Massimo Ferrari

The ignorance about Otto Neurath’s thought and action within the Vienna Circle as well as within the “scientific philosophy” definitely belongs to the past. In the last two decades the rediscovery of Neurath’s legacy represents one of the most significant aspects of the historical and theoretical studies on logical empiricism. As Friedrich Stadler has recently pointed out, “the rediscovery of Neurath [is] not merely a phenomenon of academic nostalgia, but itself constitutes research into the conditions and possibilities of changing a paradigm in the philosophy of science”1. Particulary in the last ten years this re-evaluation has been the subject of numerous books and contributions, which offer a radically new view of the life, the philosophy of science and knowledge, the political and economical thought of Otto Neurath, and, last but not least, of his enthusiastic activity for the Encyclopedia-project. It is sufficient for the readers of this Yearbook to recall the enlightening reconstruction of the emergence of Neurath’s naturalism within the Vienna Circle offered in 1992 by Thomas E. Uebel and the extensive, critical description of Neurath’s work and life which was published in 1996 by Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck and Thomas E. Uebel

Thomas Uebel’s penetrating book represents the latest outcome of a series of investigations on Otto Neurath and the “forgotten” Vienna Circle he has published over the last ten years. Within the recent galaxy of studies devoted to logical empiricism, the re-evaluation of Neurath’s all too neglected work as well as of the “first” Vienna Circle are unquestionably very much indebted to Uebel’s contributions, which may be considered, in turn, an original development of Rudolf Haller’s pioneering studies on Austrian philosophy and on its leading role in the rise of the Vienna Circle. In particular, the attention paid by Haller to Neurath’s surprising epistemological actuality and moreover the “new light” he shed on the “first” Vienna Circle 1 constitute the core of Uebel’s wide program of historical and, at the same time, philosophical research. An ambitious, but successful programm, that nowadays appears to us as essentially accomplished