The Re-Import of Analytic Philosophy: A Case Study on the Role of Rudolf Haller

Duration: 01.09.2021 - 31.08.2025

Funding body: FWF (Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research)

Individual project P 34598

Project management: Ursula Renz

Project team members:

• Ulf Höfer
• Julia Kaidisch
• Mirijam Katic

This project deals with a decisive phase in the history of analytical philosophy in the German-speaking world. Fueled by the "export" of the philosophers of the Vienna Circle and related schools of thought, analytic philosophy established itself from the 1930s onwards, primarily in the English-speaking world, where it has held a dominant position ever since. Unlike in the case of the Frankfurt School, for example, virtually none of the emigrants returned. It was left to a new generation to reintroduce analytical philosophy in German-speaking countries.

However, what was "re-imported" was not identical to what had previously been exported, as the development of analytical philosophy from the first radical theses of the Vienna Circle to the 1960s is characterized by profound transformations and ruptures. In addition to these aspects of content - according to a central working hypothesis in this project - this fact of re-import itself is of decisive importance for the way in which analytic philosophy was able to re-establish itself in the German-speaking academic world.

In this project, we aim to address this novel perspective on the history of recent analytic philosophy through a case study of Rudolf Haller (1929-2014), who was a key figure in the re-import of analytic philosophy to Austria. In addition to the analysis of Haller's intellectual biography in the first sub-project, which also includes his organizational activities and efforts to create a milieu open to analytic philosophy in Austria, further sub-projects are dedicated to Haller's aesthetics, his reception of Wittgenstein and his contribution to research into the Vienna Circle. Furthermore, we would like to examine the role Haller's interest in the history of philosophy and, in particular, the Austrian and Central European prehistory of analytic philosophy played in the re-import of analytic philosophy.