Victor Kraft (4 July 1880 – 3 January 1975) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He is best known for being a member of the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, cha ...

Early life and education

Kraft studied

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

. He participated in the events of the university's Philosophical Society, as well as with private circles (especially Oskar Ewald,

Otto Weininger Otto Weininger (; 3 April 1880 – 4 October 1903) was an Austrian philosopher who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1903, he published the book ''Geschlecht und Charakter'' (''Sex and Character''), which gained popularity after his suici ...

and

Othmar Spann Othmar Spann (1 October 1878 – 8 July 1950) was a conservative Austrian philosopher, sociologist and economist whose radical anti-liberal and anti-socialist views, based on early 19th century Romantic ideas expressed by Adam Müller et al. ...

). He received in 1903 his Ph.D. with a dissertation on "The Knowledge of the External World". Then he moved to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

to continue his studies under

Georg Simmel Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach l ...

Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Dilthey (; ; 19 November 1833 – 1 October 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held G. W. F. Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, w ...

and

Carl Stumpf Carl Stumpf (; 21 April 1848 – 25 December 1936) was a German philosopher, psychologist and musicologist. He is noted for founding the Berlin School of Experimental Psychology. He studied with Franz Brentano at the University of Würzburg bef ...

at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

. Kraft started working in 1912 at the university's library, where he was a scientific civil servant ("

Beamter The German civil servants called ' (men, singular ', more commonly ') or ' (women, singular ') have a privileged legal status compared to other German public employees (called '), who are generally subject to the same laws and regulations as emp ...

") until 1939. In 1914 he completed his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

under Adolf Stöhr with his book "Weltbegriff und Erkenntnisbegriff" (The Concept of World and the Concept of Knowledge). Kraft attend regularly the

until its dissolution, and at the same time was also a member of the Gomperz Circle and had contacts to the so-called periphery of the Vienna Circle (''e.g.'',

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...

). Victor Kraft received the title of associate professor for theoretical philosophy in 1924.

Academic career

After the ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'', Kraft was forced to leave his librarian position because of his wife's

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

background. He lost his

as university teacher as well. Kraft continued his philosophical research with great difficulties as "inner emigrant" during the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

regime. He regained his post at the university library in 1945, and became Generalstaatsbibliothekar (national librarian) in 1947. In this year he was also appointed associate professor for philosophy. Three years later he became full professor and co-director of the school of philosophy. He retired from his post in 1952. Kraft kept his research and publishing until his death. The

Kraft Circle The Kraft Circle was a student society of philosophers at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung of the University of Vienna devoted to "considering philosophical problems in a nonmetaphysical manner and with special reference to the ...

, which he chaired between 1949 and 1952/3, was named after him, and it was during this period that he supervised the dissertation of

Paul Feyerabend Paul Karl Feyerabend (; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958 ...

and

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. Biography Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her fa ...

Karl Sigmund Karl Sigmund (born July 26, 1945) is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Vienna and one of the pioneers of evolutionary game theory. Career Sigmund was schooled in the Lycée Francais de Vienne. From 1963 to 1968 he studied at the Ins ...

, ''Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science'', Hachette UK, 2017.

Philosophical work

Among the

logical positivists Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...

, Kraft represents a unique standing point: he wrote about a non-sensualist

empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...

with a hypothetical-deductive structure. Before the First World War (and after it together with the Vienna Circle members) he dedicated most of his lectures and publications to promote scientific philosophy. He also made important contributions to the establishment of ethics as science and wrote about the theory of geography and the philosophy of history.

References

External links

Victor Kraft
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2012)

at

Innsbruck University The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. I ...

Biography
mainly based on the obtuary: {{DEFAULTSORT:Kraft, Victor 1880 births 1975 deaths Vienna Circle Writers from Vienna 20th-century Austrian philosophers

Early life and education

Academic career

Philosophical work

References

Further reading

External links