We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a … - Otto Neurath

Carnap, who has so far probably advanced the work of the Vienna Circle the most towards empiricism, made an attempt to create a constitutive constructive system; in this he distinguished two languages: a ‘monologizing’ (phenomenalist) one and an ‘intersubjective’ (physicalist) one. He tries to deduce the physical one from the phenomenalist.

True science consists in systematically examining all possible cases. Exact political economy has not achieved this until now. It does not even encompass all actual cases. This is one of the reason why exact theory finds itself in opposition to the historical school and why it does not have an awful lot to say to those economists who occupy themselves with issues of practical interest, theories of crisis, cartels and trusts.

Overcoming magic often takes the form of theology. From animals and ancestors the path leads to all kinds of spirits. The hypothesis (which already appeared in the magical age) of the little man alongside man, the “soul', and of the special being, 'God', more and more often seeks a parallel process 'behind' processes. Whereas in the magical age, empirically given facts were linked with each other on the basis of primitive theories without the introduction of uncontrollable elements, now their introduction becomes essential.