Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

Delight Springs

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Neurath's Boat, Kaitlyn Williams

Kaitlyn Williams, Section 3

Neurath's Boat

In my midterm presentation I spoke about logical positivism and the contributions of AJ Ayer. Logical positivism focuses on accepting truth based off experience or accepting only what science can prove as true. I’d like to discuss another philosophers take on logical positivism, Otto Neurath, and how he developed his beliefs with Neurath’s boat using economic and social theoriesNeurath’s boat captured the main features of his scientific knowledge regarding the use of qualitative measurements to examine something rather than objective items.  

 

Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher and sociologist who lived from 1882 – 1945. He was a logical positivist who focused on behavioral social and economic theory. Neurath studied ancient cultures, such as Egyptian and Aristotelian, to help shape his view of economics. Specifically, he studied Egyptian visual language and Aristotelian social wealth to develop his ideas regarding economic structure and social structure. Egyptian visual language, hieroglyphics, was inscribed on temples, monuments, and tombs over 5000 years ago. (More on hieroglyphics) The symbols included pictures of people, animals, and objects. Aristotle’s ideas on social wealth focused on the care of common goods versus private property. He contrasted the two believing the public would focus more on caring for their own property rather than the property of the public. Aristotle also examined the human nature of men, and their natural devotion to care for their own self, property, and money. (More on Aristotelian economy)

Neurath studied war economics and formed his theory about natural economy and a holistic requirement of knowledge which would help understand, predict, and control complex social phenomena. Political economy, an interest of Neurath, developed his ideas regarding qualitative measurement and the limits of quantitative measurements. In his study of war economics, he focused on the importance of qualitative measurements instead of solely quantitative. His idea was that a study of qualitative measurements would lead to an account of overall happiness and value, providing for a holistic depiction of social economyHe distinguished the importance of understanding the function of an item and how an item was used to further understand its efficiency while focusing on the availability of resources. Within Neurath’s studies of qualitative measurement he determined the difference between quality of life and the basis of life. He regarded quality of life as happiness, pleasure, and welfare based on one’s experiences. Basis of life was regarded as complex conditions such as housing, food, work, reading, and other aspects of daily life. He termed these complex conditions as “life physiognomy.”  

The Vienna Circle was composed of a group of philosophers who used knowledge of physical and formal sciences to create a new idea of empiricism. Neurath became a part of the Vienna Circle, in which he focused on political and social reform based on Marxist theory. Karl Marx’s economic, social, and political theory revolved around the separations between the upper and lower classes and the idea that eventually the working class would take control of the capitalist economy. Neurath based some of his ideas on Marxist theory and in doing so he developed socialist policies regarding housing and adult education. Neurath’s position regarding the symbolic logical standard unified him with other philosophers of similar beliefs, discussing ideas regarding science and language. 

(more on The Vienna Circle)

 

Being an Austrian philosopher, Neurath was concerned with the debate between monetary market economy or moneyless central planning. Neurath focused his side on moneyless central planning and developed his ideas using the analogy of a boat. The source of his motivation for the boat analogy was a battleship from war time economics. In this explanation he compared economic success to success in battle. The captain of the ship would have to account for things regarding the course of the ship, power of engines, and storageThe supplies and components of the ship are compared to people and things that make up an economy. In a war situation the goal would be to win the battle and in the economic situation to change life situations. The captain of the boat would have to make difficult situations as to how the ship would operate under various conditions, similar to how a leader of an economy would have to make decisions about the people and the conditions regarding their lives. This related to his beliefs about qualitative measurement versus quantitative in the ways that decisions could not be based solely on numbers but conditions like quality of life and complex conditions.

In the analogy, the captain is unable to get off of the boat to visualize what is going on, he has to make decisions about the boat while on the boat. This is comparable to events in our own lives in the way that we are unable to remove ourselves and take a step back from our own situations in order to see the whole picture all at once. We will have to make decisions, or repair our ship, as we continue to live and face the effects of those choices. 

 

 Source list

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-Neurath

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neurath/political-economy.html

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/

https://www.history.com/news/hieroglyphics-facts-ancient-egypt

https://mises.org/library/aristotle-private-property-and-money

1 comment:

  1. What do you see as the philosophical (not just economic/social) implications of Neurath's boat analogy? What does it say about belief, knowledge, certainty etc.?

    ReplyDelete