Otto Neurath: biography of this philosopher.

A summary of Otto Neurath's life and academic and philosophical career.

Otto Neurath was an important and multifaceted Marxist philosopher.. Born on December 10, 1882 in Vienna, he was an important philosopher and sociologist who developed several projects throughout his career.

Otto Neurath, not only had knowledge in the area of philosophy and the study of society, but he also had studies in economics, mathematics and history.

In this article we will talk about the life and trajectory of this thinker through a biography of Otto NeurathWe will see his studies and fields of application, his life trajectory in Vienna and abroad, his creation of the well-known ISOTYPE language, his thoughts and finally his contributions and works in the field of knowledge.

Biography of Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath was a very versatile man. Neurath was mainly noted for being the driving force behind the Vienna the driving force behind the Vienna Method of graphical language, also called ISOTYPE language..

During his youth he devoted himself to the study of economics and social sciences abroad, graduating at the age of 24 in Berlin, Germany. He was closely associated with the field of the philosophy of language, known as one of the branches of the philosophy of language.known as one of the branches of philosophy that studies everything related to language. That is, the study of concepts such as truth, learning, meaning, sense, creation of language, experience, thought, and finally the use of language, communication and interpretation, always from a linguistic point of view.

Otto Neurath postulated that it was not legitimate to carry out research on the relations that exist between things, beyond purely linguistic questions.

Trajectory as a thinker

From the time he graduated, Otto Neurath was closely associated with both the University of Berlin and academic circles in Vienna..

He founded the Institute Mundaneum Den Haag - Stichting voor Beeldpaedagogie, an institute dedicated to pedagogy through the image, which was born in Vienna and eventually spread through branches in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Prague, New York and Moscow. In Oxford, he founded an institute of the same kind: the Oxford Institute for Visual Education.

In Vienna, he was director of the Vienna Museum of Society and Economy and was a member of the was a member of the Vienna Circlewhich was considered a group that served as the ideological and organizational core of one of the currents he defended: logical positivism, a theory that emerged during the early twentieth century and postulated that the only way to achieve knowledge is through those experiences that are based on the perception of the senses.

The ISOTYPE language

The ISOTYPE language was a type of visual communication created by Otto Neurath during 1937, accompanied by two graphic designers: Marie Neurath (who would become his wife) and Gernt Arnzt. This language was characterized by being able to express all kinds of messages and information in an exclusively visual way..

Otto Neurath's objectives were to convey information about society and economy in a clear, simple, easy and accessible way, designed for a post-war population with high illiteracy rates at that time.

Thus, was intended to ensure that any citizen, regardless of their studies, would be able to understand the complexity of the world and its nuances. and thus make them real participants in world affairs. Otto Neurath defended the search for a new way of getting information through a simple and easy method of teaching and at the same time learning.

Otto Neurath defined the ISOTYPE language as "a method containing a visual dictionary and a grammar; a new visual world comparable to that of the word". In this way, it was feasible to communicate important problems related to any area of knowledge through a symbolic language based on images.

The ISOTYPE language consisted of a dictionary of symbols with a meaning and a grammar that gives rise to the appropriate rules for assigning meanings. to assign meanings.

In creating the dictionary, the two graphic artists Marie Neurath and Gerd Arntx defined and woodcut hundreds of synthetic drawings, which were sufficient to represent in a nominal way all kinds of things belonging to reality> people, spaces, objects, ideas, cultures, etc.

With the creation of this dictionary, Otto Neurath structured a series of ways of combining symbols, endowing them with functional values for the syntactic construction of the language. Let's give an example to make it easier to understand: a symbol of a jacket and a symbol of a store can be used to make a new one that means a shoe store.

Career abroad

Otto Neurath's career spanned several regions. Between 1931 and 1934 made frequent trips to the Soviet Union, where he worked at the Institute for Visual Statistics in Moscow.. This would lead to consequences, and he would end up threatened with arrest in Vienna after the Austrian fascists seized power.

Subsequently, Otto Neurath traveled directly from Moscow to exile in The Hague, Holland. Out of this event would come a new association with various graphic artists who would end up working with him on the ISOTYPE language model.

In Holland, he extended his ISOTYPE language, and it would end up being called the Viennese method of Pictorial Statistics; later, it was further developed and called the International System of Education by Typographical Figures.

The ISOTYPE program was further expanded in Oxford, England, after Neurath had to leave the Netherlands with the seizure of the country by the Dutch forces. with the seizure of the country by Nazi forces in 1940. Subsequently, Otto Neurath moved to the University of Reading (Oxford, UK) until his death on December 22, 1945.

Thought

Neurath's thought has been documented and labeled as "physicalism".characterized by a tendency to take language into more scientific fields such as physics. That is, language itself ends up being considered a physical act.

In addition, Otto Neurath was always interested in the practical side, and was aware of and sensitive to the problems related to the application of theoretical principles in the social field.

Works

Of his outstanding works and contributions, the following are of special relevance:

• Empirical Sociology (1931)
• Unified Science and Psychology (1933)
• The Development of the Vienna Circle and the Future of Logical Empiricism. (1935)
• International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. (1938).

Bibliographical references:

• Cartwright, N., Cat J., Fleck L,, and Uebel T.E. (2008). Otto Neurath: philosophy between science and politics (original name: Philosophy between science and politics). Cambridge University press.
• Ruiza, M., Fernández, T., and Tamaro, E. (2004). Biography of Otto Neurath. In Biographies and Lives. The online biographical encyclopedia. Barcelona, (Spain).
• Symons, J., Pombo, O., Torres, J.M.. (2010). Otto Neurath and the Unity of Science (original name: Otto Neurath and the Unity of Science). Springer Publishing House.