Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath (December 10, 1882 – December 22, 1945) was an Austrian philosopher and member of the Vienna Circle. He wrote books in Basic English. In 1936 Charles Kay Ogden commissioned Otto and his wife Marie Neurath to produce International Picture Language as part of a series of eight books in Basic English.

Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath in 1919
Born	(1882-12-10)10 December 1882 Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Austria)
Died	22 December 1945(1945-12-22) (aged 56) Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Occupation(s)	Philosopher, sociologist, economist
Known for	Founder of Vienna Circle

Life

Neurath was born in Vienna, the son of Wilhelm Neurath (1840–1901), a well-known Jewish political economist at the time.^[1] Otto's mother was a Protestant, and he would also become one.^[2] He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna. In 1906, he gained his PhD in the department of Political Science and Statistics at the University of Berlin.

He married Anna Schapire in 1907, who died in 1911. Then, he married a close friend, the mathematician and philosopher Olga Hahn.

Neurath taught political economy at the New Vienna Commercial Academy in Vienna until war broke out. After that, he directed the Department of War Economy in the War Ministry. In 1917, he completed his habilitation thesis Die Kriegswirtschaftslehre und ihre Bedeutung für die Zukunft (War Economics and Their Importance for the Future) at Heidelberg University. In 1918, he became director of the Deutsches Kriegswirtschaftsmuseum (German Museum of War Economy, later the Deutsches Wirtschaftsmuseum) at Leipzig.