Introduction to Otto Neurath’s “Bourgeois Marxism” (1930) and “Worldview and Marxism” (1931)

Alan Scott

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/10821

Authors

Alan Scott University of New England (Australia) and University of Innsbruck (Austria). http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2547-1637
Alan Scott is Professor of Sociology at the University of New England (Australia) and an adjunct at the University of Innsbruck (Austria). Recent publications include, as co-author with Antonino Palumbo, Remaking Market Society (Routledge, 2018) and "(Plebiscitary) Leader Democracy: The Return of an Illusion?" (Thesis Eleven, 148, 2018). He is currently working on political and intellectual debates in Red Vienna.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/10821

Keywords:

Austro-Marxism, Karl Mannheim, logical empiricism, Marxist vs. bourgeois sociology, Otto Neurath

Abstract

We are publishing two short pieces by Otto Neurath, a key figures in the Vienna Circle of logical empiricists, but also a social scientist close to the milieu of Austro-Marxism: "Bourgeois Marxism. A review essay on Karl Mannheim, Ideologie und Utopie" (Der Kampf, 1930) and "Worldview and Marxism" (Der Kampf, 1931). The translations are preceded by the editor's/translator's introduction. Neither piece seems to have been previously translated. The critique of Mannheim will be of particular interest to sociologists as it represents a trenchant response to Ideology and Utopia. For Neurath, Mannheim appropriates Marxist ideas for "bourgeois sociology" and metaphysics. The second piece presents a brief non-technical account of the logical empiricist interpretation of Marxism from which Neurath's critique is launched.

References

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Introduction to Otto Neurath’s “Bourgeois Marxism” (1930) and “Worldview and Marxism” (1931)

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