Victor Kraft

Victor force ( born July 4, 1880 in Vienna, † January 3, 1975 ) was an Austrian philosopher of science, philosopher and general state librarian. Among his direct students count the philosopher Paul Feyerabend and Ernst Topitsch and the writer Ingeborg Bachmann, who received his doctorate at Victor force with a critical dissertation on Martin Heidegger.

Life

As the son of Joseph Kraft, a Viennese school director and president of the Association for kindergarten education, he completed a Real -Gymnasium ( with Greek) in the 6th district of Vienna and graduated with honors in 1899 with the Matura exam. Then studied at the University of Vienna in history Redlich, geography and philosophy at Penck under Jodl and Stöhr. But he also heard numerous other lectures from other areas, not only geology, but also botany, art history and economics. Further studies in Berlin followed, among others, Georg Simmel, Wilhelm Dilthey and Carl Stumpf. However, his philosophical developments were only slightly determined by its university teachers, they were essentially self going on. In 1903 he received his PhD on the topic The knowledge of the external world. He then took a job in 1912 at the Vienna University Library in the art philosophy. The scientific officers as a library assistant, he was promoted in 1925. In 1912 he wrote the script concept of the world and concept of knowledge with which he habilitated in 1914 in the field of Theoretical Philosophy. 1916 his daughter Eva was born Frodl force. The title of associate professor was awarded to him in 1924.

After the Nazi occupation of Austria, he was considered a " Jewish Versippter " and had to retire because of his " half-Jewish " woman. His Venia Legendi he lost. After his rehabilitation, he was able in 1945 to return to the library service. In 1947 he was appointed Director of Public librarian. In this position he organized the Vienna University Library new. In the same year he was appointed associate professor of philosophy from 1950 to full professor. In 1952 he retired. In 1954 he became a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Victor Kraft's tomb is located at the Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna.

Work

The end of Nazi tyranny not led after 1945 in Austria to the renaissance of logical empiricism, particularly the surviving emigrants of the Vienna Circle were not willing to return readily to Vienna. The political climate that was friendly towards neo hostile even before the German invasion ( the assassination of Moritz Schlick was indirectly justified by the Catholic, corporative state press), hardly improved in the post-war period until well into the 60's: In the Vienna University ruled the Catholic restoration. Victor force and his student Juhos Béla (1901-1971) were also affected by the continued operation of anti- positivist affects significantly after 1945.

So declared the then Austrian Minister of Education Heinrich Drimmel, a fanatical Catholic, that had for him positivism and communism one. The neo-positivism, as manifested Drimmel, is just as destructive as Nazism. The legal positivism Vienna's famous law school Theoretical have left traces in the history, so Drimmel, " as they had been bloody in any era before". However, his expressions antitotalitaristischen held Drimmel not stop them from former Nazis, such as the infamous Viennese historian Taras Borodajkewycz to patronize. Kraft's rehabilitation probably served primarily as a kind of science policy alibi. Kraft's student Ernst Topitsch writes in this connection: "Well I had dreamed under the National Socialist terror rather restore the freedom of mind in the character of a Christian humanism, but what really happened was a stifling provincial restoration, and a pitiful clericalism common in the halls of Alma Mater an almost palpable atmosphere of intellectual dishonesty to cross without encountering strong opposition. "

The small circle that began to form around force in the 50s, called " power circle ", the least important philosophers such as Wittgenstein ( but probably only once ), Ernst Topitsch, Paul Feyerabend, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright visited, could develop no greater public impact, and force had to experience how his students made ​​careers, especially abroad.

As a member of the neo-positivist Vienna Circle, which he regularly visited, worked force - the only Viennese Neopositivist - on a non- metaphysical, rationally based ethics and value theory. Although explicitly force the so-called " scientific world view " known, he preserved many " dogmas " of logical empiricism significant distance. On test before he is suppose to compare in this respect with Karl Popper. In contrast to Popper exaggerated force the internal differences between itself and the circles are not. Despite all the self-reliance force has always tried to emphasize the Grundgemeinsamkeiten the Vienna neopositivism. Distance to the "mainstream" of the circle is found especially when too carefree logical- empiricist postulate of the " unified science ", the radical value skepticism and epistemologically especially in Kraft's rejection of silt turning (which this took place under the influence of Wittgenstein ) is a critically realist position towards a phenomenalistic positivism. Force always remained a antiphänomenalistischer, constructivist realist or empiricist antisensualistischer. The constructivist or " hypothetical realism" can be characterized by the following five postulates:

Kraft's philosophy of science anticipated ideas of critical rationalism: Karl Popper himself in the only 1979 ( the manuscript was written in the 1930s ) book " The two fundamental problems of epistemology " wrote this: " force increases - as far as I can tell - almost the basic ideas of which I represent deduktivistisch - empiricist standpoint anticipated ".

Also in practical philosophy anticipated force much of what is now part of the standard repertoire of contemporary debates: RM Hare's universal prescriptivism Even before, the classical theory of modern moral philosophy may be called today, union force an empiricist position with the criticism of relativism. Its distance to the circle explained not least by the fact that in force, similar to Popper, the influence of neo-Kantianism always remained alive.

Kraft later " culture - utilitarianism " has remained almost unnoticed, which is mainly due to political causes. The strongest ( hardly noticed ) impact on force to the later concept of Wiener legal philosopher Alfred Verdross ( 1890-1980 ) exercised. Verdross was one of the central figures of the famous Viennese legal theoretical school and wrote at that time the most widely read reference work on international law in the German language.

Works (selection)

• The problem of the external world, in: Archives of Philosophy, 2nd Department: Archives for systematic philosophy. New Series 10, 1904 ( Diss ).
• Concept of the world and concept of knowledge. An epistemological investigation, Leipzig 1912 ( Habil ).
• The basic forms of scientific methods, Vienna 1925. Online Archive
• The foundations of a scientific theory of value, Vienna 1937. The second ( improved and extended ) version was published in Vienna in 1951.
• About moral reasoning, in: Theoria 6, 1940.
• Mathematics, logic, and experience, Vienna 1947.
• The Vienna Circle. The Origin of Neo-Positivism, Vienna 1950.
• Introduction to Philosophy. Philosophy, philosophy and science, Vienna 1950.
• Epistemology, Vienna 1960.
• Rational moral justification, Vienna 1963.
• The foundations of knowledge and morality, Berlin 1968.
• Is a rational justification of social norms possible? in: Aus. Journal of Public Law 13, 1972.
• The validity of norms. in: Journal for General Philosophy of Science 5, 1974.
• Popper and the Vienna Circle, in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Lasalle III, 1974.
• The problem of universals, in B. Kanitscheider (ed.) Festschrift for Gerhard Frey 60th Born 1976.