Abstract The rationalist solution to Kavka’s toxin puzzle, advocated by Gauthier, asserts that it is rational to drink a vial of toxin as initially intended. However, this account faces two serious objections. Bratman argues that Gauthier’s account does not do justice to the temporal nature of the toxin scenario. And Levy objects that it depends on a problematic assumption that the rationality of a course of action transfers to its constituent action. This article aims to defend the rationalist solution against these objections. In response to Bratman’s objection, I argue that it is based on two problematic assumptions. Regarding Levy’s objection, I argue that the rationalist solution does not have to rely on the problematic assumption that the rationality of a course of action transfers to its constituent action.

Abstract Rudolf Haller’s work on the problem of justification has unfolded over more than twenty years, evolving through his engagement with Hans Albert, the protocol-sentence debate of the Vienna Circle, and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Methodologically, his work is characterised by taking the sceptical challenge seriously; in terms of content, it revolves around three central principles that have crystallised over the course of his research. This article discusses these principles and tracks their development and relevance in Haller’s philosophical journey. A particular focus is on Schlick’s conception of “Konstatierungen” and Haller’s interpretation of and response to it.

Abstract The relationship between Arthur C. Danto’s analytical aesthetics and Wittgenstein’s philosophy is often reduced to the dispute concerning the essence of art, leading to the neglect of crucial points of positive connection between the two philosophers. Sonia Sedivy (2022) recently highlighted the influence of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations on Danto’s contextually framed definition of art. It will be shown that the understanding of this proximity between Danto and Wittgenstein can be further deepened through Rudolf Haller’s reflections on aesthetic attitude. It becomes apparent that the conceptions of art of both Danto and Wittgenstein encompass a distinct form of intentionality, viewing the object from an unusual perspective. This results in the generation of a meaning that cannot be grasped by description. Referencing Haller, this article aims to demonstrate that Danto’s understanding of art is much more closely aligned with Wittgenstein’s than is commonly portrayed.

Abstract In the 1950s, after a year in Vienna, Arthur Pap published a monograph on the most recent developments in analytic philosophy (Analytische Erkenntnistheorie, 1955), a book which can be read as a strong criticism of logical empiricism. I reconstruct the historical context in which the book was written and analyze Pap’s criticism of a core thesis of the logical empiricists: the linguistic theory of logical necessity. Against Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann, Pap argues for an absolute notion of necessity as a property of propositions conceived as abstract entities independent of language and linguistic conventions. I analyze Pap’s arguments against the logical empiricists as well as Rudolf Haller’s reaction to Pap’s criticism. Pap’s arguments can be seen as an attempt to give to analytic philosophy a re-orientation quite at odds with logical empiricism.

Abstract The present article proposes to revisit the “Neurath-Haller thesis” – i.e. the claim that Austrian philosophy is distinct from German philosophy because Kantianism did not play a major role in shaping it – by examining the development of Brentano’s dismissive attitude towards Kant through the lens of Brentano’s idea of immediate evidence. Its main point is that although the presuppositions of this idea are elaborated on in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, it is in Brentano’s later epistemological writings that this idea is invoked in order to corroborate Brentano’s understanding of what grounds philosophical insight. The article concludes by comparing this account of the development of Brentano’s philosophy with the role Brentano’s Anti-Kantianism is assumed to play according to Haller’s conception of ‘Austrian philosophy’. I will argue that, while the Neurath-Haller thesis is not mistaken, there is a subtler story to be told about the role Kant played in Austria as well as about the reasons why Austrian philosophy “spared itself the interlude with Kant”.

Abstract One class of views identifies the derogatory capacity of a slur with its truth-conditional contribution, while a second class denies this. This second class of pragmatic views is purportedly burdened with the non-pejorative counterpart problem. Pragmatic approaches to slur derogation mandate that each slur has an alternative coextensive non-derogatory expression—a non-pejorative counterpart. We offer a solution to this problem that identifies its source with the underlying assumption that expressions have extensions, an assumption largely independent of any commitments central to pragmatic approaches to slur derogation. If meanings are instructions to build concepts, then neither slurs nor their purported counterparts have extensions, and thereby cannot be coextensive. By treating meanings as instructions, not only can pragmatic views avoid the problem counterparts pose, but such a semantics offers a flexibility that can accommodate multiple pragmatic mechanisms to explain the complex behavior of slurs and their use.

Abstract Scholars have recently discussed the notion of moral certainty, inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s discussion concerning empirical certainty in On Certainty. The idea is that within the basic commitments of our moral practices exists something objectively certain – the moral hinges on which our practices turn. Here, I explore this notion of moral certainty to illuminate an important aspect of our moral thinking. I argue that, indeed, there exist moral hinges, including our commitments to people’s equal moral worth and the wrongness of killing innocent, non-threatening people. Additionally, I point out that moral hinges provide the starting point for our clarificatory moral thinking. Importantly, clarification here is not merely a preparation for a morally-important sort of thinking, but a creative process that constitutes an important aspect of such thinking. The present article illustrates this aspect and thereby contributes not just to Wittgenstein scholarship, but also to our understanding of moral thinking’s nature.

Abstract In Otto Neurath’s essay on the prehistory of the Vienna Circle, Franz Brentano is mentioned but only as a rather marginal figure. In some contrast to this view, Rudolf Haller sees Brentano and his school as the second important branch of his concept of “Austrian Philosophy”, a view that became known as the Neurath-Haller thesis. This is all the more astonishing as Brentano’s reception in Austria had largely come to a standstill in the 1950s and 1960s. This essay explores the question of which sources might have influenced Haller in this remarkable reassessment of Brentano.

Abstract In this article, I discuss Rudolf Haller’s views on the meaning of “I”, and knowledge de se. Haller’s conception was informed and inspired to a large extent by Chisholm and Wittgenstein. This is problematic since, it seems, they held contrary views regarding the meaning of “I”, self-identification, and knowledge of one’s own experiences. To overcome this problem, I put forth a “praxeological foundationalist” suggestion that may enable one to reconcile Chisholmian foundationalism with Wittgenstein’s constraint that knowledge requires the possibility of error, in a Hallerian spirit, drawing on Wittgenstein’s last views on certainty and self-knowledge.