific methods, and this clarification is all that remains of
old-fashioned "philosophizing." Philosophy as an inde
pendent system of definite doctrines is obsolete. What
can not be regarded as unified science must be accepted as
poetry or fiction.
This point of view is advanced with especial energy
by the "Viennese Circle" which is strongly influenced by
Bertrand Russell and by Wittgenstein whose Tractatus
was edited in German and English by Russell. On be

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 20 THE MONIST

half of this group Moritz Schlick and Philip Frank are is

suing a series of publications which are designed to aid the
cause of a scientific conception of the universe in all depart
ments of science.1 A periodical with the same program,
Erkenntnis, is edited by Rudolf Carnap (Vienna) and
Hans Reichenbach (Berlin).2
The system of laws from which single events or pro
cesses are deduced, in other words unified science, can be
wholly or partially modified whenever the results obtained
are contradicted by experience or observation. Every
phenomenon is tested by means of sound, light, etc., but
sound and light play no part in the final scientific presen
tation. In the formulas of science, with the aid of which
human beings succeed in understanding one another, only
logical-mathematical signs are utilized. It is senseless to
say: "I see the same red as my friend." How my friend
combines the symbol "red" with other signs clarifies for
me the structure of his system of expression. More can
not be done by science. Signs can indicate a "near," a
"between" and a "so much," but no more. What is at all
scientifically expressible is no richer in fundamental rela
tions than the symbols on a Morse tape which the telegra
pher reads as they are sounded by his apparatus. In a
sense unified science is physics in its largest aspect, a tissue
of laws expressing space-time linkages-let us call it:
Physicalism.
Physics has been successfully purged of metaphysical
1 Published by Julius Springer, Wien.
Bd. 1. Friedrich Waismann: Sprache, Philosophic.
Bd. 2. Rudolf Carnap : Abriss der Logistik.
Bd. 3. Richard von Mises: Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit.
Bd. 4. Otto Neurath: Empirische Soziologie.
Bd. 5. Philipp Frank: Die Kausalitaet und ihre Grenzen.
Bd. 6. Moritz Schlick: Fragen der Ethik.
2Published by Felix Meiner, Leipzig. The Erkenntnis is the organ of
the Verein Ernst Mach in Vienna and of the Gesellschaft fuer empirische
Philosophie in Berlin.

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 PHYSICALISM 62I

formulas. For example, the conception of "absolute mo

tion" has been discarded, a conception which acquired
meaning only if one thought of "absolute space" as a gi
gantic glass case in which "coordinates" were woven like
spider webs so that it became possible to determine whether
a body is at absolute rest or whether it is moving about
within the case. The Mach-Einstein conception dispenses
with this "absolute space" which assumes any meaning
only when one conceives of God who is present in all places
at all times. Absolute space is a product, in a sense, of a
"sensorium of God" (Newton). In the Mach-Einstein
theory we find only bodies and their relationships. A body
can move only in relation to other bodies and not in rela
tion to "space." It is impossible to draw- conclusions which
are simultaneously and universally applicable. We can
do no more than record the "biographies" of individual
bodies and note how these bodies approach and recede from
other bodies. The sum of these biographies constitutes a
scientific description which does no more than formulate
statements for observational verification.
In the field of psychology, the physicalists are closely
allied with Watson and his behaviorists without, however,
accepting their formulas. In the field of biology, the physi
calists reject "vitalism" insofar as it maintains that un
spatial-time entities become "effective." In sociology, also,
the physicalists find it necessary to oppose transcendental,
metaphysical entities, the "spirit of an age" which "mani
fests" itself in various ways, and "the powers of the spirit"
which are in perpetual conflict with one another. It is in
this very field that metaphysical tendencies (as in Sombart,
for example) constantly crop out, although "history" and
"economics" now include empirical sociology, deal with
such concrete things as human beings, streets, cities, ve

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 22 THE MONIST

hieles, factories and the like. In Germany it is the fashion

to oppose Geisteswissenschaften, the "intellectual or moral
sciences," to the others, to separate cultural science sharply
from natural science and to demand special methods for
each of the two fields. In Physicalism no such separation
is tenable which in the last analysis can be traced back to
the unwillingness of man to give up entirely his special po
sition as part of a celestial kingdom.
Ethics, which dealt formerly either with the laws of
a God or at least with laws "an sich/' in other words, laws
from which in a certain sense God had been eliminated
(Kant's categorical imperative), is now supplanted by in
quiries which make it possible for man to attain happi
ness by definite arrangements or definite methods of con
duct (behavior). Instead of the priest we find the phys
iological physician and the sociological organizer. De
finite conditions are tested for their effect upon happiness
(Glueckswirkungen), just as a machine is tested to meas
ure its lifting effect. No science can teach what "should"
be done ; it can assert only that because A and B have hap
pened, a very definite C follows. The task demands sys
tematic organization of human effort. This involves en
gineering, gymnastics (hygiene), and the social tech
nology of today, all of which have an influence on scien
tific management and commercial organization and thus
on human life as a whole.
Everywhere we find a growing sense of technical or
ganization, a sense in harmony with the extension of that
new scientific conception of the universe (JVeltauffassung)
which forges a powerful weapon by the unification of
science.
No matter in what country or continent they may be,
those who regard themselves as simple laborers in solving

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 PHYSICALISM 623
the riddle of life unconsciously join forces whenever they
devote time and effort to the clarification of science and
whenever they systematize and interpret with the aid of
logic and mathematics all that we perceive through the
senses. To predict what will happen and to guide one's ac
tions accordingly is the greatest triumph of earthly striv
ing, the concrete success of human effort which does not
make use of theses devoid of sense but is rooted in the soil
of Psysicalism.
OTTO NEURATH.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA.

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