19th Century Austrian Philosophy

A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic had been responsible for introducing the Vienna Circle’s ideas, developed within a Germanophone framework, to an Anglophone readership. Inevitably, this migration from one context to another resulted in the alteration of some of the concepts being transmitted. Such alterations have served to facilitate a number of false impressions of Logical Empiricism from which recent scholarship still tries to recover. In this paper, I will attempt to point to the ways in which LTL has (...) helped to foster the various mistaken stereotypes about Logical Empiricism which were combined into the received view. I will begin by examining Ayer’s all too brief presentation of an Anglocentric lineage for his ideas. This lineage, as we shall see, simply omits the major 19th century Germanophone influences on the rise of analytic philosophy. The Germanophone ideas he presents are selectively introduced into an Anglophone context, and directed towards various concerns that arose within that context. I will focus on the differences between Carnap’s version of the overcoming of metaphysics, and Ayer’s reconfiguration into what he calls the elimination of metaphysics. Having discussed the above, I will very briefly outline the consequences that Ayer’s radicalisation of the Vienna Circle’s doctrines had on the subsequent Anglophone reception of Logical Empiricism. (shrink)

I review Stefan Roski's "Bolzano's Conception of Grounding".

This paper takes the form of a series of sketches of 19th century Austrian political and intellectual history, allied with a number of more general reflections designed to contribute to our understanding of some of the peculiar characteristics of Austrian thought, particularly Austrian philosophy and economics, in the period in question.

This book presents the long-awaited critical edition of an unpublished manuscript of 277 pages containing Twardowski’s lecture notes on logic given in German at the University of Vienna. As to length, language and topic, this text is unique among the works of the author, who is renowned for his Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (1894), an influential but short book that has been out of stock for a long time already. In Logik Twardowski’s ideas are exposed in (...) a much more extensive and interestingly revised form. The rest of Twardowski’s production is in Polish, a language inaccessible to many readers. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl hat einmal die Wissenschaftslehre ein Werk genannt, „das in Sachen der logischen ‚Elementarlehre‘ alles weit zurückläßt, was die Weltliteratur an systematischen Entwürfen der Logik darbietet“. In der Tat nimmt das vierbändige, 1837 veröffentlichte Werk zahlreiche Entwicklungen und Ansätze der späteren Phänomenologie und analytischen Philosophie vorweg. – Die Auswahlausgabe beschränkt sich aus Umfangsgründen auf die Fundamentallehre (Teil I) und die Elementarlehre (Teil II) und damit auf die Teile des Werks, die Bolzano selbst für die wichtigsten gehalten hat.

This essay examines the role of non-existent objects in "epistemological ontology" — the study of the entities that make thinking possible. An earlier revision of Meinong's Theory of Objects is reviewed, Meinong's notions of Quasisein and Außersein are discussed, and a theory of Meinongian objects as "combinatorially possible" entities is presented.

À partir d'une lecture comparée de certains extraits de l'Einleitung zur Grössenlehre et de la Wissenschaftslehre, cet article se propose de reformuler l'ensemble de la réflexion bolzanienne sur le rapport entre objets effectifs et idéaux par le biais de la notion de « Veränderung » (§ 1). Plutôt que d'envisager la variation bolzanienne depuis la théorie des fonctions, elle doit être abordée d'abord par une réflexion sur le rapport entre variation et signe (§ 2), puis entre substitution et mise en (...) série de représentations, et enfin comme corrélat d'un acte de visée de multiplicités (§ 3). Une telle reformulation impliquera la prise en compte d'une notion de devenir propre aux objets idéaux. This paper sketches out the main themes of Bolzano's thought about real and ideal objects through a systematic account of his notion of « Veränderung », as it stands out from some paragraphs of both the Einleitung zur Grössenlehre and the Wissenschaftslehre (§ 1). Rather than through reference to the functions theory, we shall approach the variation first through a previous analysis of the relationship between variation and sign (§ 2), then between substitution and serialisation of a presentation, and finally as a correlate of a multiplicity meaning act (§ 3). Such an account will point out the notion of becoming which is proper to ideal objects. (shrink)

As Kevin Mulligan, more than anyone else, has demonstrated, there is a distinction within the philosophy of the German-speaking world between two principal currents: of idealism / transcendentalism, characteristic of Northern Germany; and of realism / objectivism, characteristic of Austria and the South. We explore some of the implications of this distinction with reference to the influence of Austrian (and German) philosophy on philosophical developments in Hungary, focusing on the work of Ákos von Pauler, and especially on Pauler’s reading of (...) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 549-550, July 2012.

This is a presentation of Bolzano's ideas on logic, logical semantics, ontology, proof theory, the foundations of mathematics, and certain aspects of the philosophy of nature. Bolzano's world view was a universal one in the sense that philosophy, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics should build upon the same logical foundation. In the pursuit of this encyclopaedic point of view he already recognized many of the essential things to come in logic and the foundations of mathematics.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)