Remarkable residues of out-of-date ideas: Avenarius and Teleology

Remarkable residues of out-of-date ideas: Avenarius and Teleology

Lucas Baccarat

In Wege der wissenschaftlichen Weltaufassung (1930), a historical paper that recalls the development of scientific philosophy, Otto Neurath states that one could find some residual metaphysics, even among some of the great thinkers that helped to push for a scientific world-view. One of those thinkers was Richard Avenarius, one of the founding fathers of empiriocriticism, often quoted as one of the major influences upon the Vienna Circle. In my presentation, I intend to investigate, at least partially, the continuities and discontinuities between Neurath and Avenarius. In particular, I shall argue that while Avenarius´ naturalistic attitude was extremely influential and relevant for the Vienna circle, there are remarkable residues of out-of-date ideas in some of his core epistemological arguments. Especially when describing the progressive adaptation of the brain to the environment, Avenarius still holds on to a kind of teleological view of evolution, that was later rejected by Neurath