1. Introduction: the Vienna Circle, Carnap and Neurath
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The Vienna Method in Amsterdam: Peter Alma's Office for Pictorial Statistics Benjamin Benus, Wim Jansen
The Vienna Method in Amsterdam: Peter Alma’s Office for Pictorial Statistics Benjamin Benus, Wim Jansen The Dutch artist and designer, Peter Alma (see Figure 1), is today remembered for his 1939 Amstel Station murals, as well as for Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/desi/article-pdf/32/2/19/1715594/desi_a_00379.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 his earlier involvement with the Cologne-based Gruppe progres- siver Künstler [Progressive Artists’ Group]. Yet Alma also pro- duced an extensive body of information graphics over the course of the 1930s. Working first in Vienna at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum [Social and Economic Museum] (GWM) and later setting up an independent design firm in Amsterdam, Alma became one of the principal Dutch practitioners and promoters of the design approach known as the “Vienna Method of Picto- rial Statistics.” To date, most accounts of this method’s history have focused on its chief inventor, Austrian social scientist Otto Figure 1 Neurath, and his principal collaborators, Germans Marie Neurath August Sander, photograph of Peter Alma, (née Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz.1 Yet Alma’s work in pictorial late 1920s. Private collection. Reproduced by permission from Sinja L. Alma and statistics also constitutes a substantial chapter in this history, Peter L. Alma. although it has not yet been fully appreciated or adequately docu- mented.2 In addition to providing an account of Alma’s role in the 1 For a detailed history of the Vienna development and dissemination of the Vienna Method, this essay Method, see Christopher Burke, Eric assesses the nature of Alma’s contribution to the field of informa- Kindel, and Sue Walker, eds., Isotype: tion design and considers the place of his pictorial statistics work Design and Contexts, 1925–1971 within his larger oeuvre. -
Gallery Guide 7
���������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������ ����������������������������������������� isotype International picture language 10 December 2010 – 13 March 2011 isotype Society and economy (International System Of TYpographic Picture Education) was a method for assembling, configuring and disseminating Isotype was forged in the optimism of the first Austrian information and statistics through pictorial means. Republic. It was developed from 1924 at the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna, where it was first called the Its initiator, Otto Neurath, described it as a ‘language-like Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics. technique’ characterised by consistency in the use of graphic elements. The basic elements are pictograms – simplified The Social and Economic Museum was funded by the Social pictures of people or things, designed to function as repeat- Democratic municipality of Vienna and shared its socialist able units. agenda. It was not what is usually thought of as a museum: its director Otto Neurath stated that instead of a treasure From its beginnings in Vienna of the 1920s, Isotype spread to chest of rare objects, it should be a teaching museum. The the Netherlands, Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States principal exhibits were charts made with the Vienna Method and elsewhere. Its potential for communicating with people in order to ‘represent social facts pictorially’, as a way of of all ages and nationalities was explored in a wide range of Chart from Gesellschaft communicating with both young people and adults. projects and publications through the 1960s. und Wirtschaft (Society The museum had a global-historical outlook, which it The story of Isotype presents a case study of the Modern and Economy). 1930. -
University of Groningen Neurath, Arntz, and ISOTYPE Jansen
University of Groningen Neurath, Arntz, and ISOTYPE Jansen, Wim Published in: Journal of Design History DOI: 10.1093/jdh/epp015 IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2009 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Jansen, W. (2009). Neurath, Arntz, and ISOTYPE: The Legacy in Art, Design, and Statistics. Journal of Design History, 22(3), 227-242. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epp015 Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 25-09-2021 Journal of Design History Vol. 22 No. 3 doi:10.1093/jdh/epp015 Neurath, Arntz and ISOTYPE: The Legacy in Art, Design and Statistics Wim Jansen To remember simplifi ed pictures is better than to forget accurate fi gures. 1 In the fi rst decades of the twentieth century, Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz invented the ‘ Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics ’ (Wiener Bildstatistik). -
Logical Empiricism / Positivism Some Empiricist Slogans
4/13/16 Logical empiricism / positivism Some empiricist slogans o Hume’s 18th century book-burning passage Key elements of a logical positivist /empiricist conception of science o Comte’s mid-19th century rejection of n Motivations for post WW1 ‘scientific philosophy’ ‘speculation after first & final causes o viscerally opposed to speculation / mere metaphysics / idealism o Duhem’s late 19th/early 20th century slogan: o a normative demarcation project: to show why science ‘save the phenomena’ is and should be epistemically authoritative n Empiricist commitments o Hempel’s injunction against ‘detours n Logicism through the realm of unobservables’ Conflicts & Memories: The First World War Vienna Circle Maria Marchant o Debussy: Berceuse héroique, Élégie So - what was the motivation for this “revolutionary, written war-time Paris (1914), heralds the ominous bugle call of war uncompromising empricism”? (Godfrey Smith, Ch. 2) o Rachmaninov: Études-Tableaux Op. 39, No 8, 5 “some of the most impassioned, fervent work the composer wrote” Why the “massive intellectual housecleaning”? (Godfrey Smith) o Ireland: Rhapsody, London Nights, London Pieces a “turbulant, virtuosic work… Consider the context: World War I / the interwar period o Prokofiev: Visions Fugitives, Op. 22 written just before he fled as a fugitive himself to the US (1917); military aggression & sardonic irony o Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin each of six movements dedicated to a friend who died in the war x Key problem (1): logicism o Are there, in fact, “rules” governing inference -
Politics and Philosophy in the Left Vienna Circle
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.” 1. Introduction 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, in turn, variable ver- sions of the doctrine of the value-neutrality of science. For instance, 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. -
The Subterranean Influence of Pragmatism on the Vienna Circle: Peirce, Ramsey, Wittgenstein
JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY THE SUBTERRANEAN INflUENCE OF PRAGMATISM ON THE VOLUME 4, NUMBER 5 VIENNA CIRCLE: PEIRCE, RAMSEY, WITTGENSTEIN CHERYL MISAK EDITOR IN CHIEF KEVIN C. KLEMENt, UnIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS An underappreciated fact in the history of analytic philoso- EDITORIAL BOARD phy is that American pragmatism had an early and strong in- GaRY EBBS, INDIANA UnIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON fluence on the Vienna Circle. The path of that influence goes GrEG FROSt-ARNOLD, HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES from Charles Peirce to Frank Ramsey to Ludwig Wittgenstein to HENRY JACKMAN, YORK UnIVERSITY Moritz Schlick. That path is traced in this paper, and along the SANDRA LaPOINte, MCMASTER UnIVERSITY way some standard understandings of Ramsey and Wittgen- LyDIA PATTON, VIRGINIA TECH stein, especially, are radically altered. MARCUS ROSSBERG, UnIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT MARK TEXTOR, KING’S COLLEGE LonDON AUDREY YAP, UnIVERSITY OF VICTORIA RICHARD ZACH, UnIVERSITY OF CALGARY REVIEW EDITORS JULIET FLOYD, BOSTON UnIVERSITY CHRIS PINCOCK, OHIO STATE UnIVERSITY ASSISTANT REVIEW EDITOR SEAN MORRIS, METROPOLITAN STATE UnIVERSITY OF DenVER DESIGN DaNIEL HARRIS, HUNTER COLLEGE JHAPONLINE.ORG C 2016 CHERYL MISAK THE SUBTERRANEAN INflUENCE OF saving labor, is . true instrumentally. Satisfactorily . means PRAGMATISM ON THE VIENNA CIRCLE: PEIRCE, more satisfactorily to ourselves, and individuals will emphasize their points of satisfaction differently. To a certain degree, there- RAMSEY, WITTGENSTEIN fore, everything here is plastic. (James 1975, 34–35)2 CHERYL MISAK It was Peirce’s more sophisticated pragmatism that influenced Ramsey. C. K. Ogden, inventor of Basic English, publisher of the Tractaus, and co-author of The Meaning of Meaning, was Ram- sey’s mentor from the time he was a schoolboy. -
Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: the Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017
The Review of Austrian Economics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-018-0428-1 Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017. xviii + 480 pages. $17.99 (hardcover) Erwin Dekker1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 It might be time for a revival of the demarcation principles between science and non- science of the Vienna circle and of Karl Popper’s critical rationalism if we are to believe the title of Karl Sigmund’sbookExact Thinking in Demented Times. Not only because he shows a deep appreciation for their thought in this book, but also because the title seems to contain a clear allusion to our own age. The book accompanied an Austrian 2015 exhibition on the Vienna Circle and the original German title of the book even suggests that these philosophers were thinking at the edge of the abyss, so what is there to learn about exact thinking in demented times from it? What Sigmund, an accomplished evolutionary game theorist, manages to do in the book is to provide a vivid portrayal of the different characters within and around the Vienna Circle, the most famous of the many circles that made up intellectual life in Vienna during the first decades of the twentieth century. We get to know the energetic and boisterous Otto Neurath with his red manes, the enigmatic and elusive Ludwig Wittgenstein, we meet the cautious Moritz Schlick who acts as the pater familias of the group of revolutionary philosophers, and perhaps the most systematic of them all Rudolf Carnap. -
OTTO NEURATH Mo
Weitere Angebote Öffnungszeiten OTTO NEURATH Mo. – Do.: 8.00 – 18.00 Uhr Wirtschaftslehrpfad Fr.: 8.00 – 14.00 Uhr SPRECHENDE ZEICHEN Aktuelle Informationen aus Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft werden anschaulich und leicht verständlich dargestellt. Kein Besucher/-innen-Betrieb während der Wiener Schulferien Computer- und Medienraum und an Feiertagen. 40 iMacs mit interaktiven Multimedia-Programmen und Internetanschluss stehen für Sie bereit. Gruppenführungen und Seminare Gruppenführungen und Seminare sind ab zehn 100 Jahre Leben und Wohnen in Wien Personen nach tele foni scher Vereinbarung Besucher/-innen haben die Möglichkeit, Lebens- und jederzeit möglich. Wohnverhältnisse sinnlich nachzuempfinden. Eintritt LÖWE – Lernwerkstatt Österreichs € 2,50 pro Person Wirtschaft Elementar Führungsgebühr für Gruppen: Schüler/-innen von 9 bis 12 Jahren werden hier altersgerecht € 2,50 pro Person Begriffe der Wirtschaft vermittelt. Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach-Erlebnisausstellung Anhand von anschaulichen Exponaten und Experimenten wird das Schaffen eines der größten Genies Österreichs „beleuchtet“. Galerie der Sammler/-innen In diesem Ausstellungsforum zeigen private Sammler/-innen im Halbjahresrhythmus ihre „Schätze“. Wanderausstellungen an Schulen Referent(en)innen informieren im Rahmen von Vortragsveran- staltungen junge Menschen in Schulen in ganz Österreich. Otto Neuraths Bildunterschrift österreichisches gesellschafts- und wirtschaftsmuseum vogelsanggasse 36 | 1050 wien tel +43(0)1-545 25 51 www.wirtschaftsmuseum.at [email protected] @Wirtschaftsmuseum Wirtschaftsmuseum_Wien Eine Ausstellung im (@wirtschaftsmuseum) Indoor | Otto Neurath – Sprechende Zeichen Was man mit einem Bild zeigen kann, OTTO NEURATH 1882 – 1945 muss man nicht mit Worten sagen. SOZIOLOGE, ÖKONOM, VOLKSBILDNER, UNIVERSALGENIE Piktogramme im Wandel der Zeit VOM ZUNFTZEICHEN Otto Neurath wird am 10. Dezember 1882 in Wien geboren. Schon als Kind interessiert er sich in der Bibliothek seines Vaters, ZUM LEITSYSTEM ein Wirtschaftswissenschafter, für bildliche Darstellungen. -
Passmore, J. (1967). Logical Positivism. in P. Edwards (Ed.). the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Vol. 5, 52- 57). New York: Macmillan
Passmore, J. (1967). Logical Positivism. In P. Edwards (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Vol. 5, 52- 57). New York: Macmillan. LOGICAL POSITIVISM is the name given in 1931 by A. E. Blumberg and Herbert Feigl to a set of philosophical ideas put forward by the Vienna circle. Synonymous expressions include "consistent empiricism," "logical empiricism," "scientific empiricism," and "logical neo-positivism." The name logical positivism is often, but misleadingly, used more broadly to include the "analytical" or "ordinary language philosophies developed at Cambridge and Oxford. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The logical positivists thought of themselves as continuing a nineteenth-century Viennese empirical tradition, closely linked with British empiricism and culminating in the antimetaphysical, scientifically oriented teaching of Ernst Mach. In 1907 the mathematician Hans Hahn, the economist Otto Neurath, and the physicist Philipp Frank, all of whom were later to be prominent members of the Vienna circle, came together as an informal group to discuss the philosophy of science. They hoped to give an account of science which would do justice -as, they thought, Mach did not- to the central importance of mathematics, logic, and theoretical physics, without abandoning Mach's general doctrine that science is, fundamentally, the description of experience. As a solution to their problems, they looked to the "new positivism" of Poincare; in attempting to reconcile Mach and Poincare; they anticipated the main themes of logical positivism. In 1922, at the instigation of members of the "Vienna group," Moritz Schlick was invited to Vienna as professor, like Mach before him (1895-1901), in the philosophy of the inductive sciences. Schlick had been trained as a scientist under Max Planck and had won a name for himself as an interpreter of Einstein's theory of relativity. -
Vienna Circle Institute Library
Vienna Circle Institute Library Volume 4 Series editor Friedrich Stadler University of Vienna, Institute Vienna Circle, Wien, Austria Institut Wiener Kreis Society for the Advancement of the Scientifi c World Conception Advisory Editorial Board: Ilkka Niiniluoto, University of Helsinki, Finland Jacques Bouveresse, Collège de France, Paris, Otto Pfersmann, Université Paris I Panthéon – France Sorbonne, France Martin Carrier, University of Bielefeld, Germany Miklós Rédei, London School of Economics, UK Nancy Cartwright, London School of Alan Richardson, University of British Economics, UK Columbia, CDN Richard Creath, Arizona State University, USA Gerhard Schurz, University of Düsseldorf, Massimo Ferrari, University of Torino, Italy Germany Michael Friedman, Stanford University, USA Peter Schuster, University of Vienna, Austria Maria Carla Galavotti, University of Bologna, Karl Sigmund, University of Vienna, Austria Italy Hans Sluga, University of California at Berkeley, Peter Galison, Harvard University, USA USA Malachi Hacohen, Duke University, USA Elliott Sober, University of Wisconsin, USA Rainer Hegselmann, University of Bayreuth, Antonia Soulez, Université de Paris 8, France Germany Wolfgang Spohn, University of Konstanz, Michael Heidelberger, University of Tübingen, Germany Germany Thomas E. Uebel, University of Manchester, UK Don Howard, University of Notre Dame, USA Pierre Wagner, Université de Paris 1, Sorbonne, Paul Hoyningen-Huene, University of Hanover, France Germany C. Kenneth Waters, University of Minnesota, USA Clemens Jabloner, -
Isotype: Representing Social Facts Pictorially
Isotype representing social facts pictorially Christopher Burke (Paper given at the conference ‘Data Designed For Decisions’, OECD, Paris, June 2009) Keywords: Isotype, Otto Neurath, pictograms, strong emphasis on cultural and educational projects, symbols, transformer, visual communication, graphic hence the generous funding for the Gesellschafts- und design, Red Vienna, decision making, economics Wirtschaftsmuseum. It was not what one usually thinks of as a museum. In developing Isotype, Otto Neurath and his In his opening statements about it Neurath declared colleagues were the first to systematically explore a that it was not a treasure chest of rare objects, but a consistent visual language as part of an encyclopedic teaching museum. The aim was to ‘represent social approach to representing all aspects of the physical facts pictorially’ (Neurath, 1926) and to bring ‘dead world. The pictograms used in Isotype have a statistics’ to life by making them visually attractive and secure legacy in today’s public information symbols, memorable (Neurath, 1925, p.5). In order to do this the but Isotype was more than this: it was designed museum also innovated with interactive models and to communicate social facts memorably to less- other attention-grabbing devices, such as metal maps educated groups, including schoolchildren and covered with magnetic symbols, and there were even workers, reflecting its initial testing ground in the some early experiments with animated films. socialist municipality of Vienna during the 1920s. The areas of society that were represented make clear The social engagement and methodology of Isotype how embedded the museum’s work was in the context are examined here in order to draw some lessons for of Red Vienna. -
O'neill, Jesse. “Book Review – Isotype: Design and Contexts 1925–1971”
Page !1 of !4 O’Neill, Jesse. “Book Review – Isotype: Design and Contexts 1925–1971”, Architectural Theory Review 19:2 (2014), pp. 259–262. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13264826.2014.968954 ISSN 1326-4826 Christopher Burke, Eric Kindel and Sue Walker (eds.), Isotype: Design and Contexts 1925–1971, London: Hyphen, 2013. ISBN 978-0-907259-47-3 Reviewed by Jesse O'Neill After returning to Vienna in the early 1920s, the social scientist Otto Neurath established the Museum for Settlement and Town Planning, a small organization intent on guiding the citizen- led building campaign then taking place on the outskirts of the city. In 1925 the institute became the Museum for Society and Economy, reflecting Neurath’s growing ambitions. He began by organizing exhibits on urban life in Vienna, its physical and human infrastructures, social insurance, and hygiene. By the end of his life, Neurath had compiled educational material on merchant navies, unemployment, life in India, women’s underwear, shoe production in the USSR, war-time recycling, and many other topics loosely classified under the catch-all terms, society and economy. Driving this production was Neurath’s consolidation of a new approach to visual display, first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, and now remembered for its later title Isotype, the International System of Typographic Picture Education. A product of 1920s central European thought, Isotype is imprinted with three major influences: post-war utopianism, logical positivism, and the internationalist drive of the political Left. Through their work, Neurath and his collaborators – chiefly the mathematician Marie Reidemeister (later Marie Neurath) and illustrator Gerd Arntz – were constructing a system of universal graphic principles.