In this paper I want to show that a main theme of Neurath’s philosophical work was the formulation of a radically empiricist theory of science. His approach, dubbed "encyclopedism", can be characterized by the following five theses: scientific knowledge is (1) fallible, (2) pluralistic, (3) holistic, (4) can be systematized only locally, and (5) does not give us a faithful description of the real world. (4) is to be considered as the most original thesis of encyclopedism and is discussed in (...) detail. (shrink)