Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung e utopistica comparata: traiettorie filosofico-pedagogiche neurathiane.

The present paper investigates the pivotal role that the notion of ‘utopia’ plays within the theoretical device of Otto Neurath, an epistemologist, sociologist and adult educator, who was a major figure in the Great Vienna of the first decades of the 20th century. In particular, his idea of a «comparative utopistics» is explored, by showing how it represents a fundamental axis of Neurath’s endeavour to establish a circuit between science as scientific outlook and encyclopaedism, the reconstruction of social life, and visual education as the most suitable pedagogical strategy to strengthen and sustain more progressive and scientifically enlightened social arrangements.