ABSTRACT

As a central European polymath, with an accompanying broad array of interest and activities, Otto Neurath must be comprehended through multiple contexts that nonetheless form a coherent intellectual and historical backdrop to his work and ideas. Otto Neurath might be thought of as a consummate central European of his time. Born in Vienna in 1882, he was schooled at the Hochschule fur Bodenkultur in the city, an institution devoted to technical learning and the management of resources, offering up a proto-environmental perspective. When Neurath was forced to flee Austria in 1934, he was able to settle in the Netherlands. He remained based there until the German invasion in 1940, when he had to flee once more, this time to England. In light of Neurath's involvement with the Vienna Circle and the conscious embrace of Ernst Mach as a guiding figure for it, albeit with certain not insignificant limitations.