Non-Kantianism or Anti-Kantianism?

3~4 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:2 APRIL 199 7 Barry Smith. Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Brentano. Chicago: Open Court, 1994. Pp. xii + 381. Cloth, $36.95 . This book is a collection of essays which are for the most part revisions of previous publications. Together they are meant to constitute "a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 187os to the Anschluss in 1938" (xi). As the subtitle indicates, a central thesis is that Franz Brentano was a decisive influence on Austrian philosophy in this period. If we have doubts about a peculiarly Austrian style of philosophy, this book can nonetheless be appreciated as an attempt to show that Brentano is by no means a minor figure. This becomes particularly clear in the essays on four outstanding pupils of Brentano: Anton Marty (83-1 ~4), Alexius Meinong (x~5-54), Kasimir Twardowski (155-92), and Christian von Ehrenfels (e8 a-98). The most prominent pupil of Brentano is of course Edmund Husserl. Though an essay on him would have been welcome in such a book, the author to some extent compensates by giving him attention in crucial places. The first essay concerns the link between Austrian philosophy and the Brentano School. An obvious way of beginning a discussion of Austrian philosophy is by considering the Vienna Circle. Smith takes this route and herein finds the connection with the Brentano School. While many of the outstanding German philosophers are known as great system-builders, without any concern for detailed analysis, the members of the Vienna Circle were for the most part engaged in such analysis. In this regard, according to Smith, the legacy of Franz Brentano, who had been lecturing in Vienna from 1874 to 1895, is to be seen. Brentano's pursuit of scientific philosophy, together with an unyielding contempt for German idealism, was transmitted to his pupils and thereby created the climate in which the Vienna Circle could thrive. The notion of Austrian philosophy put forward by Smith is accordingly to be understood by means of a contrast with German philosophy. We should take this contrast with a grain of salt, since there have been many German philosophers, most notably of course Frege, who have been engaged in the project of scientific philosophy. The author replies to such counterexamples that these philosophers "were, however, on the fringes of Germany philosophy," as opposed to "the mainstream German tradition--for example that of Natorp and the lesser Neo-Kantians" (9n.). But as far as the time period under consideration is concerned, it is rather dubious to speak of such a mainstream tradition in Germany. Even Brentano, after all, had lectured quite successfully in Wiirzburg (Germany), where both Anton Marty and Carl Stumpf came under his influence, before he was called to Vienna. He left Wiarzburg, not because he did not fit in with mainstream German philosophy, but because it was too difficult to keep his chair in view of his controversial decision to leave the priesthood and the Catholic church altogether. The opposition between Austrian and German philosophy therefore seems rather questionable, though it should be kept in mind that contrasts used by historians of philosophy are for the most part hardly more than heuristic devices. Under the heading "Austrian philosophy" we can bring into prominence a good deal of philosophy which would otherwise be overshadowed by the likes of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. BOOR REVIEWS 315 There are two essays on Brentano in this work; the first of them (35-6o) is far more important in connection with his legacy. This essay is an overview of the philosophical orientation that Brantano conveyed to his pupils. This orientation is of course psychological in character. The psychology in question is, moreover, one in which "intentionality" becomes the central theme. It is well known that, according to Brentano's early formulation of this notion, the object exists in the act, though there is some dispute about how this is meant. Smith insists that it is "to be taken literally" (42). While it is uncertain how a literal reading could here be contrasted with a metaphorical one, it should be kept in...

In this paper, I re-examine Barry (Smith B. Austrian philosophy. The legacy of Franz Brentano. Open Court, Chicago, 1994) list of features of Austrian Philosophy. I claim that the list properly applies only in a somewhat abbreviated form to all significant representatives of Austrian Philosophy. Moreover, Smith’s crucial thesis that the features of Austrian Philosophy are not shared by any German philosopher only holds if we compare Austrian Philosophy to a canonical list of German Philosophy II. This list, however, was established in twentieth century as a result of historical misrepresentations. If we correct these misrepresentations, we obtain another list of hidden representatives called German Philosophy I. German Philosophy I is fundamentally identical to Austrian Philosophy, whereas German Philosophy II is entirely different from both Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I. Therefore, a slightly modified version of Smith’s Austrian Philosophy account still makes sense as a tool to position the pro-scientific and rational currents of Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I against the tendentially anti-scientific and irrational current of German Philosophy II.

Toward metaphysics a curious love-hate, attraction-antagonism relationship is displayed in Europe. On the one side of the dialectic, most of the main and extravagant metaphysical edifices on display are European. The rest of this world, excepting perhaps India, may have supplied a rich variety of mythical stories, but has built few or no elaborate metaphysical systems. On the other side, most of the most trenchant criticisms of metaphysics also emanate from Europe, especially from Austria. Indeed a marked hostility to metaphysics is a conspicuous trait of Austrian philosophy, and one notable component of what separates Austrian philosophy from German philosophy. German philosophy tries to build grand (but ultimately substandard) metaphysical edifices; Austrian philosophy tries (without evident success) to demolish them.KeywordsParaconsistent LogicImpossible WorldVienna CircleGerman PhilosophySemantical ParadoxThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

“Is there a place for conversational thinking (CT) in Europe? – Germany/Austria in perspective interrogates the visibility of the African philosophical method, namely Conversational Thinking in the philosophical praxis, teaching, and research in Germany and Austria. It will be considered in the light of epistemic injustice. The paper argues that the emergence of intercultural philosophy in the German/Austrian academic and intellectual cultural space affirms that conversational thinking should have a place. However, uncertainty points to a historically shaped academic, cultural consciousness informing cognitive orientation in engaging with African philosophy. The paper argues that for conversational thinking to have a place, it demands openness beyond the current approaches to intercultural philosophical engagement, which includes German and Austrian philosophers’ readiness to question the logic that shaped their thought and philosophical investigation. By logic, I mean something other than formal elite logic that shapes the context of thought and praxis.

In this chapter I attempt to contextualize Mises's praxeological philosophy within contemporary debates over the philosophy of social science. In particular, German and Austrian philosophers had been debating the merits of Edmund Husserl's advancement of Dilthey's and Brentano's work in developing 'phenomenology.' It is in the context of this advancement, I argue, that Mises developed praxeology. Specifically, I assert that Mises's praxeology fits squarely within a once prominent but since-forgotten camp of phenomenology called realist phenomenology. Realist phenomenology lost its prominence due to political interference - particularly from the rise of the Nazi regime, against which realist phenomenologists were outspoken. This tradition, however, and particularly the works of Adolph Reinach and Max Scheler, appears to have greatly influenced Mises, whether directly or indirectly. In short, I argue that praxeology belongs within the tradition of phenomenology, akin to but rather distinct from the more radical branches that are more familiar.

Views on truth of German and Austrian philosophers (among others, Lotze, Fries, Erdmann, Mauthner, Bolzano, Brentano, Frege) as well as British philosophers (Bradley, Joachim, Russell) are presented in this chapter. As Tarski as a mathematician and philosopher grew up in Poland, the special section is devoted to truth-definitions put forward by some Polish philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. The last section contains a sample of definitions circulating in philosophy in the last hundred years—most definitions are taken from analytic philosophy.

In this paper I wish to bring together two investigations undertaken elsewhere. These are, first, a study of the reception that American pragmatism found among members of the Vienna Circle prior to the process of internationalization of logical empiricism that had set in by the time of the 8th International Congress of Philosophy in Prague in September 1934; and, second, a study of some of the ideas and doctrines arrived at by some of the few Central European philosopher-scientists with whom American pragmatism had found an at least partially sympathetic reception prior to World War I. The result of the first study was that it was not until late in the 1920s—but still before 1934—that selected aspects of American pragmatism were explicitly endorsed by certain members even though some similarity in outlook already seems to have been discerned by them in the years before World War I. The result of the second study was that to the very limited extent that there was a positive reception of American pragmatism by German or Austrian philosophers and scientists before World War I it was one that sprang from the recognition on their part that pragmatism agreed with conclusions they had arrived at independently. The thesis I wish to present for consideration here is that the early sympathies for pragmatism on the part of some Vienna Circle members were based to a large extent on their appreciation of the work of these Central European philosopher-scientists rather than merely the then prominent key text of pragmatism. One question looms large and will be addressed in due course: what caused the members in question to delay their (partial) endorsement of pragmatism for so long? On this count too we will find the Central Europeans to be implicated.

Relativism in contemporary thought Looking back a century, one can see a striking degree of homogeneity among the philosophers of the early twentieth century in terms of the topics central to their concerns. More striking still is the apparent obscurity and abstruseness of those concerns, which seem at first glance to be far removed from the great debates of previous centuries, between realists and idealists, say, or rationalists and empiricists. The German philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) devoted his career to the foundations of mathematics and was rewarded with profound indifference from his fellow philosophers and mathematicians. The English philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) devoted his early work to exactly the same issue, culminating in Principia Mathematica , which was such an intellectual effort, he said, that it rendered him incapable of ever producing such detailed work again. In his early work the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) focused even more narrowly on a critique of the work of Frege and Russell on the meaning of the logical constants. He also became aware of how much could be gained from such minute examination, saying that his work had widened out from the foundations of logic to the nature of the world. The Austrian philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) also started with the philosophy of geometry, before developing the phenomenological method, which was geared toward answering questions emerging from his earlier work.

In this article, a little-studied problem of the critical analysis of the philosophical and logical position of the representative of German philosophical tradition Christoph Sigwart (1830–1904) in the university philosophy, especially in the work of a Kharkiv private-docent Isidor Prodan (1854–1919/1920) is presented. At first, the main periods of the scientific and creative career of Isidor Prodan, including his studying at the Czernowitz (Chernivtsi) Gymnasium (1864–1872) and the philosophical faculty at the University of Vienna (1872–1875) are considered. His teacher in Vienna was a very famous German and Austrian professor Franz Brentano (1838–1917), the author of the work “Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint” (1874) and the founder of “descriptive psychology” and intentionalism. Then his teaching of logic and philosophy at the Gymnasiums of Kishinev (Moldova), Izmail (Ukraine), Riga (Latvia), Tartu (Estonia), and Moscow (Russia) from 1876 till 1900 is emphasized. Then the features of the teaching and the publications of Isidor Prodan in his “Kharkiv period” (1906–1916) are pointed out, during which he was a private-docent at the department of philosophy. Isidor Prodan’s works at this time comprise three areas: 1) History of logic (Aristotle, Leibniz, Spencer, Sigwart), 2) philosophy of common sense (Thomas Reid and the Scottish School of Common Sense), 3) critique of Kant and Neo-Kantianism (Hermann Cohen, Wilhelm Windelband, Hans Vaihinger, Heinrich Rickert, Ernst Cassirer e. a.). In the last group, his work “The Truth about Kant (A Secret of his Success)” (1914) was of great importance. His very important work was the monograph “The Cognition and its Object (Justification of Common Sense)” (Kharkiv, 1913). The positions of well-known philosophers (Plato, Descartes, Berkley, Leibniz, and Hume) and less-known authors (Lodge, Preyer, and Schneider) were here analyzed. Isidor Prodan’s critical interpretation of the logical viewpoint of Christoph Sigwart in his two-volume work “Logic” (1873, 3rd ed., 1904) occupies an important place in this analysis. In turn, Isidor Prodan’s important achievement was the popularization of the ideas of this German logician and philosopher, in particular, because of his translation of extracts from the work “Logic”.

El presente artículo trata de mostrar cierto cambio de opinión sobre los temas éticos entre el primer y segundo Wittgenstein. Este viraje se puede expresar como un tránsito que va desde el silencio, opinión que defiende el filósofo austriaco en el Tractactus lógico-philosophicus (2001), al hablar sobre estos temas en un determinado contexto y forma de vida, tesis que sugiere en sus Investigaciones filosóficas (2017).

British legal positivism was founded on empiricism. Empiricist legal theorists reject metaphysical or mystical explanations of law and assert that law exists as social fact and nothing more. The main inspiration for Germanic legal positivism is not empiricism but the transcendental idealism of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Whereas British legal positivists regard law as fact distinct from morals, their Germanic counterparts seek to separate law from both fact and morals. This chapter discusses Germanic legal positivism principally through the work of its most famous proponent, Austrian legal philosopher Hans Kelsen. Kelsen (1881–1973) was born in Prague but moved with his family to Vienna at the age of two. He taught at the universities in Vienna and Cologne and at the University of California at Berkeley. Kelsen was the author of the Austrian Constitution and the designer of the Austrian model of judicial review adopted by many countries. The key elements of Kelsen's theory are these. Facts consist of things and events in the physical world. Facts are about what there is. When we wish to know what caused a fact we look for another fact. A stone thrown in the air comes down because of the force of the Earth's gravity. There are seasons because the Earth's axis is tilted at 23.5 degrees. A norm, unlike a fact, is not about what there is but is about what ought to be done or not done. Whereas facts exist in the physical world, norms exist in the world of ideas. Facts are caused by other facts. Norms are imputed by other norms. The requirement that a person who commits theft ought to be punished is a norm. It does not cease being a norm because the thief is not punished. (He may not get caught.) The norm that the thief ought to be punished exists because another norm says so. Not all norms are laws. There are also moral norms. Legal norms are coercive; moral norms are not. Moreover, a legal norm has the quality of ‘validity’. A legal norm is valid if it is endowed with validity by another norm. Whereas physical things arise from causation, legal norms arise from validation by another valid norm. A norm that confers validity upon another norm owes its own validity to another norm, and so on. This regression cannot go on infinitely.

Reviewed by: Poetik des Hasses in der österreichischen Literatur: Studien zu ausgewählten Texten by Marta Wimmer Pamela S. Saur Marta Wimmer, Poetik des Hasses in der österreichischen Literatur: Studien zu ausgewählten Texten. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2014. 277pp. Introductory sections of Marta Wimmer’s book on “Poetik des Hasses” discuss hate (Hass) and related concepts such as anger, rage, self-hatred, and love/hate complexes as well as stereotypes and prejudices. Wimmer points out that hate has diverse gradations, forms, methods, and goals. Subchapters discuss psychoanalytic explanations and the rhetoric of hate, respectively. This discussion leads to the book’s main subject, the literary representation of hate in the Austrian context. Chapters are devoted to “Österreichhass, Sprachhass, Fremdenhass und Geschlechterhass” (10). Historical background in “Österreichhass” traces traumatic events of the twentieth century, namely the two world wars, the end of the Habsburg Empire, the Shoah, and Nazi rule. Discussion follows of issues involving Austrian identity, Austrian literature, and anti-Austrian impulses. Three important Austrian novels are chosen that express hostility toward Austria. [End Page 150] Hans Lebert’s Die Wolfhaut appropriates the Heimat format to reveal enduring post-1945 violent and fascist threats, and the masked collective guilt in a village whose occupants had killed many slave laborers. Likewise, Thomas Bernhard reveals continued anti-Semitism and other injustices and flaws of postwar Austrian society, church, and politics in Heldenplatz. Finally, Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Die Kinder der Toten focuses on such ills in Austrian society as narrow provinciality, connections between Nazism and Catholicism, disturbed male-female relations, consumerism, and environmental destruction. Wimmer concludes, however, that the novels selected contain not hate but love/hate, which has a positive component. The chapter on “Sprachhass” offers a lengthy section on German and Austrian theoretical texts on language and its flaws and limitations. Major Austrian philosophers known for critiques of language include Fritz Mauthner and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Austrian journalist and satirist Karl Kraus wrote extensively on language corruption, condemning many usages as pseudo-scientific, biased, empty, imprecise, manipulative, and even immoral. Turning to literature (the “Poetik” of the book’s title), Wimmer notes that Peter Handke’s first novel, Die Hornissen, is related to several of his plays labeled “Sprechstücke” that experimented with new linguistic forms and structures as tools for social critiques. In Die Hornissen, traditional plot and narration are replaced by such techniques as stream of consciousness, marginalia, language games and schemata, and linguistic patterns and formulae that deform reality. More language experiments are found in Elfriede Jelinek’s play Wolken. Heim, including montages of quotations from German philosophers, writers, and public figures, which challenges readers to evaluate their ideological content. Revealed are hidden power relations and fascist views behind clichés and commonplaces. The “Fremdenhass” chapter begins with a section titled “Das Eigene und das Fremde. Selbst-, Fremd-und Feindbilder.” As before, a foundation is laid of general statements and definitions of terms, although readers of this book no doubt know all too well what racism and hostility toward “the other” are, as well as the catastrophic warfare and genocide they have caused. Literary works analyzed here include Ilse Aichinger’s novel Die größere Hoffnung, one of the first postwar novels to confront the Nazi era. The novel focuses on the riddles and dangers encountered by Jewish children living under Nazi rule. The second novel analyzed is Barbara Frischmuth’s Die Schrift des Freundes. Wimmer writes, “Kritik des Ethnozentrismus, okzidental-rationalen Denkens, [End Page 151] patriarchaler Herrschaft sstrukturen und Ausgrenzung alles Fremden und Andersartigen charakterisieren das Gesamtwerk dieser österreichischen Autorin” (175). The personal and professional experiences of Frischmuth’s protagonist raise complex multicultural issues, including entrenched anti-Muslim prejudices in Austria and contemporary fears of terrorism. Finally, Peter Henisch’s novel Schwarzer Peter features a Viennese man of mixed race who becomes a jazz musician in New Orleans. On the margins of society in both environments, his experiences and struggle for identity expose racism and stereotyping. Wimmer concludes that these three novels reveal and protest the individual and collective thought structures of “Fremdenhass.” The “Geschlechterhass” chapter analyzes the cultural roots of misogyny, including original sin, the Greek Pandora myth, and ideas of various...

The paper offers a philosophical and anthropological investigation of the industry of entertainment, which during recent decades has faced the process of rapid development and transformations. The author argues that various intercultural influences have played an essential role in the process of its formation, development and spreading. Tango developed as a product of the influences of Afro-Argentinians, local nomadic cowboys (gauchos) and European immigrants who flooded Argentina at the end of XIX century. Therefore the philosophical and cultural background of this dance is profoundly multicultural. Cultural interactions become even more intensive after tango went beyond Argentina and conquered Europe and the USA. Recently, in academic discourses, there coexist two different views towards the phenomenon of tango – local and global: traditional Argentinian “el tango porteño” is replaced by “el tango nomade”. Both the localized and globalized aspects of tango dance contribute to the result that it became so popular and dynamic field of the industry of entertainment. Phenomenology and philosophy of the dialogue helps to unveil essential, philosophical aspects of communication performed through tango dance. The German philosophers M. Heidegger and H. Arendt and the Austrian philosopher of Jewish origin M. Buber help to analyze tango from the perspectives of phenomenology and philosophy of the dialogue. Such a philosophical approach reveals a dialogical nature of this dance, enables to regard it as a silent dialogue, authentic and deep human relationships.

E. R. Curtius had a dismissive attitude toward both the literature and culture he studied in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (ELLMA). After a dissertation editing an Old French bible epic, he moved immediately to modern French, Spanish and English literature. During the Nazi period he took shelter in the Latin Middle Ages. While his work appeared harmless and unengaged to the Nazi censor, he developed his vision of a European culture held together by an embracing Latin culture. A complex psychology which undergirded his return to the Middle Ages is a main focus of the present article. He felt with near religious conviction that he was invested with a mission to restore a shattered European culture after WW II. ELLMA may have helped fulfil that mission, but it had a narrowing effect on the study of medieval literature.

This is a sequel to an article which recently appeared in this journal [1] and had the same general title. The previous article described a number of applications of newly developed techniques [2] for the study of response surfaces. The present article shows how study of the form of the empirical surface can throw important light on the basic mechanism operating and can thus make possible developments in the fundamental theory of a process. This idea is illustrated in some detail with an example previously discussed only from the empirical standpoint. A theoretical surface, based on reaction kinetics is now derived, rate constants are estimated from the data and the theoretical surface is compared with the empirical surface previously obtained. It is then shown how the canonical variables of the empirical surface can relate to the basic physical laws controlling the system. In this connection the problem of suitable choice of metrics for the variables is discussed. In a final section some general remarks on the process of scientific investigation are appended.