Intersubjective Accountability:
Politics and Philosophy in
the Left Vienna Circle
Thomas Uebel
The University of Manchester
In different places Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath affirmed “a noteworthy
agreement” and an “inner link” between their philosophy of science and
political movements agitating for radical socio-economic change. Given the
normative abstinence of Vienna Circle philosophy, indeed the metaethical com-
mitments of its verificationism, this claim presents a major interpretive chal-
lenge that is only heightened when Neurath’s engagement for the socialization
of national economies is taken into account. It is argued here that Carnap’s
and Neurath’s positions are saved from inconsistency once some careful distinc-
tions are understood and it is recognized that they, together with the other
members of the Circle, adhered to an epistemic norm here called “intersubjective
accountability.”
Introducción
1.
The question of the political potential possessed by the philosophies of the
Vienna Circle is complex for more than one reason. It is so partly due to the
politically heterogeneous membership of the Circle, partly due to the dif-
ficult if not extreme political circumstances under which they had to operate,
and partly due to the variable meanings of the parameter “political,” some of
which are and some of which are not compatible with, Sucesivamente, variable ver-
sions of the doctrine of the value-neutrality of science. Por ejemplo, philos-
ophies of science may steadfastly be standing guard against pseudo-scientific
nonsense being paraded as worthy of credence in public discourse, this con-
cern for intellectual hygene becoming “political” depending on who spouts
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the workshop “Positivismus als
gesellschaftliches und politsches Projekt” convened by Eric Hilgendorf at the University
of Münster in January 2017 and I thank the participants for discussions.
Perspectives on Science 2020, volumen. 28, No. 1
© 2020 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00332
35
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36
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
the nonsense and for what purpose. Philosophies of science may also, cómo-
alguna vez, allow political considerations to play a role in theory change under con-
ditions of underdetermination by empirical evidence, this mostly in social
and environmental science. Still other philosophies of science may reject
any thought of value-neutrality and be pursued expressly for what are con-
sidered universal moral-political ends, while yet others are ready to serve the
needs of party-political partisanship according to whatever the demands of
the day may be.1 As it happened, most members of the Vienna Circle have
had one or another variety of these views or stances ascribed to them, algunos de
them rightly so, others not. But my aim here is not quite to determine what
they thought the proper political role of their philosophy was, if any, or what
it should have been, on quite such a broad scale. My aim here is far more
específico: to make sense of some prima facie puzzling assertions by Otto
Neurath and Rudolf Carnap about the relation that their philosophical out-
look bears to the attitudes of movements agitating for more or less radical
transformations of social, economic and political life. So while I will not try
to answer the big questions, I will have to touch on them to find an answer
to the smaller one of concern here.
The question of the political potential possessed by logical empiricism
is not new, por supuesto, for already in the 1930s the movement was subjected
to attacks from different ends of the political spectrum. En 1933 Hugo
Dingler denounced the “formal-calculatory thinking” of the Berlin Group
around Hans Reichenbach for its affinity with “political bolshevism,"
while in 1937 Max Horkheimer styled the theoreticians of the Vienna
Circle as unwitting helpmates of fascism—both attacks which the intended
victims quickly (and rightly) refuted.2 But the question of the political va-
lence of logical empiricism continues to be discussed even though nowadays
less exaggerated alternatives are in focus. A recent article that drew attention
to the space that some of the Vienna Circle’s theories of science left open in
the choice of hypotheses and research projects for contextually conditioned
and value-laden considerations (thereby pointing to a significant openness
compared to orthodox analytical theory of science) was criticized for failing
to recognize the need for an explicit value engagement of philosophy of
1. If names were required, one could call them, respectivamente, “contextually political,"
“minimally political,” “morally political,” and “party-politically political.”
2. See Dingler (1933, Vorwort) and Reichenbach (1934), as well as Horkheimer
([1937] 1972) and Neurath ([1937b] 2011); for discussion, ver, respectivamente, Danneberg
(1998) as well as Dahms (1994, páginas. 97–143, 166–181) and O’Neill and Uebel (2004).
The anti-semitic trope in Dingler’s charge may also be noted (“formal-calculatory think-
ing”), as well as the fact that Horkheimer refused to publish Neurath’s answer, permitiendo,
thirty years on, Habermas’s questionable motto “That we disavow reflection is positivism”
([1967] 1972, pag. vii, origen. emphasis) to seem quite reasonable.
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Perspectives on Science
37
ciencia: only the latter supposedly is able to claim political relevance.3 Not
only the past of philosophy of science shows it to be embedded in socio-
political and cultural contexts: the writing of this history appears to do so
no less.
Raising the question of the relation between Neurath’s projects for so-
cializing national economies and logical empiricism, as I will do, may seem
to bring old battle lines back to life, even though the question lacks practical
relevance now. In this we may see a difference with the time when Neurath’s
projects were being developed, but even this could be contested—at least
in light of the devastating judgment passed by Max Weber on Neurath’s
attempts to realize his ideas for the revolution of 1918/19 in Bavaria of all
places.4 In any case, my point is not to redeem the more or less utopian
aspects of Neurath’s project (which tell more about the author’s back-
ground than the philosophical movement to which he belonged).5 Es
rather to confront a particularly sharp challenge arising from a character-
istic tension in the self-understanding of some leading first-generation log-
ical empiricists.6
Notablemente, Neurath and Carnap placed themselves in the glare of what
seem conflicting demands. The Circle’s own inofficial manifesto, The Sci-
entific World-Conception. The Vienna Circle (authored by them with help from
Hans Hahn and others), did so most prominently.7 It speaks of a “note-
worthy agreement” (“merkwürdige Übereinstimmung”) and an “inner link”
(“inneren Zusammenhang”) between “attitudes toward questions of life” and
the “scientific world-conception” of the Vienna Circle. As regards those at-
titudes, explicit reference is made to “endeavors toward a new organization
of economic and social relations, toward the unification of mankind, toward
a reform of school and education” (Carnap, Hahn, Neurath [1928] 2012,
páginas. 80–81). Claramente, Neurath’s socialization plans fall under the first of
these categories, yet wherein the “inner link” between them and the sci-
entific world conception consisted was not spelled out.
3. See Uebel (2005a), Richardson (2009) and Uebel (2010); see also Romizi (2012) para
a related analysis of the Vienna Circle’s “scientific world-conception” as an attitude or
stance and discussion of how “philosophy of science does not need to entail a theory of
values to be politically engaged” (pag. 234) when it is conceived of as an activity in a his-
torical context.
4. See the letter to Neurath in Weber (1921, pag. 488).
5. For Neurath’s utopianism see his ([1919C] 1973); for discussion of it see Uebel
(1996, 2008a); for Neurath’s relevant biographical background, see Uebel (1995).
6. For the political differences between Circle members, mira la sección 3 abajo; for differ-
ence in political valence between the early and the later orthodox logical empiricism, ver
Reisch (2005).
7. For the history of its production and early reception, see Uebel (2008b).
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38
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
The tension in question, most broadly, is that between value-free theoria
and engaged praxis, a tension that perhaps cannot be entirely resolved but
must at least be understood correctly if one wants to avoid mistaken judg-
mentos. Además, specification of more than the categorical difference be-
tween theoria and praxis is required to redeem Neurath’s and Carnap’s
positions. What needs to be recognized is that not only logical empiricist
philosophy of science in general but, in the extreme, also Neurath’s social-
ization theory was animated by a certain enlightenment ambition which, él
was thought, provides a bridge between theory and practice.8 My aim here
is to spell out this ambition in a way that preserves the scientific and phil-
osophical probity of Neurath and Carnap’s views but also allows them to
keep their eyes on the prize.
2. Neurath’s Theory of Economic Socialization: A Brief Sketch
Since Neurath’s socialization theory is known far less than the philosophies
of science and language of logical empiricism, sin embargo, I must begin with
a brief outline to show what the analytic task is that is to be confronted
aquí. The politics at issue here are not simply the reformist policies of the
Austrian Social Democratic Party (SDAPÖ)—which both Neurath and
Carnap were members of—but much more radical schemes of social trans-
formación. En tono rimbombante, what I here call Neurath’s socialization theory
were his plans for the economic reorganization of society and their theo-
retical underpinnings—not whatever normative arguments may be used to
agitate for these plans.
Neurath developed his socialization theory and promoted the associated
program mainly in the years 1917–1921, so his involvement anticipated
but also outlasted the revolutions in Germany and Austria at the end of
World War One.9 At issue for him was a reorganization of the entire econ-
omy of a nation that did not concentrate on the appropriation of the own-
ership of the means of production by the workers’ state and their organs,
but on the appropriation of the executive power to decide the use of these
8. Romizi (2012) is correct to stress that the scientific world-conception of the entire
Vienna Circle was political in a broad sense (contextually political), but this still leaves
the connection between it and the left wing’s radical politics to be determined. So whereas
mi (2005a and 2010) focused on underdetermination as a lever for a kind of politicization
of the philosophy of science not shared across the Circle as a whole, here I aim to bring out
what even Neurath’s socialization theory shares with the scientific world-conception
generally.
9. On the German revolution of 1918/19, see Kluge (1985); a well-informed contem-
porary account of the German political debates about socialization debate is given in
Ströbel ([1921] 1922); for similar debates in Austria, see Weissel (1976). Neurath still
defended his plans in ([1925a] 2004).
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Perspectives on Science
39
means of production.10 This meant the abolishment of the market and its
“invisible hand” in coordinating the economic actions of state, firms and
individuals. The economy was to become subject to a comprehensive plan
by which the conditions of life of all members of the society were to be
mejorado, and every enterprise within the economy was to play its designated
role.11 For present purposes we can ignore the political-organizational aspects
of Neurath’s plans and focus only on the distinctive principles according to
which economic planning and decision-making were to be undertaken.
En tono rimbombante, the improvement of the life conditions of the population
was not expected to follow on from increasing the gross national product
under different mangement. Bastante, in the absence of a market, it needed a
wholesale reorientation of economic decision-making and it was for this
alternative conceptualization of economic matters that Neurath developed
the concepts of calculation in kind (“Naturalrechnung”) and economy in
kind (“Naturalwirtschaft”).
Calculation in kind involved calculating the costs of processes of
production in natura, that is in terms of the quantities of materials and
labor required for the production of goods. In order to be able to effect
such calculations for an entire economy, so-called universal statistics were
needed, which provided planners with quantitative data about typical pro-
cesses of production processes and about given natural and labor resources,
as well as data about typical consumption patterns of raw materials and fin-
ished products. These universal statistics were only beginning to be devel-
oped, as Neurath conceded—and even that was overoptimistic in light of a
later argument by Friedrich Hayek.12 Economy in kind, por el contrario, des-
ignated a form of socio-economic organization according to which invest-
ment decisions across the whole economy, decisions about the allocation of
10. A good overview of Neurath’s engagement in the German and Austrian revolutions
is given by Paul Neurath (1994) as preface to a careful selection of Neurath texts including
ones from his writings on economics (PAG. Neurath and Nemeth 1994). Sandner offers a polit-
ical biography (2014); Uebel (2004a) offers an overview, in context, of his socio-economical
obras.
11. That the implementation of Neurath’s socialization plans would be subject to what
have been major points of anti-socialist criticism ever since Schäffle (1875), namely in-
fringements of the sovereignty of labor and consumption, must not go unmentioned:
“The right to unearned income on the basis of private property is no longer recognized.”
So Neurath and Schumann in a “Draft of a Law of Socialization” (1919b); the eight-point
draft is quoted in full in Nielsen and Uebel (1999, pag. 72). The question of how this infringe-
ment of “bourgeois” liberties sits with the enlightenment agenda of individual autonomy
requires a separate treatment on another occasion.
12. Hayek’s so-called information argument disputes the possibility of ever collecting
together and making eplicit all the data needed by a central agency to plan total produc-
ción; see Hayek ([1935] 1948, pag. 155; [1940] 1948, pag. 202; [1945] 1948, pag. 91).
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40
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
resources as well as about details of production processes, were not deter-
mined by the profit principle, as in a market economy, but by the decision
of the population and/or its representatives about which of several possible
economic plans were to be implemented in light of their preferred in-kind
goals of production.13
Neurath’s proposals for the socialization of the economy provoked sharp
criticisms from Ludwig von Mises, whose attempt to demonstrate, against
Neurath, the principled irrationality of any planned economy reignited the
so-called socialist calculation debate. This was a debate about the possibil-
ity of “rational” economic decision making in conditions of partial or total
absence of markets that started in the late nineteenth century and reached
an early peak with the varied responses to Mises’s reply to Neurath.14 No-
tably, by the time the socialist calculation debate moved to the English-
speaking world in the late 1920s and 30s, the focus had shifted from
Neurathian marketless socialism to early market-simulating forms of eco-
nomic calculation.15
Politics in the Vienna Circle: Personal, Institutional and
3.
Doctrinal Matters
So much for the particularly pointed challenge raised by the question of
wherein the inner kinship of the scientific world conception and the attitudes
towards questions of life lies for Neurath. Broadening our concern I must note
that already as regards its philosophies of science it is misleading to speak of the
Vienna Circle, even more so of logical empiricism as a whole as monolithic.
This holds true all the more of its politics. Following Rudolf Carnap’s
Neurathian locutions, one can distinguish within the Vienna Circle already
en 1931 a “left wing” (Neurath, Carnap, Hahn, Philipp Frank) from a “more
conservative” wing (Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann). While the term
“left” here was used primarily with regard to dissent from Wittgenstein’s dog-
ma of the impossibility of metalinguistic discourse, its ideological overtones
were by no means unintended (Carnap 1963, páginas. 57–8).16
13. On this see particularly Neurath ([1919b] 1973; [1925a] 2004; [1925b] 2004; [1935]
1987). It is to be noted that Neurath’s calculation in kind made it possible to take account of
ecological sustainability considerations without requiring the problematical monetization of
potential environmental effects. This rendered Neurath a pioneer of “ecological economics”:
ver, p.ej., Martinez-Alier (1987) and O’Neill and Uebel (2014).
14. See Mises ([1920] 1935; [1922] 1951). For a discussion of the post-war Austrian
theoretical debates about socialization, see Chaloupek (1990). For Neurath’s responses see
su ([1925a] 2004; [1925b] 2004) and the discussion in Uebel (2005b).
15. For the by now standard discussions of this later debate in the international con-
texto, see Lavoie (1985; Steele 1992).
16. On the political contrast between Schlick and Neurath see Stadler ([1997] 2015,
páginas. 277–84).
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Perspectives on Science
41
Then we must note that most of Neurath’s writings on economic social-
ization date from the time before the Vienna Circle. Sin embargo, since this
does not hold of all of them and one important small monograph was also
published in his Vienna Circle series Einheitswissenschaft, and since Neurath
also had been a member already of a pre-World War One discussion group
focused on philosophy of science with Vienna Circle colleagues-to-be Hahn
and Frank, among others, it is arguably as difficult to distinguish the
socialization theorist Neurath from the logical empiricist Neurath as it
is to distinguish the physicist Frank and the mathematician Hahn from
the logical empiricists Frank and Hahn.17
So who in the Vienna Circle was in favor Neurath’s ideas about social-
ización? Even on the left wing only Carnap publically affirmed his broad
agreement in later years, despite the fact that Hahn chaired the Association
of Socialist Academics and Frank was a keen observer of developments in
the Soviet Union.18 (We may presume sympathy but also reservations on
their part.) The more conservative wing around Schlick, especially Waismann,
but also Viktor Kraft, Felix Kaufmann and Kurt Gödel, was rather op-
posed Neurath’s radicalism. This is true also of Karl Menger, even though
his second edition of his father’s Principles of Economics placed him at odds
with contemporary representatives of the Austrian School of Economics
like Mises and Hayek, who did not care to learn that the founder of their
school had in later years resolved to concede to the state a significant role in
securing social justice—as the second edition, which they disowned, hecho
clear.19
En breve, just as politics was not a theme discussed in their Thursday
evening meetings, so the Vienna Circle (even less logical empiricism as such)
did not have a political program. Individual members felt affinity with
socialist programs, othes with more liberal ones, but collectively they es-
poused no political engagement. None of this is news, por supuesto, but note
that by ruling out a collectively determined or coincidentally shared per-
sonal stance as “the politics of the Vienna Circle,” the very idea that their
philosophies may have any political dimension is called into question. Para,
turning from the thinkers to their doctrines, one cannot but stumble right
away over an official philosophical doctrine that appears to finish all such
talk—the doctrine of noncognitivsm.20 Now noncognitivism comes in a
17. On the so-called first Vienna Circle, see Haller ([1985] 1991) and Uebel (2000a).
18. For Carnap’s public affirmation, see his 1963, páginas. 83–4.
19. See C. Menger (1923) and compare Hayek ([1930–33] 1950, páginas. 32–3) y
Cangiani (2006).
20. This point was made forcefully some time ago by Rainer Hegselmann for whom
the members of the left Circle, especially Neurath, simply “overlooked the inconsistency
entre [su] conceptions of theoretical and practical rationality” (1979, pag. 61).
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42
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
great variety of versions of which were adopted by different members, pero
none of the ones adopted on the left wing even attempted to reserve a sem-
blance of truth-valuability for value judgments.21 In light of this noncog-
nitivism, only political abstinence on part of the philosphies of the Vienna
Circle seems to be consistent—and the idea of any engagement appears
decidedly odd.22
To be sure, even on its own noncognitivism is not unproblematic. Todavía
its typical conclusion that value judgments are “meaningless” requires a
more differentiated understanding than many critics of logical empiricism
can muster (ver, p.ej., Carnap [1932] 1959, pag. 77). What was meant by
this all along is only that they are “cognitively meaningless”: while this bars
unconditional value judgments from scientific discourse on account of
their failure to be truth-valuable (for they are not intersubjectively test-
capaz), it nevertheless grants them whatever meaning is needed to allow a
hearer to understand the attitude a speaker expresses. (Por el contrario, condi-
tional value judgements constitute truth-valuable assertions to be under-
stood as statements of empirically testable means-ends relations.)23
Likewise it is not the case that noncognitivism makes it impossible, as of-
ten suggested, to discuss moral or political values in a rational fashion. Para
there exist, besides the “intuitive” attraction and repulsion that values possess
for us, logical relations between value statements that exclude certain combi-
naciones, además, there are the consequences to consider that follow from
realizing values in actions (ver, p.ej., Carnap 1934a, 1963, páginas. 999–1013;
k. Menger [1934] 1974; Reichenbach 1951, ch. 17). These logical
relations and practical consequences provide criteria which can be appealed
to in arguments for or against given value judgments and which can make
their endorsement at least intellectually intelligible (even they are not
shared).24 Only those whose conception of rationality demands conclusions
21. See Siegetsleitner (2014) where exceptions to the noncognitivist position in the
wider Vienna Circle are also discussed.
22. It is the recognition of the noncognitivism that Neurath broadly shared with his
Vienna Circle colleagues that prevents the full assimilation of his otherwise very similar
stance to current pragmatist and feminist positions on science and values, as it was sug-
gested in Howard (2006, 2009) where a different interpretation of Neurath’s metaethics is
offered. Discussion of this point would lead too far afield here and must be deferred to
another occasion.
23. For Carnap and the left Circle, verificationism primarily was a criterion of posses-
sion of cognitive meaning, not a theory of what meaning consists in; it was only briefly
accepted in the latter capacity in 1930–31 and then superceded by the theory of logical
syntax.
24. None of this would have been news to Max Weber, por supuesto; see Weber ([1913]
1949, páginas. 13–14, 18–22): these are all legitimate ways of dealing with evaluative discourse
while observing his requirement of scientific value-neutrality.
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Perspectives on Science
43
to be established on the basis of cognitive premises alone could deny ra-
tionality to noncognitive discourse about values. Por supuesto, what noncog-
nitivism precludes are unconditionally prescriptive first-order theories, pero
even second-order theories thereof are not precluded.
Yet clearly, politics demands precisely that first-order values be
confessed—and this is not a business the Vienna Circle was in. So, de nuevo,
why do I insist on my leading question? Porque, I answer, of the Circle’s
own inofficial manifesto: the “brochure” (as its main authors Carnap and
Neurath called it) states explicitly—not only midway through and by
the way but also in its conclusion—of “the spirit of the scientific world-
conception” that it “penetrates in growing measure the forms of personal
and public life, of education, of child-rearing, of architecture” and “helps
shape economic and social life according to rational principles” (Carnap,
Hahn, and Neurath ([1928] 2012, pag. 90). Here the text again points to
the “inner link” mentioned previously, apparently even to normative prin-
ciples which, sin embargo, cannot to be found in the official philosophies of the
Vienna Circle. The tension between practical aspiration and theory is clear.
Since their protagonists recognized no direct logical link from their phi-
losophies of science to moral or political prescriptions, one may be tempted
to refer to Carnap’s Preface to the Aufbau. It likewise celebrated “an inner
kinship” (“innere Verwandtschaft”), namely “between the attitude on which
our philosophical work is founded and the intellectual attitude which
presently manifests itself in entirely different walks of life” like art, architec-
ture and “movements which strive for meaningful forms of personal and col-
lective life, of education, and of external organization in general” (Carnap
[1928] 1967, pag. xviii). Now the Preface also identified his and his co-workers’
“emotional needs” as the following: “clarity of concepts, precision of methods,
responsible theses, achievement through co-operation” (Carnap [1928] 1967,
pag. xvii).25 Yet the attempt to reduce, on account of this latter remark, el
affinity in question to a merely emotional one is easily thwarted once the con-
text of Carnap’s remarks is considered.
In that Preface Carnap was concerned to stress that the basic attitude of
his book, and of related publications by his Circle colleagues, was a scien-
tific one. By this he understood that “the strict and responsible orientation
of the scientific investigator” also becomes their “guideline for philosoph-
ical work” which will no longer, in traditional fashion, approximate that of
poetas (Carnap [1928] 1967, pag. xvi). Carnap conceded that, en general, "el
basic orientation and the direction of interest”—of scientists like every-
body else—“are not the result of deliberation, but are determined by emo-
ciones, drives, disposition and general living conditions,” but he added,
25. I’ll return to the phrase “Verantwortlichkeit der Thesen” in the next section.
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44
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
importantly: “The decisive factor is, sin embargo, that for justification of a
thesis the physicist does not cite irrational factors, but gives a purely
empirical-rational justification. We demand the same from ourselves in
our philosophical work” (Carnap [1928] 1967, pag. xvii). Scientfic probity
was saved by distinguishing the context of justification from the context of
discovery.26
Notablemente, it was only after stating his demand for the rational justifica-
tion of philosophical claims, that Carnap referred to the “emotional needs.”
The demand for clarity and “responsible” reasoning therefore is not reducible
to these demands of the heart, aunque, for those so inclined anyway, clarity
and responsible reasoning can also fulfill this a-rational function. Hasta ahora
from resolving our quandary, Carnap’s Preface only heightens it. Added
to our task is now the explication of his remarks: the “inner link” of which
the manifesto spoke and the “inner kinship” of his Preface clearly adress
the same phenomenon.
4. Responsibility and Accountability in Reasoning
Two avenues of explication of these problematic statements remain open—
other than charging their authors with contradictions or reducing their
assertions to expressions of merely personal attitudes. The first is to seek
refuge in the Marxian doctrine of base and superstructure, the second is to
find a cue in Carnap’s talk of responsibility in reasoning.
The first avenue still open is to interpret their remarks in the sense of
the Marxist theory of ideological superstructures being ultimately deter-
mined by the economic base. There are indications that Neurath was fa-
vorably inclined towards this doctrine (por ejemplo, with his view,
abandoned again as the 1930s progressed, that the advance of the anti-
metaphysical world-conception moves in conformity with the increasing
technical rationalization of the world of work and everyday life), incluso
though he always was aware of the need to improve our understanding
de ello (por ejemplo, as designating an asymmetry of predictability) (ver,
p.ej., Neurath [1931] 1973, pag. 349; [1936] 1981, pag. 677; 1944, pag. 22).
Yet even on this interpretation of the “link” between “attitudes toward
questions of life” and the “scientific world-conception” it remains obscure
wherein the “agreement” consists. Not only is there space but also cause to
consider further the second possibility of understanding the “spirit of the
scientific world-conception” in a broadly epistemic fashion.
26. For the long history of this distinction, see Hoyningen-Huene (1987). por el
way, that theorists of the left Circle did not exclude “the social” from the context of
justification—which exclusion accounts for much of the detrimental effect application
of the distinction may have—is argued in Uebel (2000b).
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Perspectives on Science
45
The second route of explication to be explored builds on Carnap’s puz-
zling phrase “responsibility of theses” (Verantwortlichkeit der Thesen) por
which he designated the attitude that he believed his philosophy and
the new transformative movements have in common. Since attributing re-
sponsibility to theses is strictly speaking nonsensical he is best understood
as pointing to what it is about theses that allows them to be forwarded in a
responsible manner.27 These theses can, as it were, stand up for themselves,
they are backed by “justifications” (to employ another term Carnap used in
this context). Throwing the manifesto’s “spirit of the scientific world-
conception” into the mix, the suggestion begins to crysallize that the “inner
link” or “inner kinship” that Neurath and Carnap appealed to should be
understood as related to this idea of cognitive forebearance—an epistemic
value of sorts. (Epistemic values are immanent to science and exempt from
the strictures of noncognitivism.)28
One pay-off that pursuing this avenue of explication promises is that it
obviates having to search for first-order prescriptive principles that would
guide the “new organization of economic and social relations.” It only re-
quires having to inquire what makes proposals for such a reorganization at
all rational (which is not the same as making them uniquely, let alone un-
conditionally, commendable). What is it then that the making of makes
claims or proposals rational? We can begin with what sounds like a truism.
What makes making knowledge claims rational is that they are put forward
as intersubjectively justifiable. This need not mean that these knowledge
claims must have been shown justified in order to be rational, for then only
making those claims would be rational that as a matter of fact were shown
justified, nor need it mean that knowledge claims must simply be justified
for making them to be rational, for then only the making of those claims
would be rational that as a matter of fact are justified. To allow for fallibly
rational discourse we must allow for claims to be made that may turn out
unjustified (or false)—as long as they were put forward sincerely and ready
for critical intersubjective scrutiny. (The satisfaction of the claim to justi-
fication is important but concerns not their rationality but their status as
knowledge.) The bottom line is accountability.
Now that epistemic discourse observes a “norm of accountability” is not
exactly news. For half a century now we’ve been able to say with Wilfrid
Sellars that what makes knowledge claims rational as such is that they take
their place in the “logical space of reasons” (see Sellars [1956] 1997). A
knowledge claim is rational if the demand to justify it is recognized such
27. This fits with his talk of “the responsible orientation of the scientific investigator.”
28. See also Steel (2010) with reference to recent debates.
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46
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
that reasons are provided and the claim is abandoned once it is realized
that these reasons fail to be good ones. That what is demanded is, más-
encima, intersubjective accountability has been clear also since J. l. austin,
still ten years earlier, drew attention to the performative dimension of
knowledge claims (see Austin [1946] 1979). (To be sure, rationality de-
mands agents acting on this norm of accountability not only in the pres-
ence of others, but also in the privacy of solitary reflection.) That this
thought also was familiar to Carnap and Neurath is my claim here—as
their talk of “responsibility” indicates.29
While the terminology of accountability is not their own, it corresponds
closely to the sense in which Neurath spoke of the “control” of scientific
statements.30 Neurath’s conception of so-called protocol sentences is ex-
pressive of precisely this attitude. Far far from representing the evidential
basis of science in terms of the content of a private experience (as had been
common in the empiricist tradition), Neurath regarded this basic evidence
to consist of intersubjective observational testimony and he designed an
only initially puzzling set of conditions governing the acceptance of bona
fide scientific data.31 It was by means of these or similar conditions that
discussions of the validity of empirical evidence are conducted. It bears
stressing that, on the left wing of the Circle, cognitive forebearance and
accountability to one’s interlocutors were essential aspects of empiricism.
Nothing in science was to be excused from the demand for intersubjective
accountability, least of all the empirical base itself.
The norm of accountability provides a necessary condition for the ratio-
nality of knowledge claims: rational claims require reasons. Intersubjecti-
vized it provides a necessary condition for rational discourse. It requires of
participants in factual rational discourse that they only make claims that
can be justified to an interlocutor—at the very minimum that they are
open to their claims or proposals being interrogated in this fashion. Justi-
fying a claim is a matter of making intelligible the state of affairs that is al-
leged to hold both on the object level (why should this be the case?) y
reflexively concerning the claimant (what puts her in the position reasonably
to make this claim?). In this fashion the norm of intersubjective accountability
29. Note that Neurath once remarked apropos philosophy being part of (unified) ciencia-
ence (as scientific metatheory) that it is “a nice result that scholars, who deal with with the
fundamental concepts of their science, do not seek the assistance of philosophers, but con-
sider themselves competent and even personally obliged to engage in the clarification of
their science and to take responsibility for these themselves” ([1936] 1981, pag. 699).
30. Ver, p.ej., Neurath [1931] 1973, pag. 361 y [1932a] 1983, pag. 63 where the term is
translated as “check.” A discussion of the enlightenment dimension of the Circle’s verifi-
cationism must defered to another occasion.
31. See Neurath ([1932b] 1983) and Uebel (2007, ch. 11) for discussion.
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Perspectives on Science
47
justifies and secures consensus about arguments. Notablemente, this norm itself is
capable of instrumental justification and requires no deontology, but it does
seem to require adversion to the concept of truth (o, for Neurath, algo
to approximate its function). Its adoption as a rule can be shown to possess
instrumental epistemic utility: it is conducive to holding true beliefs and/or
making confirmable predictions.
5. Accountability in Practical Reasoning
As Carnap’s Aufbau preface stated and the collective manifesto plainly pre-
supposed, scientific discourse observes the norm of intersubjective account-
capacidad. The question is whether the “noteworthy agreement”—the “inner
link” or “inner kinship” of the scientific world-conception and the trans-
formative social movements favored by Carnap and Neurath—also consists
in adherence to the norm of intersubjective accountability.
It may seem odd that this norm should help with the “endeavors toward
a new organization of economic and social relations, toward the unification
of mankind, toward a reform of shool and education” of which the man-
ifesto spoke. Does it not weigh heavily that with these endeavors we are
not dealing with factual claims about what is but with value judgments or
statements about what should be? Is it not the case that, insofar as no
knowledge claims but aspirational goals are at issue here, the norm of in-
tersubjective accountability is utterly irrelevant? Este, I think, would be a
mistake. To be sure, as with all practical discourses, given noncognitivism,
it is not a matter here of providing insight that this or that must be done,
of providing proof of the supposed truth of certain imperatives. Bastante, él
is a matter of establishing a kind of agreement about practical goals via
discussion, deliberation and persuasion.32 But, as noted, this does not
mean that rationality and the norm of intersubjective accountability has
no role to play in practical contexts (see Weber [1904] 1949).33 With re-
gard to basic value judgments or unconditional imperatives, lo lógico
and practical consequences of their adoption can be delineated and as-
sessed, while nonbasic value judgments and conditional imperatives are
32. Acceptance of such goals and the resultant transformation of a hypothetical into
categorical imperative is an evaluative decision and value-laden action and cannot be un-
derstood as true or false independently of the accepted basic goals or values: such is the fate
of noncognitivism. Además, it also follows that, importantly, such acceptance may be only
partial and compromise rather than consensus is likely to provide the “kind of agreement”
sought.
33. On Neurath’s in important points consonant views see his ([1913] 2005), a con-
tribution to the same closed meeting of the Verein für Sozialpolitik as Weber ([1913]
1949).
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48
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
even open to empirical assessment as means-ends relations.34 Intersubjec-
tive accountability in these regards is by no means inoperative here.
It is possible then to see the spirit of the scientific world-conception
involved, as Carnap and Neurath envisaged, also in certain practical pro-
grams like the “endeavors toward a new organization of economic and so-
cial relations, toward the unification of mankind, toward a reform of school
and education”. In much of his own educational work, Neurath was
concerned to lend accountability to practical arguments. “One could show
over and over the worker with a red flag in the wind, the column marching
towards the sun, but the effect of such pictures is not stimulating,"
Neurath once noted in a lecture to youth group leaders of the SDAPÖ
in Red Vienna. Instead he recommended: “How many debates get started
when informational pictures contrast the taxes raised and their use by the
City of Vienna with those raised and spent by the Federal Government?"
(Neurath 1932c, páginas. 165–6).35 Not coincidentally, the provision of just
such “informational pictures” was what the Vienna Method of Picture Sta-
tistics, later called ISOTYPE, was developed for in Neurath’s own Social
and Economic Museum in Vienna.36 According to Neurath’s socialization
theory, alternative economic plans were likewise offered, as we’ll see, por
means of a similar accountability-inducing method of representing and
justifying social interventions and remedial policies.
Can this conclusion be generalized to all the practical social endeavours
with which Neurath and Carnap felt an affinity? It would seem that there
is little reason to think that they would have doubted this. There is a ques-
ción, por supuesto, whether it was exclusively their type of progressive causes
that could be advocated in this responsible fashion, but that is yet another
asunto. Además, whatever the answer to this may be in the abstract, allá
is also the question whether in their time and place their opponents were
able to muster such rational accountability. A case can be made that, had
they done so, they would have exhibited the extreme partiality, if not out-
right discriminatory intent, of the measures or institutions argued for
which may, depending on the addressee, diminish their attractiveness.37
34. In practical contexts it is often a matter of making intelligible the factual grounds
which demand intervention, given a certain goal has already been accepted, or of motivat-
ing a change in the goal orientation itself on account of unwanted consequences of pursuing
the current one or of its incompatibility with other accepted goal.
35. For a discussion of the Vienna Circle’s educational ethos, see Uebel (2004b).
36. For an illuminating discussion of the pedagogical principles behind Neurath’s pic-
ture statistics, see Nemeth (2019); for a comprehensive work on ISOTYPE generally, ver
Burke, Kindel, Caminante (2013).
37. So while there also no reason to think that the Vienna Circle and logical empiricists in
general were the only possible or even then the only actual philosophical adherents of the norm
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Perspectives on Science
49
It also seems that with regard to practical rationality, albeit at a very high
level of abstraction, we can detect a certain consensus not only between
Carnap and Neurath, but among all the members of the Vienna Circle, en efecto
among first-generation logical empiricists generally, whether they were social-
ists or not. Whatever their proposals, participants in public discourse have to
be held to the norm of intersubjective accountability. The necessity to insist
on this became ever clearer in light of the increasingly authoritarian behavior
of the anti-democratic opposition to the first ever republics in Austria and
Germany as the 1920s drew to a close. Herbert Feigl—not a member of
the Circle’s left wing but a former student of Schlick who emigrated to the
USA already in 1931 to escape the anti-Semitism that made his academic
advancement in Central Europe impossible—gave pithy expression to this
when he stated that logical empiricism considered foundational “two modest
questions”: “What do you mean?” and “How do you know?" (Feigl [1943]
1949, pag. 3). That these questions do not arise only in scientific discourse is
plain, as is the fact that the norm of intersubjective accountability is not a
particularly radical idea. (Feigl was not politically active in his American exile
either, though he promoted, like Carnap, the ideals of scientific humanism.)
Eso, por otro lado, former protagonists of the revolution of 1918/19 como
Neurath or former activists of the progressive wing of the Jugendbewegung like
Carnap subscribed to this norm as well needs no explanation.38 (Reichenbach
too must be mentioned here.)39 De hecho, the norm of intersubjective account-
ability is clearly articulated in Carnap’s famous principle of logical tolerance:
“In logic, there are no morals. Everyone is at liberty to build up his own logic,
es decir. his own form of language, as he wishes. All that is required of him is that,
if he wishes to discuss it, he must state his methods clearly, and give syntac-
tical rules instead of philosophical arguments” (Carnap [1934b] 1937, §17).
6. Neurath: Activist and Theoretician
Let’s return to Neurath. How do his activities and pronouncements fit into
what we developed so far? The demand that categorical and unconditional
value-judgments find no place in scientific discourse agrees with Weber’s
of intersubjective accountability, the ethos expressed was far from universal—considering,
p.ej., that in their time neither philosophers like Martin Heidegger nor Othmar Spann nor the
populist Nazi and Austro-fascist movements they supported adhered to it.
38. On Carnap and the Jugendbewegung see Carus 2007, ch. 2; Tuboly 2017; Damböck
and Werner 2020.
39. Reichenbach once explained to a student that “the whole movement of scientific
philosophy is a crusade. Is it not clear that only by ending the dogmatism of irresponsible
claims to know moral truth, that only by clarity and integrity in epistemology, people can
attain tolerance and get along with each other?" (Schuster 1978, páginas. 56–7, origen. emphasis).
For Reichenbach and the Jugendbewegung see Kamlah 2013.
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Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
for value-neutrality.40 Yet another agreement with Weber’s conception is
afforded by his admission that the choice of research agendas is value-
relevant, that choosing these in the light of one’s “cultural” values is legit-
imate (See Weber [1904] 1949, páginas. 76–7, 81–4; [1913] 1949, páginas. 21–2).
On the eminently plausible reading that this includes social and political
values Neurath was happy to agree, for it allowed for two important dis-
tinctions to be made and applied. Primero, we can distinguish between people
acting as scientists and as engaged citizens of a polity. As scientist and the-
oretician Neurath had to remain value-neutral, as citizen he could be an
activist promoting goals in the moral-political sphere. Pero, segundo, también
as scientist he had a choice—which he did exercise—to pursue a value-
relevant research agenda: socialization theory.
Yet could socialization theory in itself be value-neutral? While prima
facie this may seem quite implausible, we must consider more closely
how that theory is understood. Neurath’s intention is best done justice
to by employing his own concept of social technology (Gesellschaftstechnik)
and viewing his theory of socialization as the theory of an alternative or-
ganization of economic processes. This theory concerns itself with a part of
reality that is not (todavía) actual but only possible.41 Crudely speaking, el
economy can be understood in abstraction as a machine contributing to the
reproduction of society; the theory of socialization develops blueprints for
such a machine that solves the task of social reproduction differently from
the one currently in use. Having chosen his research agenda, Neurath as
scientist, theoretician and social engineer developed alternative plans for an
organization of the economy, plans with different criteria of success to the
one in existence. Yet it was only as an activist citizen that he could be a
proponent of the reorganization, that he could express unconditional rec-
ommendations. To be sure, even as a scientist he could make qualified con-
ditional ones—and this he did indeed in many otherwise frankly partisan
pro-socialization pamphlets and lectures of the years 1919–1921 (ver, p.ej.,
Neurath and Schumann 1919a; Neurath 1919a, [1920b] 2004, 1920C,
1921). But Neurath was fully conscious of his own double role and he re-
frained from unqualified value judgments in strictly scientific publications
about socialization and its theory, like his essay for the Archiv für Sozial-
wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, a journal once co-edited by Weber, or in a
40. This agreement stated, note that Neurath’s view is more radical insofar as Weber’s
own thesis is compatible with both cognitivism and its denial. Weber’s thesis does not rely
on the failure of value judgments to be truth-valuable at all, but on the impossibility to
overcome the value pluralism of modernity so as to bind all to an intersubjective consensus.
41. For Neurath, the investigation of unrealized possibilities always forms part of sci-
ence; see his [1910] 2004, pag. 278.
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Perspectives on Science
51
monograph published in a series associated with the Vienna Circle (ver,
p.ej., Neurath [1920a] 2004, [1935] 1987).42
It is only the advocay for the implementation of socialization that leaves
the scientific attitude of value neutrality behind, thus distinguishing
Neurath the theoretician and Neurath the activist.43 So Neurath’s social-
ization theory can find a non-compromising place both in Weber’s schema
and vis-à-vis noncognitivism.44 But what about its enlightenment func-
ción? Note what needs to be done in the course of developing these social-
ization plans. To begin with, existing social and economic relations must
be theoretically understood and represented before alternative, posible
ones can be depicted convincingly. Now typically, these socio-economic
relations are not intuitively given or accessible, being typically of a statis-
tical kind.45 Socialization theory depends on these non-obvious facts being
brought to light, además, to be effective as an idea socialization theory
requires that these facts are made widely available.
Here we reach a point that is all too easily lost when we think of
Neurath as a theoretician of planned economies and associate the latter
only with the Soviet Union. There the economic plans were weapons of
the vanguard party that made decisions for the proletariat. Neurath’s
schemes, sin embargo, did not embody this top-down approach. Even though
he generally bracketed questions of the organization of political power (a
point on which he was criticized by fellow socialists) (see Cartwright et al.
1996, páginas. 54–5), his numerous economic organizational plans, varied for
different audiences and circumstances of application, all have this in com-
mon: the planners had to submit their plans as proposals for evaluation and
42. To be sure, the latter makes no bones about where its author stood, pero, impor-
tantly, did not recommend his practical proposals but argued methodological, metatheore-
tical matters.
43. To avoid confusion, it must be noted that this distinction is not congruent with
that implied by Neurath’s characterization of his own role in the Bavarian council republic
en 1919 as an unpolitical technician; on this see Cartwright et al. (1996, pag. 53).
44. This calls into question the adequacy of Menger’s criticism of Neurath’s (incluso
Hahn’s) “conflation of science and politics,” at least as reported in Leonard (2010, pag. 121;
cf. 2010, pag. 162). Unsurprisingly Neurath employed scientific insights in his political advo-
cacy but he did not import unconditional values into scientific reasoning. His repeated claim
that social scientists do not enjoy the status of “extraterritoriality” (p.ej., [1931] 1973, pag. 406;
1944, pag. 46) pertains to the role their science inevitably plays in civic discourse (and echoes
the potential for engaged but non-prescriptive scientific practice that is allowed by Weber’s
demand for value-neurality given the recognized value-relevance of the choice of research
programmes).
45. This important point is stressed by Neurath in his discussion of informational
graphics (1933, pag. 461). To render them intuitive was one of the tasks pursued by Neurath
in post-revolutionary times with ISOTYPE, his afrementioned system of pictorial represen-
tation of statistical relations (see fn. 36 arriba).
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52
Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
possible approval to the “people’s representatives.”46 The experts did not
have the last word: their role was to show what was doable, but they did
not make decisions about what was to be done. Neurath’s conception of
the planner’s role was non-prescriptive and democratic.
Still another important aspect must be noted immediately. To make
rational decisions possible, the planners had to show not only what was
doable, but also how it was doable. Thus they were not just tasked to
develop one comprehensive economic plan, but several. The people’s rep-
resentatives were not constrained to accept or reject one more or less fully
developed plan, but free to select one from different plans on offer. Este
highlights what can be called the “empowering” aspect of the enlighten-
ment ambition of Neurath’s conception: it is not just choice that is the
matter here, but informed choice, for any such choice was to be made in
awareness of what alternatives are foregone. To see how this is accom-
plished we must come back to the concept of calculation in kind by
which the idea of social utility in general and preferred social utility
in particular was to be determined.
How was it to be fixed what the preferred social utility, the preferred
use of resources was? Under market conditions, the question of optimal
resource allocation was answered by the calculation of estimated profit:
given instrumental reason, such decisions were determined for agents by
the market information they possessed. In the absence of markets and
monetary calculation in Neurath’s marketless socialism the decision was
not prefigured for agents by a calculus: now the decision makers had to
reason and argue and, most likely, compromise. Of great importance here
is that decision makers were presented not just with a menu of prospective
final outcomes, but with fairly detailed calculations in kind which ren-
dered plain what kind of resources were being used for what purposes
and in what quantity. The comparison of these plans allowed for informed
judgments concerning alternative uses of given resources. The plurality of
plans made evident not only possibilities which representatives may not
have been aware of, but also their opportunity cost that, depending on
their decision, closed off other options. En suma, Neurath’s socialization
plans served the norm of intersubjective accountability in the process of
transforming social reality: having reasoned and argued about them, el
people or their representatives could hardly avoid “owning” the decisions
they took.
Note then that Neurath’s socialization theory built on a method
designed to induce transparency in the representation and justification
46. See the organizational schemata of his socialization plans in Neurath (1921, Tafel 2)
and compare his remarks at ([1919b] 1973, páginas. 243, 250).
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Perspectives on Science
53
of social interventions. With this it reflects the enlightenment tendency of
Vienna Circle philosophies and logical empiricism generally that focusses
on the norm of intersubjective accountability. To be sure, there are other
points of philosophical contact for Neurath’s socialization theories. Para
instancia, there is his physicalism which relates to the concept of “life
conditions” the improvement of which for the whole population was pro-
grammatic for socialism: without the physicalistic determination of their
criteria any public scrutiny of the effectiveness of the measures taken
would be impossible.47 Nonetheless it is, I believe, the norm of inter-
subjective accountability that best characterizes the point and depth of
the “noteworthy agreement” between Neurath’s socialization theory and
the theories of science of the Vienna Circle.
Similar things can presumably be said for the other causes and move-
ments to which the manifesto and Carnap’s Preface declared the scientific
world conception to be related. Regarded as an epistemic value—or epi-
stemic proto-value48—the norm of intersubjective accountability makes
for the “inner link” between their philosophies and the programs for the
movements for social change with whom particularly the members of the
left Vienna Circle identified. (Even the more conservative wing around
Schlick, despite their reservations about the particular goals in question,
were unable to object to such a link in principle, given their own liberal
democratic outlook.)49
Conclusión
7.
So a shared if submerged normative dimension belongs, después de todo, to the
philosophies of the Vienna Circle and early logical empiricism. To be sure,
it is to be found only on a very abstract level, además, it concerns among
47. On Neurath’s theory of life conditions, see his ([1917] 2004; [1925a] 2004; [1931]
1981, pag. 503; [1937a] 1973.)
48. The “or proto-value” signifies a certain blurred edge of my thesis: I’d like to guard
against expecting too much. As noted, “accountability” does not demand a correct set of
reasons appropriate for the claim or proposal in question, nor the provision of an explicit
framework of rational evaluation, bastante, it demands that claims or proposals are put for-
ward in such a way as to allow for evidence-based evaluation in the first place. So to speak of
“epistemic values” without qualification at all would be misleading insofar as it is not
truth-conduciveness as such (which epistemic values are typically defined in terms of ) eso
characterizes whatever fuflfills this role of “inner link,” but that it makes possible the ra-
tional evaluability of the theses or the estimability of functional adequacy of the proposals
put forth in the first place.
49. What they would have objected to is the manifesto’s “hijacking” of this point
seemingly exclusively for the socialist opposition to the rising tide of Austro-fascism and
German Nazism, pero, de nuevo, that is another matter.
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Intersubjective Accountability in the Left Vienna Circle
all norms only the epistemic ones. pero lo es, because of it, however eccen-
tric such a division may appear, by no means removed from practical con-
sequences. The manifesto gave clear expression to its authors’ recognition of
this very fact not once but twice on its concluding pages. It affirmed in gen-
eral that “the intellectual tools of modern empiricism are to be developed,
tools that are needed also in forming public and private life”, and then en-
joined colleagues and sympathizers that “we have to fashion intellectual tools
for everyday life, for the daily life of the scholar but also for the daily life of
all those who in some way join in working at the conscious reshaping of life”
(Carnap, Hahn, and Neurath ([1928] 2012, pag. 81). It was an essential part of
the Circle’s modernist enlightenment ethos to demand the transparency of
claims and the readiness to give arguments in support of them not only in
the study or lecture hall, but also in the public and civic domain.50
It was in trying to do justice to this demand for accountability that even
Neurath’s theory of socialization made common cause with the principle
underlying the Viennese philosophies of science. It was not the material
content of the attempted improvement of social conditions, but the for-
mal aspect of clear and intersubjectively reconstructable argumentation,
the presentation of intelligible reasons for undertaking the social interven-
tions in question, that makes for what they share. To recognize this it is
not necessary that we must “politicize” all members of the Circle or even,
absurdly, turn them all into supporters of Neurath’s radical program.
Bastante, it is in the insistence on the norm of intersubjective accountability,
applied to reasons for social action by certain transformative movements,
that the “inner kinship” with the philosophies of science of the Vienna
Circle consisted. And it is in their recognition of this “link” generally—
independently of Neurath’s and Carnap’s particular politics which in the
1930s no longer featured as prominently, en todo caso, in their philosophical
writings—that the neglected social and political relevance of the modern-
ist philosophies of logical empiricism lies.
It was not only the fact that the norm of intersubjective accountability
was articulated in such soon-to-be extreme circumstances that rendered it
socio-political. It hardly needs adding that the norm of intersubjective ac-
countability has undiminished relevance in our self-consciously post-
modern times—nor that, closer to home, more theoretical investigation
is needed into this norm that, bordering on the ethical, seem presupposed
50. On the demand for transparency as a distinguishing feature of the Vienna Circle’s
“modernism”—albeit without the foundationalist framework attributed to it—see also Galison
(1990). That the norm of intersubjective accountability resonates with the characteristics of the
scientific world-conception should occasion no surprise either: what it does is crystallize in a
theoretical notion what Romizi (2012) detected as elements in a practical stance.
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Perspectives on Science
55
by all rational discourse.51 But whatever its ultimate status or nature, qué
I hope to have established already here is that the norm of intersubjective
accountability was invoked by theorists of the Vienna Circle as a matter of
historical fact.
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