Von Hayek, Bergmann, and Mayerhöfer

Abstract

My task is exclusively to bear witness to how penetrating Ernst Mach’s influence already was before the year 1922 when Moritz Schlick formed the so-called “Vienna Circle”. It so happens that I studied in my own hometown Vienna precisely three years from 1918 until 1921, and that what passed for philosophical discussion revolved essentially around Mach’s ideas. Vienna as a whole was already extraordinarily inclined toward philosophy of natural science.² Apart from Heinrich Gomperz,³ Adolf Stöhr⁴ also taught in Vienna and both men followed a similar line, and Robert Reininger⁵ was at the very least friendly toward such an outlook.

Friedich von Hayek (1899–1992) was an Austro-English economist, philosopher, and Noberl prizewinner. He is often considered a late representative of the Austrian School of Economics largely begun by Carl Menger. This is a translation of Hayek’s “Diskussionsbemerkungen über Ernst Mach und das sozialwissenschaftliche Denken in Wien”, Symposium aus Anlass des 50. Todestages von Ernst Mach, Ernst Mach Institut: Freiburg im Breisgau, 1966, pp. 41–44. The footnotes in this chapter have been added by the editors.

Richard A venarius (1843–1896) taught in Zürich from 1877 until his dezth where his philosophy which except for difficult terminology was very similar to that of Ernst Mach influenced many Russian students which in turn raised the ire of Plechanov and Lenin. His main work Kritik der reinen Erfahrung, two volumes, was first publisched in 1888 and republished in 1908, that is, on the eve of Lenin’s sharp reply in 1909.

Gustav Bergmann (1905- ) who from 1938 would teach at the University of Iowa seems to have passed through several stages in his philosophy from phenomenalism, to phenomenology, to a kind of “realism” which would incorporate the ideal languages of linguistic philosophy with a revived concern with epistemology and ontology as if a more or less reasonable synthesis were possible. See The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism (1954) and Meaning and Existence (1960).