This book is a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 1870s to the Anschluss in 1938. Thus it is intended as a contribution to the history of philosophy. But I hope that it will be seen also as a contribution to philosophy in its own right as an attempt to philosophize in the spirit of those, above all Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, Kevin Mulligan and Peter Simons, who have done so (...) much to demonstrate the continued fertility of the ideas and methods of the Austrian philosophers in our own day. For some time now, historians of philosophy have been gradually coming to terms with the idea that post-Kantian philosophy in the German-speaking world ought properly to be divided into two distinct traditions which we might refer to as the German and Austrian traditions, respectively. The main line of the first consists in a list of personages beginning with Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling and ending with Heidegger, Adorno and Bloch. The main line of the second may be picked out similarly by means of a list beginning with Bolzano, Mach and Meinong, and ending with Wittgenstein, Neurath and Popper. As should be clear, it is the Austrian tradition that has contributed most to the contemporary mainstream of philosophical thinking in the Anglo-Saxon world. For while there are of course German thinkers who have made crucial contributions to the development of exact or analytic philosophy, such thinkers were outsiders when seen from the perspective of native German philosophical culture, and in fact a number of them found their philosophical home precisely in Vienna. When, in contrast, we examine the influence of the Austrian line, we encounter a whole series of familiar and unfamiliar links to the characteristic concerns of more recent philosophy of the analytic sort. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, the newly fashionable habit of referring to analytic philosophy as "Anglo-American" is in this light a "grave historical distortion". If, he says, we take into account the historical context in which analytic philosophy developed, then such philosophy "could at least as well be called "Anglo-Austrian" (1988, p. 7). Much valuable scholarly work has been done on the thinking of Husserl and Wittgenstein, Mach and the Vienna Circle. The central axis of Austrian philosophy, however, which as I hope to show in what follows is constituted by the work of Brentano and his school, is still rather poorly understood. Work on Meinong or Twardowski by contemporary philosophers still standardly rests upon simplified and often confused renderings of a few favoured theses taken out of context. Little attention is paid to original sources, and little effort is devoted to establishing what the problems were by which the Austrian philosophers in general were exercised -- in spite of the fact that many of these same problems have once more become important as a result of the contemporary burgeoning of interest on the part of philosophers in problems in the field of cognitive science. (shrink)

In many respects, Mach’s arrival in Vienna in 1895 marks the beginning of a new era in Austrian philosophy, paving the way for young philosophers and scientists like Hahn and Neurath and preparing the soil for the Vienna Circle. While this understanding of Mach’s contribution to the development of Viennese philosophy seems correct to an important extent, it leaves aside the role of Brentano and his school in this development. I argue that the Brentanian and Machian moments (...) of Austrian philosophy are jointed. I propose a description of the nature of these joints based on institutional, methodological, and philosophical aspects of these phases, and suggest a diagnosis that supports what I take to be the right carving between these two moments. (shrink)

Barry Smith has written a book about an important topic in philosophy and its recent history, concerning the legacy of Franz Brentano. “The Legacy of Franz Brentano” is also its subtitle, a subtitle much more revealing of its contents than its title: Austrian Philosophy. That title makes one expect either a general picture of philosophy in Austria, past and/or present, or an account of what Rudolf Haller has called Austrian Philosophy, a term that refers to its golden age, (...) to a tradition whose main characteristics are, according to Haller, empiricism, proximity to science, and a concern with language. Smith includes these properties in his characterization of the legacy of Brentano, and adds quite appropriately for that legacy “a concern with ontological structure” and “an overriding interest in the relation of macro-phenomena ... to ... micro-phenomena which underlie or are associated with them”. Smith is quite aware that this addition does not hold for the tradition of Austrian philosophy, since he opposes it to a German tradition, and delineates the former “by means of a list beginning with Bolzano, Mach and Meinong, and ending with Wittgenstein, Neurath, and Popper”. (shrink)

This study examines the place of the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna (1888-1938) in the evolution of the history of philosophy in Austria up to the establishment of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will examine three aspects of the relationship between the Austrian members of the Vienna Circle and the Philosophical Society which has been emphasized by several historians of the Vienna Circle: the first aspect concerns the theory of a first (...) class='Hi'>Vienna Circle formed mainly by H. Hahn, P. Frank and O. Neurath; the second aspect is the contention that the missing link between the Vienna Circle and the Bolzano tradition in Austria is Alois Höfler, a student of Brentano and Meinong; I will finally examine the link they established between the annexation of the Philosophical Society to the Kant-Gesellschaft in 1927 and the founding of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will argue that this institution played a key role in the history of philosophy in Austria and is partly responsible for the formation of the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

This book concerns the history of Austrian philosophy, including the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Meinong, Brentano, and Haller. It exhibits the continuity of empiricism and analysis in Austrian philosophy past and present.

The book discusses Franz Brentano’s impact on Austrian philosophy. It contains both a critical reassessment of Brentano’s place in the development of Austrian philosophy at the turn of the 20th century and a reevaluation of the impact and significance of his philosophy of mind or ‘descriptive psychology’ which was Brentano's most important contribution to contemporary philosophy and to the philosophy in Vienna. In addition, the relation between Brentano, phenomenology, and the Vienna Circle is investigated, together with (...) a related documentation of Brentano's disciple Alfred Kastil. The general part deals with the ongoing discussion of Carnap's "Aufbau" and the philosophy of mind, with a focus on physicalism as discussed by Carnap and Wittgenstein. As usual, two reviews of recent publications in the philosophy of mathematics and research on Otto Neurath's lifework are included as related research contributions. This book is of interest to students, historians, and philosophers dealing with the history of Austrian and German philosophy in the 19th and 20th century. (shrink)

As recent scholarship has repeatedly shown, the history of Vienna Circle is to some extent rooted in the tradition of Austrian Philosophy which Neurath considered as not involved in the “Kantian interlude”. Nevertheless, it seems that the heritage of Leibniz and, in particular, of his “reform of logic” has been hitherto neglected. Indeed, Leibnizianism (along with Herbartianism) represents a main feature of this tradition stretching from Bolzano to quite forgotten figures as Exner and Zimmermann, and still influent on (...) the Brentano circle. This paper attempt to highlight the role played by Leibniz in framing of the “scientific world conception”, focusing in particular both on Carnap’s and Neurath’s stance towards the characteristica universalis underlying the project of the encyclopedia Leibniz aimed to realize. (shrink)

This paper is the general introduction to a collection of essays entitled Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy (forthcoming). In this substantial introduction, I comment several aspects of the recent reception of Brentano’s philosophical programme in contemporary philosophy, and the actual debates on topics such as emotions, values, and intentionality, for example. It is divided in four parts corresponding to the four sections of the book. The first three sections contain 11 original contributions on Brentano’s philosophy and its place in (...) the history of philosophy in Austria, and the last section contains three unpublished manuscripts from Alfred Kastil et Moritz Schlick. I. Descriptive psychology and phenomenology: Brentano and Husserl II. Brentano and the Vienna Circle III. Brentano and the history of philosophy IV. Documentation: Alfred Kastil and the Vienna Circle . (shrink)

Rudolf Haller was one of the pioneers of “Austrian philosophy” and analytic philosophy dealing with Bolzano, Brentano, Meinong, and Mach up to Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, especially Schlick and Neurath. As professor at the University of Graz he fostered this field with his teaching and research and promoted it together with a lot of invited renowned foreign scholars. In addition, he created the influential Grazer Forschungs- und Dokumentationsstelle für Österreichische Philosophie which hosts important philosophical archives. Moreover, he (...) co-founded the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society in Kirchberg/W. in 1976 and supported the Institute Vienna Circle since its establishment in Vienna in 1991. This article is a personal review and remembrance of the author’s pleasing interaction and cooperation with Rudolf Haller, as an appreciation of his extraordinary achievements. (shrink)

Recent work on Austrian philosophy has revealed, hitherto, unsuspected links between Vienna circle positivism on the one hand, and the thought of Franz Brentano and his circle on the other. the paper explores these links, casting light also on the Polish analytic movement, on the development of gestalt psychology, and on the work of Schlick and Neurath.

Franz Brentano (1838-1917) led an intellectual revolution that sought to revitalize German-language philosophy and to reverse its post-Kantian direction. His philosophy laid the groundwork for philosophy of science as it came to fruition in the Vienna Circle, and for phenomenology in the work of such figures as his student Edmund Husserl. This volume brings together newly commissioned chapters on his important work in theory of judgement, the reform of syllogistic logic, theory of intentionality, empirical descriptive psychology and phenomenology, theory (...) of knowledge, metaphysics and ontology, value theory, and natural theology. It also offers a critical evaluation of Brentano's significance in his historical context, and of his impact on contemporary philosophy in both the analytic and the continental traditions. (shrink)

This book grew out of an international symposium, organized in September 1986 by the Austrian Cultural Institute in Warsaw in cooperation with the Polish Philosophical Society. The topic was: The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School. Since the two phil osophical trends existed in roughly the same time and were close ly related, it was one of the purposes of the symposium to investigate both similarities and thp differences. Some thirty people took part in the symposium, nearly twenty (...) contributions were presented and extensively discussed. The sym posium owed much to the excellent organization and warm hospital ity shown by Dr Georg Jankovic, the Director of the Austrian In stitute. As the person in charge of the scientific programme of the symposium, I take pleasure to acknowledge this debt. It so happened that a month later another symposium of a similar character was held. It took place in the University of Manchester, on the occasion of the centenary of the births of Stanislaw Lesniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiflski and Wladyslaw Tatarkie wicz. Some papers read at the Manchester symposium form a part of the present volume. It was not possible, for technical reasons (the time factor was one of them), to include in this book all the material from the two symposia. Certain contributions have appeared elsewhere (for instance, K. Szaniawski's 'Ajdukiewicz on Non-Deductive Inference' was published in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, Vol. 23). On the other hand, certain papers have been written special ly for this volume. (shrink)

Cette étude porte sur la place qui revient à la Société philosophique de l’Université de Vienne dans l’évolution de l’histoire de la philosophie en Autriche jusqu’à la formation du Cercle de Vienne en 1929. Nous examinerons plus particulièrement trois aspects de la relation entre le Cercle de Vienne et la Société philosophique qui ont fait l’objet de plusieurs études par les historiens de l’empirisme logique : le premier aspect concerne la thèse d’un proto-Cercle de Vienne formé principalement par H. Hahn, (...) P. Frank et O. Neurath ; le deuxième aspect porte sur la thèse suivant laquelle le chaînon manquant entre le Cercle de Vienne et la tradition bolzanienne en Autriche est l’étudiant de Brentano et de Meinong, A. Höfler ; nous examinerons enfin le lien établi par plusieurs historiens entre l’annexion de la Société philosophique à la Kant-Gesellschaft en 1927 et la fondation du Cercle de Vienne en 1929. Nous voudrions montrer que cette institution a joué un rôle clé dans l’histoire de la philosophie en Autriche et qu’elle est en partie responsable de la formation du Cercle de Vienne.This study examines the place of the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna in the evolution of the history of philosophy in Austria up to the formation of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will examine three aspects of the relationship between the Austrian members of the Vienna Circle and the Philosophical Society, which has been emphasized by several historians of the Vienna Circle : the first aspect concerns the theory of a first Vienna Circle formed mainly by H. Hahn, P. Frank and O. Neurath ; the second aspect is the contention that the missing link between the Vienna Circle and the Bolzano tradition in Austria is Alois Höfler, a student of Brentano and Meinong ; I will finally examine the link they established between the annexation of the Philosophical Society to the Kant-Gesellschaft in 1927 and the founding of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will argue that this institution played a key role in the history of philosophy in Austria and is partly responsible for the formation of the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit in on a meeting of the Vienna Circle, listening to discussions by the greatest Austrian thinkers of the 20th century, including Moritz Schlick, Gustav Bergmann, and Karl Menger? Join original Vienna-Circle member Victor Kraft in his discussion of the movement for an exclusive insider s view of this important point in philosophical history. In this in-depth philosophical study, Victor Kraft explores the role the Vienna Circle (...) had on the international philosophical movement. The Vienna Circle constituted a point of departure for the reawaking, rebirth, and reformation of positivism and empiricism, leading to the creation of the Neo-positivism movement. At the time of publication in the 1950s, the Neo-positivism movement stood in the foreground of contemporary philosophy, and it was quite possibly the most significant serious philosophical movement in the period between the two world wars. Making Kraft s study of Neo-positivism available to a world audience, Arthur Pap provides a rich and accessible translation from the original German. Victor Kraft was an Austrian philosopher and a founding member of the Vienna Circle. He taught theoretical philosophy at the University of Vienna. During World War II, he lost his teaching post because of his wife s Jewish background, but he went back to teaching in 1945. He was known for his scientific approach to philosophy, especially his application of empiricism to his ideas on logical positivism. He continued to teach at the university and write on logic, ethics, and the philosophy of history until his death in 1975. (shrink)

It is one of the distinctive claims of Neurath, though not of the Vienna Circle generally, that the Vienna Circle's philosophy was not really German philosophy at all. The relation is, if Neurath is to be trusted, anything but straight-forward. To understand it, not only must some effort be expended on specifying Neurath's claim, but also on delineating the different party-lines within the Vienna Circle.

This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Wien-New York: 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an (...) accessible introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy” in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluß" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria. The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature. (shrink)

Any philosophical position can be approached in two different ways which may be termed the historical approach and the analytical approach. While dealing with a certain philosophical doctrine, we may put the main emphasis on tracing its sources and comparing the doctrine with others known in the history of philosophy. On the other hand, it is possible to direct our attention mainly towards a critical analysis of the notions and propositions on which this philosophy is based, and to examine them (...) without being much interested in the historical aspect of the problem. (shrink)

Scientific philosophy is a sui generis project and it is not possible to assimilate it into analytic philosophy tout court, nor, a fortiori, into the philosophy of science. Scientific philosophy was practised during the early stage of the Vienna Circle before the influence of Wittgenstein’s thought became decisive. Afterwards, there was a quick transition to philosophy intended as subsidary to science, as a mere classification of meaning, coming, in the end, to its liquidation with Carnap’s logical syntax. Different was (...) the path of the Lvov-Warsaw School, which remained committed to Brentano’s original programme and never abandoned the idea of the possibility of scientific philosophy. Decisive, here, was the absence of Wittgenstein’s influence and the utter irrelevance of that of Mach. It is in Poland that at the present days it has its strongest roots and there we find considerable trends of thought inspired by it. (shrink)

From the author of Wittgenstein's Poker and Would You Kill the Fat Man?, the story of an extraordinary group of philosophers during a dark chapter in Europe's history On June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick's, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck himself argued in court that his (...) onetime teacher had promoted a treacherous Jewish philosophy. David Edmonds traces the rise and fall of the Vienna Circle—an influential group of brilliant thinkers led by Schlick—and of a philosophical movement that sought to do away with metaphysics and pseudoscience in a city darkened by fascism, anti-Semitism, and unreason. The Vienna Circle's members included Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, and the eccentric logician Kurt Gödel. On its fringes were two other philosophical titans of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. The Circle championed the philosophy of logical empiricism, which held that only two types of propositions have cognitive meaning, those that can be verified through experience and those that are analytically true. For a time, it was the most fashionable movement in philosophy. Yet by the outbreak of World War II, Schlick's group had disbanded and almost all its members had fled. Edmonds reveals why the Austro-fascists and the Nazis saw their philosophy as such a threat. The Murder of Professor Schlick paints an unforgettable portrait of the Vienna Circle and its members while weaving an enthralling narrative set against the backdrop of economic catastrophe and rising extremism in Hitler's Europe. (shrink)

This article distinguishes between Machian empiricism and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and associated philosophers. Mach's natural philosophy was a first order attempt to reform and reorganize physics, not a second order reconstruction of the "language" of physics. Mach's elements were not sense data but realistic events in the natural world and in minds, and Mach admitted unobserved elements as part of his world view. Mach's critique of metaphysics was far more subtle and concerned the elimination of (...) sensory visual imagery from natural science, leaving only concrete elements and functions, very much an inspiration to the young Einstein and Heisenberg and a useful engine of theory construction in physics. (shrink)

A study of the contrasts between Austrian and German philosophy, with special reference to the role of logic and science, of the Brentano School and the Vienna Circle, and of the different ways in which Austrian and German ways of thinking have influenced contemporary analytical and Continental philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle, and Red ViennaMalachi H. Hacohen*A stranger in his homeland even before emigrating in 1937, the philosopher Karl Popper is rarely considered an Austrian. Although he was born in Vienna in 1902 and buried there in 1994, he is known as an Atlantic intellectual and an anti-Communist prophet of postwar liberalism. He first became famous for The Open Society and Its Enemies (...) (1945). 1 He wrote the book during World War II in his New Zealand exile, intending it as a defense of democracy against fascism. The defeat of Austrian socialism and the collapse of Central European democracies were the major experiences informing his analysis. But The Open Society quickly became, with Popper’s full support, a charter of Atlantic Cold War liberalism. His philosophy of science, exemplified best in Logik der Forschung, went through a similar transformation. 2 To be sure, it is commonly debated in the context of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle; but the circle’s emigration and the postwar triumph of analytic philosophy in the Anglo-American academy transformed positivism, too, into an Atlantic philosophy. The “fugue of exile’s disruptions” severed the thread connecting Popper to Austria. 3Yet Popper was the foremost philosopher to carry the progressive Viennese legacy into the postwar era. In his critiques of the Vienna Circle and Red Vienna he confronted the philosophical and political problems of Viennese late enlightenment [End Page 711] and the interwar crises of scientific reason and Central European democracy. Refashioning the fin-de-siècle progressive legacy, he drew novel visions of liberal science and politics, imagining utopian scientific and political communities that were engaged in the pursuit of truth and reform. He made critical debate the acid test of political and scientific rationality, the center of a new liberalism. Establishing a free public sphere as the sine qua non of the Open Society, he innovated on a familiar liberal motif, shared by thinkers as different as Kant, De Staël, Guizot, Mill, and Habermas.In The Open Society Popper also wrote the political platform of the postwar Social-Democratic Consensus that legislated for the welfare state and mobilized against Communism. During World War II he opted for a liberal-socialist alliance that would contain postwar Central European fascism. Instead, his “Popular Front” platform proved adaptable to postwar anti-Communism. He made a few naïve pronouncements on deterrence and the free world during the Cold War. 4 They reflect badly on his political philosophy. Yet disentangled from its Cold War associations, his liberalism contains an abiding cosmopolitan vision for an age that is looking beyond the nation-state. His cosmopolitanism originated as a solution to dilemmas of ethnic identity faced by the assimilated-Jewish Viennese intelligentsia. His Open Society expressed their dream of integration into a community that discounted religion, ethnicity, and nationality. 5 He refused to give up on cosmopolitanism in the bipolar world when Machtpolitik seemed the order of the day. Almost alone among postwar liberals, he retained a belief in an international legal order and challenged national self-determination. His vision has regained relevance today. Cosmopolitanism and critical debate provide a starting-point for renegotiating liberal dilemmas.“My theory of knowledge, my philosophy of science and my political philosophy are original only in their interdependence,” stated Popper in a 1976 interview. 6 His epistemology has major political and scientific significance. Well before cultural studies began deconstructing science, Popper countered philosophers’ and scientists’ claims of expertise. There is no philosophical method. Every person is a problem-solver, and so every person is a philosopher. “Science is nothing but enlightened and responsible common sense—common sense broadened by imaginative critical thinking.” 7 Demystifying science, he never gave up on the growth of knowledge. He conceived of science as an unending quest for uncertain but growing knowledge. A non-foundationist, [End Page 712] he insisted that objectivity meant intersubjectivity. Rationality was a product of critical debate. In today’s intellectual world, devoid of certainty, where systems of knowledge and identities have been thrown into flux, Popper’s unique synthesis of contingency, convention, and change with logical certainty, objectivity, and tradition suggests a promising direction in the... (shrink)

The Berlin Group was an equal partner with the Vienna Circle as a school of scientific philosophy, albeit one that pursued an itinerary of its own. But while the latter presented its defining projects in readily discernible terms and became immediately popular, the Berlin Group, whose project was at least as sig-nificant as that of its Austrian counterpart, remained largely unrecognized. The task of this chapter is to distinguish the Berliners’ work from that of the Vienna Circle (...) and to bring to light its impact in the history of scientific philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is divided into a surveying and argumentative part and a slightly longer documentary part, which is meant to verify or at least make more plausible claims made in the first part. The first part deals in broad outline with the relationship of Frank and von Mises to the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism on the one hand and to the physicists and mathematicians in the German-speaking world on the other. The varying special positions, partly the non-conformity of (...) the two Austrian scientists are emphasized, in particular, their adherence to Ernst Mach’s epistemology and their shared interest in probability theory and applied mathematics. The impact of emigration and the after-effects in the U.S. are discussed. This leads to new insights into the fine structure of the Vienna Circle and the latter’s relationship to German academia within ‘Weimar Culture’. P. Forman’s interpretation (1971) of von Mises’ position is critically discussed. The second, documentary part, uses recently discovered correspondence between Frank and von Mises, and, to a lesser extent, von Mises’ personal diary. It aims at further substantiating some of the introductory theses and will at the same time provide material for a thorough biographical appreciation of the two scholars and friends. (shrink)

The author proposes to consider the activities of the Vienna Circle from two different perspectives. One approach reveals the intellectual efforts of the Vienna logicians to bring the order of thought in line with the social and political „Ordnung“ in Austria in the 1930s. It also brings to light the clash between the “exact thinking” and M. Heidegger’s „Das Nichts“, as well as the “new order”, whose adherents sought support not in logic, but in the collective unconscious. The (...) other perspective allows one to highlight the problem of ethics and a system of values, as shaped and solved differently by the language of logic, and by the great Austrian writers of the time. (shrink)

One thing we have found out about logical empiricism, now that people are examining it more closely again, is that it was more a framework for a number of related views than a single doctrine. The pluralism of different approaches among various adherents to the Vienna and Berlin groups has been much emphasized. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the kind of speculative philosophy now often called "continental" (including, say, phenomenology) can be seen as falling within (...) the framework of views shared by the Vienna Circle. Much is made of Felix Kaufmann's membership in the Vienna Circle, for instance, or of its "Austrian" roots in the phenomenology of Brentano. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) is the founder of the phenomenological movement which has profoundly influenced twentieth‐century Continental philosophy. The historical setting in which his thought took shape was marked by the emergence of a new psychology (Herbart, von Helmholtz, James, Brentano, Stumpf, Lipps), by research into the foundation of mathematics (Gauss, Rieman, Cantor, Kronecker, Weierstrass), by a revival of logic and theory of knowledge (Bolzano, Mill, Boole, Lotze, Mach, Frege, Sigwart, Meinong, Erdmann, Schröder), as well as by the appearance of a (...) new theory of language (Peirce, Marty). This context is thus very like that which gave birth to the Vienna Circle. Though Husserl's study of classical thinkers began with the British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, and in particular Hume), he later turned almost exclusively to the writings of Kant, Descartes, and Leibniz. As for his contemporaries outside the phenomenological movement, Husserl's closest – though always critical – engagement was with the neo‐Kantians (Rickert and, above all, Natorp). (shrink)

Surveys the evidence for an influence of Austrian philosophers – specifically Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, Twardowski and Mach – on the early Wittgenstein. Such influence might either have been direct, for instance through Wittgenstein’s reading of Mach, or indirect, through the mediation of Russell and Moore. The paper concludes by addressing the possible influence of Stumpf and Reinach on Wittgenstein’s technical usage of the term ‘Sachverhalt’ in the Tractatus.

One of the main goals of the Institute “Vienna Circle”, founded in October 1991, is to do justice to its second name and establish itself as a “Society for Advancement of the Scientific World View”. This includes the effort to document and further develop the work and influence of the Vienna Circle and its “periphery” in areas of science and adult education, as well as “the cultivation and application of logical empiricism, critical rationalism, and linguistic analysis in the (...) sense of a scientific philosophy and coordinated with general socio-cultural developments”. (shrink)

Abstract: Brentano’s conception of scientific philosophy had a strong influence on his students and on the intellectual atmosphere of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to expose Brentano’s conception and to contrast his views with that of two traditions he is said to have considerably influenced: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I will shed light on the question of how and to what extent Brentano’s conception of philosophy as a rigorous science has had an (...) impact on these two traditions. The discussion will show that both took their liberties in the interpretation of the thesis, a move that allowed them to liberate themselves from Brentano’s inheritance and to fully develop their own philosophical positions. (shrink)

On 1 to 4 October 1991, the international symposion “Vienna-Berlin-Prague. The Rise of Scientific Philosophy” took place on the occasion of the centenaries of three prominent representatives of logical empiricism, organized by the newly founded Institute ‘Vienna Circle’ together with the Institut far Wissenschaft and Kunst and supported by the Austrian Federal Ministries for Science and Education. In the following report, most attention will be paid to German-speaking authors, as the English-language presentations are published in the present (...) Yearbook,whereas the German material has appeared separately in the volume Wien — Berlin — Prag, published this year by Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky Verlag in Vienna. (shrink)

Textor reveals the roots of analytic philosophy in a great age of Austro-German philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He introduces Brentano, Mach, and other key figures, and traces the development of the landmark ideas that there can be 'psychology without a soul', and that metaphysics lies beyond the limits of knowledge.

In 1903 Mach and Duhem, discovering one another’s writings, acknowledged the proximity of the philosophical views that they had been elaborating independently. A correspondence followed, which lasted several years. And in their ensuing publications both of these philosopher-scientists were careful to discuss their interlocutor’s claims. We have here ample matter for consideration. Mach and Duhem were to have an impact on the development of the Vienna Circle. Yet their conceptions are indeed different from those that followed. Characteristically, they drew (...) on history and psychology. They were interested in the genesis of concepts, the evolution of theories and the patterns of discovery. If rational reconstruction and logical analysis were admitted, these techniques were counter-balanced by historical study. In view of recent evolutions in philosophy of science — the growing importance of cognitive science, history of science, interdisciplinarity — it is worthwhile to return again to the beginning of the twentieth century. The aim of this paper is then to reexamine the relation between Duhem and Mach, in particular with regard to the methods whereby they sought to provide a philosophical reflection on science. (shrink)

Review of the book Stadler, F. (Ed.). (2017). Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: Problems, Perspectives, and Case Studies. (Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol. 20). Vienna: Springer.

"Detours" explores the reception of Kant's works in Vienna, Austria and Eastern Europe from a historical point of view and focuses on six topics: Kant and Censorship, Kant and Karl Leonhard Reinhold, who was the first Kantian born in Vienna and became a precursor for German and Austrian Kant reception in Jena, Kant and Eastern Europe, Kant and his Poets, Kant and Phenomenology and Kant and the Vienna Circle. In this way, the ambivalent perception of Kant (...) in Austria becomes clearer: On the one hand Kant was censored and criticized harshly but on the other hand Kant's philosophy was studied actively in the "underground.". (shrink)

This book discusses questions concerning mind and matter, substance and accident, and knowledge and experience in the work of a wide range of nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophers, giving a problem-oriented account of Austrian philosophy and its role in the conception of analytic philosophy and logical empiricism. At the centre of the book is the debate about the relation between empirical science and metaphysics, and the question of whether empirical psychology depends on the metaphysics of the soul - (...) the mental substance. Friedrich Albert Lange’s famous dictum to create a “psychology without a soul” pointed the way. (shrink)

This volume presents new essays on the work and thought of physicist, psychologist, and philosopher Ernst Mach. Moving away from previous estimations of Mach as a pre-logical positivist, the essays reflect his rehabilitation as a thinker of direct relevance to debates in the contemporary philosophies of natural science, psychology, metaphysics, and mind. Topics covered include Mach's work on acoustical psychophysics and physics; his ideas on analogy and the principle of conservation of energy; the correct interpretation of his scheme of 'elements' (...) and its relationship to his 'historical-critical' method; the relationship of his thought to movements such as American pragmatism, realism, and neutral monism, as well as to contemporary figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche; and the reception and influence of his works in Germany and Austria, particularly by the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

This study is about an aspect of the reception of Herbatianism in Austria which has not been thoroughly investigated so far. It pertains to a controversy opposing Robert Zimmermann and Franz Brentano in the context of discussions which took place in the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna. This study looks more specifically at three important episodes involving the Philosophical Society, first, the controversy over Herbartianism, second that over the evaluation of Schelling’s philosophy, and finally the reception of (...) Bolzano in Austria. I will first describe the circumstances that led Zimmermann to get involved in the Philosophical Society and the source of his controversy with Brentano and his followers. I will then comment Zimmermann’s address as chairman of the Philosophical Society and Brentano’s reaction to Zimmermann’s remarks on Schelling and the historical period to which he belongs. I will complete my analysis of Brentano’s reaction with a summary of his evaluation of Herbart’s philosophical program to which Zimmermann adhered. The last part focuses on Zimmermann’s decisive role in the reception of Bolzano in Vienna in connection with the Bolzano Commission established by the Philosophical Society. I will conclude with brief remarks on Zimmermann’s legacy in Vienna. (shrink)

It is widely known that Kasimir Twardowski was a student of Franz Brentano. In view of the fact that Brentano generally had great impact through his lectures, especially during his Vienna period (1874-1895), and consequently became one of the towering figures of Austrian philosophy, it is a matter of no small interest to determine how he influenced Twardowski. I’ll first consider presentations as they are described in Brentano’s psychology and then proceed to discuss Brentano’s account of the latter (...) in his logic. (shrink)

Contents: List of Contributors VII; Roberto Poli: Foreword IX-X; Roberto Poli: The Brentano puzzle: an introduction 1; Dallas Willard: Who needs Brentano? The wasteland of philosophy without its past 15; Claire Ortiz Hill: Introduction to Paul Linke's 'Gottlob Frege as philosopher' 45; Paul F. Linke: Gottlob Frege as philosopher 49; John Blackmore: Franz Brentano and the University of Vienna Philosophical Society 1888-1938 73; Alf Zimmer: On agents and objects: some remarks on Brentanian perception 93; Liliana Albertazzi: Perceptual saliences and (...) nuclei of meaning 113; Jan Srzednicki: Brentano and the thinkable 139; Claire Ortiz Hill: From empirical psychology to phenomenology. Edmund Husserl on the 'Brentano puzzle' 151; Serena Cattaruzza: Brentano and Boltzmann: the Schubladenexperiment 169; Karl Schuhmann: Johannes Daubert's theory of judgement 179; Evelyn Dölling: On Alexius Meinong's theory of signs 199; Robin Rollinger: Linguistic expressions and acts of meaning: comments on Marty's philosophy of language 215-225. (shrink)

This edited volume features essays written in honor of Ernst Mach. It explores his life, work, and legacy. Readers will gain a better understanding of this natural scientist and scholar who made major contributions to physics, the philosophy of science, and physiological psychology. -/- The essays offer a critical inventory of Mach’s lifework in line with state-of-the-art research and historiography. It begins with physics, where he paved the way for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The account continues with Mach's contributions in (...) biology, psychology, and physiology pioneering with an empiricist and gestalthaft Analysis of Sensations. Readers will also discover how in the philosophy of science he served as a model for the Vienna Circle with the Ernst Mach Society as well as paved the way for an integrated history and theory of science. (shrink)

There are three sentimental centres of 20th-century philosophical geography: Todtnauberg, Frankfurt and Vienna. Their exceptional status results not only from having given rise to decisive philosophical movements but also from the weight of stories about victimization and exile lacking with regard to Paris, Berkeley and Cambridge. Each of these centres is compromised in its own way: the Schwarzwald cottage from which Heidegger emerged to take over the Rektorat of Freiburg University and to which he returned after this disastrous intermezzo, (...) the "Institut für Sozialforschung" which on its part returned to claim moral authority at a location that increasingly turned into the most important bridgehead of transatlantic logistics, finally the former imperial city where traces of the origins of analytic philosophy were only conserved beneath the enormous sedimentation of a massive counter-reformation. Provincialism, NATO and tourism turned out to be perfectly compatible with remembrance of an heroic epoch at these sites while exiting philosophical work was being done at different locations. How much weight is carried by impressions like these? Not too much as long as well defined philosophical schools promote progress as defined within their own realm. Some doctrin, established all over the world does not depend on the place at which it is further refined. It is, however, in doubt whether philosophy counts among the disciplines so easily internationalized; Heidegger and Adorno being among those who would insist on the inseparability of a theory's fate and its place of origin. Be this as it may, my subject being the precarious relationship between the city and the Circle of Vienna I have to start from the assumption of obvious incomparability between the roots and the extension of the branches of the movement. Only a decade ago this would have presented itself as a fairly easy task. Historians were coming to this city to save the remnants of the beginnings of the movement whereas Anglo-American philosophers were busy refining the orthodoxy and hardly interested in historical matters. Much has changed since. Firstly the analytic enterprise is in certain ways approaching what can be called closure from within.gif Secondly Austrian universities have (with sometimes considerable delay) taken an interest in what is felt to be a lost opportunity.gif Both of these developments coincided with a more general renaissance of fin de siecle and modernist Vienna. Since the imminent conclusion of any movement reactualizes the circumstances of its beginning, renewed attention was drawn to what was happening within and to the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

Sensationalistic Phenomenalism and Economy of Thought. On Ernst Mach's Concept of Science. Ernst Mach, natural scientist and major precursor of the Vienna Circle, never wants to be a philosopher. Nevertheless his writings are full of valuable hints for a modern theory of human knowledge – with respect to economical, historical and evolutionary aspects. His kind of phenomenalism is sensationalistic, monistic and instrumentalistic. This article deals with some contributions of his approach to actual debates in the general philosophy of science.

This article, inspired by Rudolf Haller’s thesis of an independent, specific, and unitary Austrian tradition of scientific philosophy, develops the idea of a specific Austrian tradition of psychological research, as distinguished in its development from that in Germany. This tradition was shaped by two phenomenological trends, which were merged into unity in Prague by Carl Stumpf and Brentano’s students of the second generation. One trend traces back to Goethe and was continued in Prague by the physiologists Jan E. (...) Purkinje and Ewald Hering, culminating in the work of Ernst Mach. The other trend was initiated by Franz Brentano and spread through his school. Stumpf was the key integrator of these two traditions, which he then partially passed on to his Berlin students and founders of Gestalt psychology. Finally, Karl Bühler’s “reimport” of the Brentanian psychological legacy into the Vienna of the First Republic is briefly illustrated. (shrink)