Interwar epistemological debates became fused with rival political programs.

Evidence

While sharing the same imperative as their Viennese counterparts of demarcating a decontested language of science, neoliberal philosophers of science became skeptical of the powers of scientific method to directly shape social reform. Instead, they aspired to emulate the creative rupture they applauded in the philosophy of physics and mathematics to the doctrine of liberalism. During the interwar period, rival epistemological doctrines came to be deeply interwoven with the political visions they promised to vindicate. Most of the methodological and epistemological disagreements which came to light in 1920s Vienna would resurface as the economic crisis of the 1930s called past orthodoxies in economics and the social sciences into question. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 64

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Captures the distinctive claim that nascent neoliberalism rebelled against even the left Vienna Circle’s confidence that science could engineer reform, instead seeking a philosophical rupture in liberalism analogous to physics revolutions.
• XREF: Echoes the science-and-social-order debates in The Soundscape and Frankfurt School readings on positivism’s hidden political stakes. — connects to: Hayek’s English-vs-German framing collapses when read through German interwar debates — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 383; 1930s crisis drove Hayek, Polanyi, and Lippmann to rethink liberalism’s epistemology. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 66

Broader Connections

• Hayek’s English-vs-German framing collapses when read through German interwar debates #exemplifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 383