Ernst Mally
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Ernst Mally (; ; 11 October 1879 – 8 March 1944) was an Austrian
analytic philosopher Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United St ...
, initially affiliated with
Alexius Meinong Alexius Meinong Ritter von Handschuchsheim (17 July 1853 – 27 November 1920) was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value. Life Alexius Meinong ...
's
Graz School The Graz School (german: Grazer Schule), also Meinong's School, of experimental psychology and object theory was headed by Alexius Meinong, who was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz where he founded the Graz Psychological ...
of object theory. Mally was one of the founders of
deontic logic Deontic logic is the field of philosophical logic that is concerned with obligation, permission, and related concepts. Alternatively, a deontic logic is a formal system that attempts to capture the essential logical features of these concepts. It ...
and is mainly known for his contributions in that field of research. In
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, he is known for introducing a distinction between two kinds of predication, better known as the dual predication approach.


Life

Mally was born in the town of
Kranj Kranj (, german: Krainburg) is the third-largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 37,941 (2020). It is located approximately northwest of Ljubljana. The centre of the City Municipality of Kranj and of the traditional region of Upper Carniol ...
(german: link=no, Krainburg) in the
Duchy of Carniola The Duchy of Carniola ( sl, Vojvodina Kranjska, german: Herzogtum Krain, hu, Krajna) was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire, established under House of Habsburg, Habsburg rule on the territory of the former East Frankish March of Carn ...
,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
(now in
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
). His father was of Slovene origin, but identified himself with
Austrian German Austrian German (german: Österreichisches Deutsch), Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German (), or Austrian High German (), is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria. It has the highest sociolinguistic p ...
culture (he also
Germanize Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...
d the orthography of his surname, originally spelled Mali, a common Slovene surname of
Upper Carniola Upper Carniola ( sl, Gorenjska; it, Alta Carniola; german: Oberkrain) is a traditional region of Slovenia, the northern mountainous part of the larger Carniola region. The centre of the region is Kranj, while other urban centers include Jeseni ...
). After his death, the family moved to the
Carniola Carniola ( sl, Kranjska; , german: Krain; it, Carniola; hu, Krajna) is a historical region that comprised parts of present-day Slovenia. Although as a whole it does not exist anymore, Slovenes living within the former borders of the region sti ...
n capital of
Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...
(german: link=no, Laibach). There, Ernst attended the prestigious Ljubljana German-language Gymnasium. Already at a young age, Mally became a fervent supporter of the
Pan-German Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
nationalist movement of
Georg von Schönerer Georg may refer to: * ''Georg'' (film), 1997 *Georg (musical), Estonian musical * Georg (given name) * Georg (surname) * , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker See also * George (disambiguation) George may refer to: People * George (given name) * ...
. In the same time, he developed an interest in philosophy. In 1898, he enrolled in the
University of Graz The University of Graz (german: link=no, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ), located in Graz, Austria, is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria. History The unive ...
, where he studied philosophy under the supervision of
Alexius Meinong Alexius Meinong Ritter von Handschuchsheim (17 July 1853 – 27 November 1920) was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value. Life Alexius Meinong ...
, as well as
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and mathematics, specializing in
formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
. He graduated in 1903 with a
doctoral thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
entitled ''Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie des Messens'' (''Investigations in the Object Theory of Measurement''). In 1906 he started teaching at a high school in
Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
, at the same time collaborating with Adalbert Meingast and working as Meinong's assistant at the university. He also maintained close contacts with the Graz Psychological Institute, founded by Meinong. In 1912, he wrote his
habilitation thesis 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 ...
entitled ''Gegenstandstheoretische Grundlagen der Logik und Logistik'' (''Object-theoretic Foundations for Logics and Logistics'') at Graz with Meinong as supervisor. From 1915 to 1918 he served as an officer in the
Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint arm ...
. After the end of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Mally joined the
Greater German People's Party The Greater German People's Party (German ''Großdeutsche Volkspartei'', abbreviated GDVP) was a German nationalist and national liberal political party during the First Republic of Austria, established in 1920. Foundation After World War I and ...
, which called the unification of
German Austria The Republic of German-Austria (german: Republik Deutschösterreich or ) was an unrecognised state that was created following World War I as an initial rump state for areas with a predominantly German-speaking and ethnic German population wit ...
with Germany. In the same period, he started teaching at the university and in 1925 he took over Meinong's chair. In 1938, he became a member of the
National Socialist Teachers League The National Socialist Teachers League (German: , NSLB), was established on 21 April 1929. Its original name was the Organization of National Socialist Educators. Its founder and first leader was former schoolteacher Hans Schemm, the Gauleiter ...
and two months 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 ...
'' he joined the
NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. He continued teaching during the Nazi administration of Austria until 1942 when he retired. He died in 1944 in
Schwanberg Schwanberg is a mountain, or hill of higher elevation (474 m), in the rural district of Kitzingen, Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. It is part of the Steigerwald. In ancient times the mountain was used by the Celts as a refug ...
.


Philosophical work


Mally's deontic logic

Mally was the first logician ever to attempt an axiomatization of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
(Mally 1926). He used five
axioms An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...
, which are given below. They form a
first-order theory First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantif ...
that quantifies over
proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
s, and there are several predicates to understand first. !x means that x ought to be the case. Ux means that x is unconditionally obligatory, i.e. that !x is
necessarily true Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic. Broadly speaking, a logical truth is a statement which is true regardless of the truth or falsity of its constituent propositions. In other words, a logical truth is a statement whic ...
. ∩x means that x is unconditionally forbidden, i.e. U(¬x). A f B is the
binary relation In mathematics, a binary relation associates elements of one set, called the ''domain'', with elements of another set, called the ''codomain''. A binary relation over Set (mathematics), sets and is a new set of ordered pairs consisting of ele ...
A requires B, i.e. A materially implies !B. (All
entailment Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...
in the axioms is
material conditional The material conditional (also known as material implication) is an operation commonly used in logic. When the conditional symbol \rightarrow is interpreted as material implication, a formula P \rightarrow Q is true unless P is true and Q is ...
.) It is defined by axiom III, whereas all other terms are defined as a preliminary. \begin \mbox & ((A\; \operatorname\; B) \And (B \to C)) \to (A\; \operatorname\; C) \\ \mbox & ((A\; \operatorname\; B) \And (A\;\operatorname\;C)) \to (A\; \operatorname\; (B \And C)) \\ \mbox & (A\; \operatorname\; B) \leftrightarrow\; !(A \to B) \\ \mbox & \exists U\; !U \\ \mbox & \neg (U\; \operatorname\; \cap) \end Note the implied
universal quantifier In mathematical logic, a universal quantification is a type of quantifier, a logical constant which is interpreted as "given any" or "for all". It expresses that a predicate can be satisfied by every member of a domain of discourse. In other w ...
s in the above axioms. The fourth axiom has confused some logicians because its formulation is not as they would have expected, since Mally gave each axiom a description in words also, and he said that axiom IV meant "the unconditionally obligatory is obligatory", i.e. (as many logicians have insisted) UA → !A. Meanwhile, axiom 5 lacks an object to which the predicates apply, a
typo A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography). ...
. However, it turns out these are the least of Mally's worries (see below).


Failure of Mally's deontic logic

Theorem: This axiomatization of
deontic logic Deontic logic is the field of philosophical logic that is concerned with obligation, permission, and related concepts. Alternatively, a deontic logic is a formal system that attempts to capture the essential logical features of these concepts. It ...
implies that !x
if and only if In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is bicondi ...
x is true, OR !x is unsatisfiable. (This makes it useless to deontic logicians.) Proof: Using axiom III, axiom I may be rewritten as (!(A → B) & (B → C)) → !(A → C). Since B → C holds whenever C holds, one immediate consequence is that (!(A → B) → (C → !(A → C))). In other words, if A requires B, it requires any true statement. In the special case where A is a tautology, the theorem has consequence (!B → (C → !C)). Thus, if at least one statement ought be true, every statement must materially entail it ought be true, and so every true statement ought be true. As for the converse (i.e. if some statement ought be true then all statements that ought be true are true), consider the following logic: ((U → !A) & (A → ∩)) → (U → !∩) is a special case of axiom I, but its
consequent A consequent is the second half of a hypothetical proposition. In the standard form of such a proposition, it is the part that follows "then". In an implication, if ''P'' implies ''Q'', then ''P'' is called the antecedent and ''Q'' is called ...
contradicts axiom V, and so ¬((U → !A) & (A → ∩)). The result !A → A can be shown to follow from this, since !A implies that U → !A and ¬A implies that A → ∩; and, since these are not both true, we know that !A → A. Mally thought that axiom I was self-evident, but he likely confused it with an alternative in which the implication B → C is ''logical'', which would indeed make the axiom self-evident. The theorem above, however, would then not be demonstrable. The theorem was proven by
Karl Menger Karl Menger (January 13, 1902 – October 5, 1985) was an Austrian-American mathematician, the son of the economist Carl Menger. In mathematics, Menger studied the theory of algebras and the dimension theory of low- regularity ("rough") curves a ...
, the next deontic logician. Neither Mally's original axioms nor a modification that avoids this result remains popular today. Menger did not suggest his own axioms. (See also deontic logic for more on the subsequent development of this subject.)


Metaphysics

In
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, Mally is known for introducing a distinction between two kinds of predication, a strategy better known as the dual predication approach, for solving the problem of
nonexistent object An object of the mind is an object that exists in the imagination, but which, in the real world, can only be represented or modeled. Some such objects are abstractions, literary concepts, or fictional scenarios. Closely related are intentional ob ...
s (Mally 1912). He also introduced a similar strategy, the
dual property strategy In metaphysics and the philosophy of language, the round square copula is a common example of the dual copula strategy used in reference to the problem of nonexistent objects as well as their relation to problems in modern philosophy of language. ...
, but did not endorse it. The dual property strategy was eventually adopted by Meinong. Mally developed a realistic approach to
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
(Mally 1935) and saw himself in opposition to 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 ...
and 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 ...
.


Legacy

Mally's metaphysical work influences some contemporary metaphysicians and logicians working in
abstract object theory Abstract object theory (AOT) is a branch of metaphysics regarding abstract objects. Originally devised by metaphysician Edward Zalta in 1981, the theory was an expansion of mathematical Platonism. Overview ''Abstract Objects: An Introduction to ...
, especially
Edward Zalta Edward Nouri Zalta (; born March 16, 1952) is an American philosopher who is a senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He received his BA at Rice University in 1975 and his PhD from ...
. The analytic philosopher
David Kellogg Lewis David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
argued forcefully that the name of the fictional Australian poet
Ern Malley The Ern Malley hoax, also called the Ern Malley affair, is Australia's most famous literary hoax. Its name derives from Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley, a fictitious poet whose biography and body of work were created in one day in 1943 by conservat ...
, created by
James McAuley James Phillip McAuley (12 October 1917 – 15 October 1976) was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism. He was involved in the Ern Malley poetry hoax. Life and career McAuley wa ...
and
Harold Stewart Harold Frederick Stewart (14 December 19167 August 1995) was an Australian poet and oriental scholar. He is chiefly remembered alongside fellow poet James McAuley as a co-creator of the Ern Malley literary hoax. Stewart's work has been asso ...
, was an allusion to Mally.


Works

* (1904
903 __NOTOC__ Year 903 ( CMIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * King Berengar I of Italy proceeds to issue concessions and privileges to the Lo ...
''Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie des Messens (Investigations in the Object Theory of Measurement)'', Leipzig: Barth (
doctoral thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
). * (1912) ''Gegenstandstheoretische Grundlagen der Logik und Logistik (Object-theoretic Foundations for Logics and Logistics)'', Leipzig: Barth (
habilitation thesis 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 ...
). * (1926) ''Grundgesetze des Sollens. Elemente der Logik des Willens (The Basic Laws of Ought: Elements of the Logic of Willing)'', Graz: Leuschner & Lubensky. Reprinted in Ernst Mally: ''Logische Schriften. Großes Logikfragment—Grundgesetze des Sollens'', K. Wolf, P. Weingartner (eds.), Dordrecht: Reidel, 1971, 227–324. * (1935) ''Erlebnis und Wirklichkeit. Einleitung zur Philosophie der Natürlichen Weltauffassung (Experience and Reality: Introduction to the Philosophy of the Natural World-conception)'', Leipzig: Julius Klinkhardt.


Notes


References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mally, Ernst 1879 births 1944 deaths 20th-century Austrian mathematicians 20th-century Austrian philosophers Abstract object theory Austrian logicians Austrian Nazis Austrian people of Slovenian descent Austrian philosophers Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I Analytic philosophers Epistemologists German nationalists Greater German People's Party politicians Metaphysicians Ontologists Writers from Kranj Phenomenologists Philosophers of education Philosophers of logic Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of psychology Philosophers of science Philosophical logic University of Graz alumni Academics of the University of Graz