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

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.