21.11. - Lecture Series HOPOS/HPS, Vienna Circle Society

Silvia Rief & Alan Scott: Vortrag zu: "The political flexibility of a theory: Holism between pluralism and anti-pluralism in early twentieth-century Vienna"

21.11.2025, 14:00, Vienna Circle Society, Universitätscampus Wien

Abstract: In Otto Neurath's dramatic formulation from the 1930s, metaphysics was part of the "bourgeois front" while empiricism and empirical research found common cause with the "proletarian front". But is the relationship between an epistemological stance and a political position this clearcut? The assertion of such a non-contingent relationship has been challenged by those for whom this is an entirely empirical matter, "the same" theory can be used across political divides and for divergent political ends. We take holism in interwar Vienna as a test case. Holism there was associated with reactionary thought, notably that of Othmar Spann. We examine examples of holist and functionalist thinking in left-wing theory building in: (i) Max Adler's "social a priori"; (ii) Otto Bauer's and Karl Polanyi's "functional democracy" and (iii) Otto Neurath’s economic "socialization". While elements of holism are found in each of these, this does not clinch the case for the empirical/skeptical view.