Edgar Zilsel, Science and Popular Education in Vienna in the Early Twentieth Century

[S. 247] The Scientific World Conception and (Austro)Marxism

‘Man is a social being. He seems to interpret nature not only according to the needs but also after the patterns of society.’ Edgar Zilsel(1)

Towards the end of the nineteenth century there were several simultaneous currents in scientific thinking. On the one hand, in the natural sciences, particularly physics (which was something like the pre-eminent discipline) all ideas redolent of supernatural principles were criticized and eliminated. On the other hand, however, the scientific conception of the world ran into a crisis. Within the mechanistic world-conception of modern science, nature had been conceived of as an enormous machine whose parts were linked to one another and in which phenomena like movement, thrust, pressure and tension could be observed and calculated. In the course of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth centuries this mechanistic view of nature had increasingly been shaken by a series of discoveries and new theoretical considerations (for example in the fields of electromagnetism, optics, thermodynamics, atomic theory). This situation was exploited to question the very possibility of empirically-based, rational knowledge and corresponding approaches to shaping the world, and to legitimize and strengthen once more the various kinds of irrationalism and religiosity that had suffered heavily from the triumph of modern, secular science.

The eminent physicist and theoretician of science, Ernst Mach, (1838-1916), who taught at the Universities of Prague and Vienna, opposed all attempts to reinterpret science metaphysically. For example, in his work [S. 248] Erkenntnis und Irrtum (‘Knowledge and Error’), first published in 1905, he dealt with fundamental theoretical issues of the natural sciences. He considered it of paramount importance ‘to make a sharp distinction between concepts and laws, on the one hand, and facts, on the other’.(2) Forming concepts, constructing statements on the regularities and laws of processes in nature and society represent attempts on the part of man to come to terms with reality, to make it shapable. Now this by no means implies that the so-called laws of nature are ‘merely subjective regulations to which reality is not bound’,(3) but rather that scientific knowledge of nature is a process of active grappling with nature. Laws are not simply found or discovered in nature, nor are they rules for nature; their formulation is the result of a combination of sensory perception, experience, theoretical effort, and work already performed by society (which again has found expression in concepts).

Nature is no longer conceived of as an enormous mechanism with strict, immutable laws, but as something disordered and chaotic. Hence scientific work implies in the first place ordering and structuring this disordered world theoretically, and in the end shaping it methodically. Man does not face this world from the outside, and the world (that is, nature and society) is not a metaphysical object for man; we ourselves are integral parts of this world, which we can actively appropriate through theoretical and practical work.

Mach’s conception of science, involving this emphasis on the tool-like character of theory and on the active shaping of the world through work, was linked to the hope that the general state of existence could be improved, that ‘the material conditions of well-being’ could be created, ‘albeit for the moment unfortunately only for part of the people’. Yet Ernst Mach advocated not leaving this unsatisfactory situation as it was, but ‘passionately and vigorously endeavouring to realize an ethical world-order with the aid of our psychological and sociological insights’. He also made it clear that such an ethical world order consisted of the material accomplishments of human civilization gaining ‘general and equal currency’.(4)

In Mach’s conception science was a collective, social process of unified knowledge and shaping of the world (and not just the sum of the insights of individuals of genius); this in turn meant a cultural affinity with the working classes far exceeding mere sympathy with the cause of the labour movement. For this reason Friedrich Adler, die important theoretician of Austro-Marxism, and himself a scientist, could view Ernst Mach’s conception of [S. 249] science as a major supplement to Marxian theory. Adler championed a unified world-view (such as it was understood by early modern scholarship) not least because ‘views on nature and society are by no means independent of one another’,(5) and because he did not want the materialistic conception of the world to be propped up by (mechanistic) doctrines from physics which were already obsolete.

Just as Marx and Engels’ materialistic conception of history and society neither involved nor entertained any eternally valid dogmas and truths, so must the natural sciences dispense with metaphysical concepts and, along with them, any systematic division of the world into completely different spheres (such as nature and society). Since secularism and a commitment to human well-being in this life were significant components of a materialistic conception of the world, there was a corresponding need to work towards a unity of human cognition and human capacity to fashion the one world we inhabit and the one life we possess. Those who believed in a hereafter, taking refuge in metaphysical speculation and denying the capacity of ordinary people to shape their own destinies, would tend to reject and fight against the unified world-view and the idea that man was fundamentally capable of consciously knowing the world and of methodically shaping it.

The intellectual climate at the turn of the century and the working classes

In academic circles in the German-speaking countries at this time there was almost overwhelming support for the notion that the fields of scientific knowledge must be separated into those concerning nature and those concerning society; and hence came a basic division between the natural sciences and the humanities or ‘cultural’ sciences. The underlying idea was that nature was governed by eternal, immutable laws, whereas the sphere of the ‘mind’ was dominated by ‘personalities of genius’. This attitude was accompanied by disparagement, even contempt, towards manual work, and by an enormous emphasis on intellect, spirit and emotion as opposed to the ‘cold rationality’ of the natural sciences.

This bourgeois intellectual, humanistic attitude held out no opportunity to members of the working classes to develop an independent social identity, but required them to submit to this peculiar ideal of science and education and to assimilate into the ‘German ethnic community’. In contrast, the [S. 250] ‘scientific world-view’, which in the tradition of the Enlightenment and the modern revolutions insisted on a culture of activity, did offer workers the chance to develop a sense of individual self-worth and an awareness of collective identity. At the turn of the century the popular education movement in Vienna, especially, provided a fruitful connection between the ‘scientific world-view’, of which Mach was an exemplary advocate, and the educational and self-educational efforts of numerous members of the working classes. Moreover, Anarchist and anti-authoritarian ideas were very widespread in the closing years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Many workers (particularly skilled ones) had access to books of a scientific character which were products of a tradition of materialism and radical enlightenment. Theory was aimed at political practice, and was not intended to hinder, prevent or replace political action. In the labour movement education never meant the teaching of ostensibly valuable items of knowledge, but always the ability to organize ideas and to acquire knowledge for oneself, coupled with the capacity to recognize one’s own interests and plan for their political implementation. In this context it had always been important as a matter of principle to create through ‘education’ something that could be called an ‘awareness independent of crises’. So the true quality of workers’ education was always to be measured by the development of individual and collective intellectual capacity, and that implied the ability of individuals and collectives to think and act independently (that is, not only in line with the orders of leadership).

The proponents of the scientific world view advocated an autonomous intellectualism and independent rational thinking and planning in the everyday lives of individuals, and in the collective, democratic shaping of society. For them science by no means implied a sphere of purely theoretical contemplation, of ‘pure’ cognition of the world; it essentially meant work. Hence science was a process of actively shaping nature and society. In this conception education could not represent the passive absorption of whatever scientific insights were offered, but must mean active participation in the construction of knowledge and so also in shaping the world.

If science belonged to the sphere of work, then there was a cultural affinity between scientists and the working classes, and not the scorn for manual labour and esteem for the ‘intellectual’ so characteristic of the intellectual bourgeoisie. The popular education movement linked with the scientific [S. 251] world-view was not sustained by petit-bourgeois, ‘humanistic’ condescension towards the lower social classes, but deliberately related to the experiences, knowledge and skills of factory hands and skilled workers, particularly in the technical fields. This meant that workers did not have to adopt alien ‘bourgeois’ cultural traditions and attitudes, but were on the contrary strengthened in their own social identity.

The scientific world-view (from Ernst Mach, through parts of the Monist movement, Friedrich Adler, Alexander Bogdanov, to Otto Neurath, Philipp Frank and Edgar Zilsel) consistently promoted on the basis of scientific insights the development of proletarian self-awareness, and above all the evolution of the intellectual self-organization which was seen as inseparable from it, and which must logically lead to the conscious organization (that is, improvement) of social conditions.

From an overall perspective, however, this also meant the promotion of anti-authoritarian stances and radical democratic efforts and, connected with them, an endeavour to exert political leadership from below. Altogether it implied a striving for the democratic control of the processes of production and distribution, hence a genuine victory over capitalism.

Edgar Zilsel: science, labour and education

Edgar Zilsel was born in Vienna on 11 August 1891, the son of the lawyer Jacob Zilsel. From 1902 to 1910 he attended the Franz Josef Gymnasium in Vienna (today the Federal Grammar School in the Stubenbastei), where he took the Matura (leaving certificate) in July 1910. From the autumn of 1910 until the summer of 1915 he studied philosophy, mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna (with an interruption by military service in 1914-15); he wrote a doctoral thesis entitled ‘Ein philosophischer Versuch über das Gesetz der großen Zahlen und seine Verwandten’ (‘A philosophical essay on the Law of Large Numbers and its relations’), and was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy in June 1915.

Even during his student-days Zilsel was evidently already interested in literary and musical modernism, and took an active part in the Akademischer Verband für Literatur und Musik (Academic Literary and Musical Society). Founded in 1908, this had ‘set itself, a union of students and their friends, the task of working in the field of the arts independently of established movements or existing currents and, particularly, of procuring students a [S. 252] greater share in artistic life and opportunities for artistic activity, thereby forming a complement to the existing scholarly associations’.(6) Readings and talks about music, art and science were organized, and works by Schönberg, Berg and Webern performed; Karl Kraus gave readings, Arnold Schönberg, Adolf Loos and Oskar Kokoschka lectured. One of Zilsel’s earliest publications was not a scientific, but a ‘literary’ article: ‘Mozart und die Zeit: Eine didaktische Phantasie’ (‘Mozart and the age: A didactic imagination’), which appeared in the periodical Der Brenner in December 1912.

From September 1915 Zilsel worked as an actuary in a life insurance company, but resigned after only a year and once again attended university, to prepare for the state examination for the teaching profession. After having worked since February 1917 as an uncertificated secondary-school teacher, he passed the state examination in mathematics, physics and general science in November 1918. On 19 February 1919 Edgar Zilsel married the teacher Dr Ella Breuer. Their son Paul was born on 6 May 1923.

As well as teaching at secondary school Zilsel also taught at the Vienna institutes of adult higher education. From the academic year 1922/23 onwards the school authorities granted him leave of absence so that he could take up a ‘teaching assignment for philosophy and physics’ at the Volksheim (people’s institute) in Ottakring. Thereafter he worked uninterruptedly in popular education in the city until he was dismissed by the Austro-Fascist regime in 1934.

In 1923/24 he made an attempt to qualify as a lecturer at the University of Vienna, but it came to nothing because of the anti-intellectual, anti-empirical stance on the part of leading representatives of the professoriate (particularly Robert Reininger and Richard Meister), which was directed against any original, innovative work seeking to transcended the narrow confines of conventional academic disciplines. In his criticism of the cult of genius and personality Zilsel had attacked an important part of the prevailing academic mystique. Subsequently he continued to devote himself to popular education, school reform in Vienna (he also worked in teacher training at the city’s newly-founded pedagogical institute), the systematic treatment of problems in the theory of science, and above all to his studies of the history of early modern science.

In 1938, after Austria had been delivered into the hands of the National Socialists by the Austro-Fascist regime under Chancellor Schuschnigg and [S. 253] German troops had occupied the country, Zilsel, as a Jew, was dismissed from the teaching profession and sent into compulsory retirement. With his wife and son he managed to go into exile, first in England, then in the United States. On 11 March 1944 he committed suicide.(7)

The whole of Edgar Zilsel’s work must be viewed as offering an alternative to the prevailing intellectual currents and social conditions of his time, as an endeavour building on the civilizational, and at the same time civilizing, models of thought and social coexistence that were produced by a number of intellectuals towards the end of the Austro-Hungarian period. All these formulations were characterized by the fact that, drawing on the experiences of Western civilizations (Britain, the Netherlands, France of the Enlightenment and the Revolution), they propagated rational thinking and acting, a scientific conception of the world and a self-conscious approach to living.

In his first book Das Anwendungsproblem (‘The Problem of Application’), published in 1916, Edgar Zilsel wrote:

We human beings can erect edifices of thought, we can construct theories, we have managed to create numerous sciences. These edifices of thought are comparatively simple, precise and rational, but nature, on the other hand, is complicated, vague and irrational. Moreover, we have devised these rational edifices ourselves according to many different methods, but we must accept nature the way it is. Nevertheless, these intellectual edifices are not just fantasies; irrational nature can still be mastered rationally. With mathematics and physics we can build machines, there seems to be a bridge between theory and practice, theories can be applied to the reality we have been given, the rational to the irrational.(8)

Amidst rampant holistic doctrines, the idolization of nature, the ‘new’ metaphysics, and religiosity, Zilsel, in the heyday of physical knowledge and the physical world-view but in contradiction to the older mechanistic conceptions, stress:

–       the disorder, the chaos and the ‘irrational’ aspect of ‘nature’

–       the possibility of structuring ‘nature’ and the world through scientific knowledge and active formation

–       the possibility of rationalizing the irrational.

Accordingly, man does not merely discover ‘laws of nature’, as if they are found lying by the side of the road and need only to be collected, he creates intellectual tools to structure a reality which is in itself unstructured.

[S. 254] Here the criterion of practice is crucial. (Does a bridge, once built, remain standing, or does it collapse in an instant?) Significance also is the insight that we do not need to know the total situation to be able to act perceptively and formatively. May in our world, too, ‘every partial occurrence be connected with the overall constellation, may the incidence of meteorites on Sirius be of influence on the movement of a ball on earth, but in our world there are partial causes, deterministic links not only of overall constellations, but also of the parts of constellations’?(9) Only in this way is scientific knowledge of the world possible and can the world be formed; observation, experiment, induction, causal thinking, the connection of theory and empiricism, all of these constitute modern science. ‘Truth’ is ‘the determination of something indeterminate, the rationalization of something irrational’.(10)

In his second published book, Die Geniereligion (‘The Religion of Genius’) of 1918, Zilsel not only subjects the cult of genius and ‘profundity’ to devastating criticism, he also formulates in opposition to it the ‘ideal of the matter’, developing his earlier reflections on the ‘rationalization’ of the irrational.(11) He shows how the idolization of supposedly superior individuals – the geniuses and profound personalities – goes hand in hand with a contempt for the masses, how reverence for the activity of some few special spirits, treated as inordinately valuable and ‘creative’, coincides with complete disdain for work in general. (And we must not forget that the notions of genius and originality were closely connected with various racist conceptions of the pre-eminence of the ‘Germanic peoples’ and their creativity.)

One of the achievements of modern science was that everything could be made the subject of investigation and consideration; nothing was to remain sacred and concealed from view. If on principle everything was accessible to human knowledge or could be made accessible, there could be no (as it were) protected sphere of the irrational, which remained immune from rational cognition. The irrational realm certainly exists, but it is not closed to cognition, and hence can be treated rationally. (Edgar Zilsel shared this insight with Sigmund Freud, who – and that was what was truly scandalous about psychoanalysis, of course – had made the reserve of the emotions, the ‘subconscious’, accessible to rational analysis and discussion.) But in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century people did not by any means enjoy access to such insight as a natural entitlement. As Adolf Loos ironically remarked, ‘the introduction of Western culture to Austria was required.(12)

[S. 255] The principles, methods and achievements of modern science had to be presented anew. The intended method was the permanent objectivization of all social processes and in particular evaluations; this entailed a constant relativizing of absolute value judgements, though not to the extent of abandoning in sheer resignation the goal of a rationally organized society, or of simply opposing ‘bad’ dogmas with ‘good’ ones. This approach was supported by the basic conviction that ‘no metaphysical ideal can justify the veneration of people and misanthropy’.(13) What is remarkable about Zilsel’s early work is that it does not make any systematic distinction between scientific behaviour and everyday life, and does not segregate ideas into the specialized disciplines otherwise so popular in philosophy: the scientific conception of the world was intended to determine the everyday lives of intellectuals just as much as anyone else’s.

Long before the Wiener Kreis (Vienna Circle) generated its ‘manifesto’ on the scientific conception of the world, we can find the programme already stated in Zilsel’s writing. For him science was the sum of work-processes which served the purpose of empirically recording and rationally explaining – and hence also rationally structuring – nature and society. Referring to Spinoza amongst others, Zilsel constantly directed criticism against the fundamental categorization of knowledge into the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences, which had established itself as orthodoxy in the German-speaking countries during the latter part of the nineteenth century. In his view the systematic separation of natural and social science diminished altogether the human cognitive faculty, and also the possibility of moulding nature and society consciously and methodically.

In his studies in the history of science Zilsel would later show that modern science, originating in latter-day Europe (and nowhere else), was the result of a sum of social processes (historically traceable), and not the consequence of racial characteristics and the superiority of the ‘Indo-Europeans’.(14) Moreover, he constantly pointed out how much scientific statements and theories are determined by the social conditions of the time, and that for this reason no meaningful division into natural and social sciences can be made – except at the price that the conditions of scientific activity cannot be adequately reflected in theory (a state, of course, in which we find ourselves today). The systematic connection between cerebral and manual work, between artisan tradition and theoretical scholarship, accompanied by [S. 256] sustained co-operation on the part of researchers, based on the division of labour, to which modern science owes its origins and existence, was more than a process traceable through history; the beginnings of the modern sciences offered a wealth of examples, models and programmes, not only for the scientific community, but ones capable of being applied, above all, in the social coexistence of humankind in general. An investigation of the history of science presented examples of civilizational alternatives to Central European barbarism, but also exemplary approaches to the future organization of society within the bounds of a comprehensive culture of work (and not a debased culture of survival in a relentless capitalist contest).

In his early works, which were written and published in the closing years of the Austro-Hungarian era, and in open conflict with contemporary ‘intellectuals’ (ideologues like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Otto Weiniger), Zilsel was already seeking to propagate the scientific conception of the world in its bearing on the lives not only of scholars, but of all people. After the foundation of the democratic Austrian Republic in 1918 he committed himself to the movement for school reform and to popular education. In an essay written in 1921 he declared it the task of philosophy ‘to build a homogeneous edifice of truth encompassing the whole of nature and all the goals of life and art’. The aim was ‘the synthesis of individual knowledge and living action in a uniform world view’. Accordingly, philosophy had to attempt ‘to establish not only the unity of science’, but also ‘to unite the fundamental problems of the living and acting human being with those of the scientist, and human obligations and emotions with human cognition’.(15) For Zilsel philosophy should be orientated according to human action and human capacity to act, it should establish links between the particular disciplines of science as well as between science and everyday life.

The scientific world conception, the Wiener Kreis and popular education

‘Scientists, united by a common language, form a kind of scholars’ republic of work, however much else may divide men.’ Otto Neurath(16)

What Zilsel in 1921, following traditional usage, still called ‘philosophy’ –albeit differentiating it from the conventional ‘school philosophy’ – would later be termed ‘unified science’. Here science is conceived of as a collective activity, the methodically planned and executed, co-ordinated collaboration [S. 257] of diverse specialists, as a contribution to the amelioration of human existence. Science is no longer to be abstracted and isolated from the everyday lives of the mass of the population. Rational thinking, planning and acting are no longer to be merely the business of experts, belonging to the ‘domain of the ruling élite’, but to be the property of all.

The project of ‘unified science’ was not a gratuitously contrived and propagated idea, but the expression of a process already under way, the industrialization and socialization of science. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries scientific knowledge and its conversion into technologies and technical inventions had become increasingly integrated in the processes of industrial production. It was not (and still is not) the brilliant scholar in his study, but the employee of a publicly or privately financed research institute or industrial department who represented the normal instance of the scientist. Nevertheless, this ‘industrialization’ of science took place under the aegis of the private capitalist profit motive and hence by no means benefited as many people as it might otherwise have done. This kind of capitalist socialization, of course, found a correlation in the isolation of science from life and its dismemberment into many specialisms.

In contrast to this, the representatives of the scientific conception of the world of the Wiener Kreis concerned themselves with the non-capitalist socialization of science. And this, they believed, would succeed to the extent that the scientific conception of the world came, in Otto Neurath’s words, to pervade ‘the forms of public and private life’ and help ‘shape economic and social life according to rational principles’.(17) Accordingly, scientific knowledge and insights could not remain the preserve of a few, but were to be made accessible as widely as possible: everyone was to co-operate ‘actively or receptively’. From this necessarily followed the close connection between scientific activity and work in education.

The truly radical aspect of the Vienna Circle’s scientific conception of the world lay not in physicalism or political party affiliations, but in its redefinition of the social position and tasks of science, in its subversive attempt to democratize science, and in its systematic linkage of science, education and everyday life. In 1929 the declaration Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung – Der Wiener Kreis (‘Scientific Conception of the World – The Vienna Circle’) was published under the auspices of the ‘Veröffentlichungen des Vereines Ernst Mach’ (Publications of the Ernst Mach Society), of which [S. 258] Zilsel was a member of the managing committee. In the preface to the document it was pointed out that the Kreis ‘consists of people with the same scientific outlook; the individual seeks integration, everybody stresses what is common to all, nobody wants to disturb the community with his own peculiarities. [lt] endeavours to contact like-minded people and to exert influence on outsiders. Co-operation in the Ernst Mach Society is the expression of this undertaking.’

These efforts were aimed at ‘linking and harmonizing the achievements of individual researchers in their different fields of science’ and at familiarizing the public at large with ‘the present position of the scientific conception of the world’ by means of ‘lectures and publications’. It was intended ‘to fashion intellectual tools for everyday life, for the daily lives of scholars, but also for the lives of all those who in some way join in consciously shaping life’. The purpose was to ‘form the intellectual tools of modern empiricism, tools that are also needed to organize public and private life’. A primary aim of the representatives of the scientific conception of the world was the unity of science. This goal necessitated ‘the emphasis on collective effort’:

Neatness and clarity are striven for, and obscure distances and unfathomable depths rejected. [...] Everything is accessible to man; and man is the measure of all things. Here there is an affinity with the Sophists, not with the Platonists; with the Epicureans, not with the Pythagoreans; with all those who stand for earthly being and the here and now. The scientific conception of the world knows no insoluble riddles.(18)

The idea that such scientific aspirations might be pursued in institutes of adult education seems completely absurd today, but that was the reality in Vienna of the inter-war years (not least because established professors used their position to debar important scholars from making a university career). In the Viennese institutes of adult higher education, progressive results of science which were controversial and banned in bourgeois academia (anything from the theory of relativity to psychoanalysis) found a stronghold, as did new models of scientific activity in education. There is a close structural connection between scientific activity and rationalist approaches to education: especially when education is understood as the process of establishing the connection between scientific knowledge and individual and collective perspectives on life.

Representatives of the scientific conception of the world, such as Otto [S. 259] Neurath, Edgar Zilsel, Friedrich Waismann and Viktor Kraft, taught at these centres in Vienna. The popular education movement in the city seems to have been remarkably successful in communicating scientific knowledge and linking it to the outlook and personal development of the participants, particularly at the Volksheim in Ottakring. At that period adult higher education reached into all strata of society; in some years it was even the case that blue-collar workers and office employees were considerably over-represented in proportion to their numbers in the population at large.(19)

Although the strict observance of ideological and political neutrality was one of the principles of the Vienna adult education centres, many workers were evidently of the opinion that the courses offered were of great importance for their lives and might help them to create their own view of the world and plan their future. The Viennese movement, neutral in principle, was by no means neutral or unpolitical in effect. It seems to have conveyed knowledge and accomplishments that enabled the participants to develop their thoughts independently and, in conjunction with others, better to understand and shape social conditions. In this respect the popular education movement in Vienna made a significant contribution towards the education of the working classes.

References

(1) Edgar Zilsel, The genesis of the concept of physical law, Philosophical Review (1942), 245-279 (279).

(2) Ernst Mach, Erkenntnis und Irrtum new edn (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), 456.

(3) Mach (1976), 458.

(4) Mach (1976), 463.

(5) Friedrich Adler, Ernst Machs Überwindung des mechanischen Materialismus (Wien, Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1918), 161.

(6) Heinrich Nowak, Die Sonnenseuche (Wien/Berlin, Medusa Verlag, 1984), 190-191.

(7) Johann Dvořák, Edgar Zilsel und die Einheit der Erkenntnis (Wien, Löcker 1981), 19-26.

(8) Edgar, Zilsel, Das Anwendungsproblem (Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1916), v.

(9) Zilsel (1916), 102.

(10) Zilsel (1916), 165.

(11) Edgar Zilsel, Die Geniereligion new edn (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1990). See also Zilsel, Die Entstehung des Geniebegriffs (Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1926).

(12) Paul Stefan, Das Grab in Wien (Berlin, Erich Reiß, 1913), 219-220. 13. Zilsel (1990), 216.

(14) Edgar Zilsel, Die sozialen Ursprünge der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1976).

(15) Edgar Zilsel, Der einführende Philosophieunterricht an den neuen Oberschulen, Volkserziehung (1921), 324-341 (325, 328).

(16) Otto Neurath, Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schriften (2 volumes, Wien, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1981), 610.

(17) Neurath (1981), 304.

(18) Neurath (1981), 300, 304.

(19) Norbert Kutalek and Hans Fellinger, Zur Wiener Volksbildung (Wien/München, Jugend Lind Volk, 1969), 199.

(Wortwahl, Grammatik, Rechtschreibung und Zeichensetzung entsprechen dem Original. Ausdrücke in runden Klammern stehen auch im Original in runden Klammern. Hochgestellte Fußnotenzahlen im Original wurden ebenfalls in runde Klammern gesetzt. In eckigen Klammern stehen sowohl Ergänzungen beziehungsweise Auslassungen des Autors in Originalzitaten als auch die Zahl der jeweiligen Seite des Originaltextes.)