Otto Neuraths Economics in Context (Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook)

✍ Scribed by Elisabeth Nemeth

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 237
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Otto Neurath (1882-1945) was a highly unorthodox thinker both in philosophy and economics. He proposed a radically expanded scope of economic analysis that would facilitate a comparative and systematic study of the impact of a great variety of economic and political measures on a population s well-being. Neurath regarded the controversial and widely misunderstood concept of calculation in kind as an indispensable instrument for anyone (economist or politician) who sought to analyze economic relationships from a wider perspective than that of price formation under market conditions. What is the impact of alternative (economic, political or organisational) measures on living conditions? What are the appropriate methods to compare and to rationally choose among alternative measures? In Neurath s opinion, answers to these questions are crucial for every democratic government. The contributions to this sparkling new book conclude that Neurath touched on many of the most critical problems of economic theory during its formative years as a modern discipline; his economics provides insights into the foundational problems of modern economics and should encourage contemporary economic theorists to critically reflect their own hidden presumptions. Neurath s arguments continue to challenge the foundations of today s neo-liberal approach to political-economy. They have also been rediscovered by researchers in the fields of ecological economics and of sustainable development as visionary and original. His comprehensive theory of life conditions and life quality anticipated the questions development economists and the general public meet today.

✦ Table of Contents

Part I: Neurath's Economics in Context......Page 7
Introduction......Page 11
"Freeing up One's Point of View": Neurath's Machian Heritage Compared with Schumpeter's......Page 20
Otto Neurath as an Austrian Economist: Behind the Scenes of the Early Socialist Calculation Debate......Page 44
Otto Neurath's Concepts of Socialization and Economic Calculation and his Socialist Critics......Page 67
Pluralism and Economic Institutions......Page 83
Neurath on Money: Some Reflections on Neurath's Monetary Thought in the Historical Context of the Birth of Modern Monetary Economics......Page 107
A Similar Line of Thought in Neurath and Sen: Interpersonal Comparability......Page 121
The War Economy and the War Museum: Otto Neurath and the Museum of War Economy in Leipzig, c. 1918......Page 137
Economy, Ideology and Culture: Otto Neurath's Approach to a Precarious Relationship......Page 146
Part II: General Part......Page 161
Consensus in Art and Science......Page 162
Analyticity and the A Priori: Fifty Years of "Two Dogmas"......Page 176
A Second Appraisal: New French Literature on Logical Empiricism......Page 186
Moritz Schlick, Über die Reflexion des Lichtes in einer inhomogenen Schicht and Raum und Zeit in den gegenwärtigen Physik. Gesamtausgabe. Abt. I, Bd. II. Fynn Ole Engler and Matthias Neuber, eds. (Wien: Springer-Verlag, 2006). Ix + 412pp. $98.27......Page 199
George A. Reisch, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science. To the Icy Slopes of Logic, Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005......Page 204
Rudolf Carnap, Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie und andere metaphysikkritische Schriften, ed. by Thomas Mormann (2004). Michael Stöltzner and Thomas E. Uebel (eds.), Wiener Kreis. Texte zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung, von Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick, Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn, Karl Menger, Edgar Zilsel und Gustav Bergmann (2006)......Page 211
Jan Radler, Victor Krafts konstruktiver Empirismus. Eine historische und philosophische Untersuchung. Berlin: Logos, 2006......Page 215
Jutta Schickore and Friedrich Steinle (eds.), Revisiting Discovery and Justification. Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on the Context Distinction. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006......Page 218
Galavotti, Maria Carla, Philosophical Introduction to Probability, Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2005. [=CSLI Lecture Notes Number 167]......Page 223
Activities of the Institute Vienna Circle......Page 227
D......Page 233
K......Page 234
R......Page 235
Z......Page 236