ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Otto Neurath's idea of science and of the role that scientists should have in society. It relates how Neurath, in the course of the years between the publication of his doctoral dissertation in 1906 and his essay on Das Begriffsgebude der Wirtschaftslehre und seine Grundlage, completely revolutionized the idea of economics. The main difficulty in appraising Neurath's economic theory lies in his radical redefinition of the economic science as such, based on his empiricist, or better even physicalist, approach. He participated in all debates of his time, discussing in depth questions such as the theory of value, the method of social sciences, the normative content of economics and the possibility of socialist calculation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, after the wreckage of classical thought and liberalism, economics needed a new definition, a new vocabulary and a novel defining statute. Neurath eagerly began studying economic history and history of economic thought.
