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Mauro Antonelli
Dipartimento di Psicologia
Università di Milano - Bicocca
Milano, Italy

Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind

ISBN 978-3-319-96682-3    ISBN 978-3-319-96684-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96684-7

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Vittorio Benussi’s portrait by Gino Parin (Benussi Archive, box 18, file 5)

v
Acknowledgements

This monograph broadens, completes and systematises a series of essays, editions

and papers I devoted to the figure and work of Vittorio Benussi during the last two
decades. My wish is to offer a well-rounded historical and systematic reconstruction
of his work, while also shedding light on important influences on his life, research
and complex career.
I wish to express my gratitude to all the institutions and people who have made
my research possible and supported it throughout this long period of time. First of
all, I wish to thank the Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung
(FWF, Vienna) for funding (project-P7199 HIS) my first research on Benussi at the
Institute of Philosophy and at the Forschungsstelle und Dokumentationszentrum für
österreichische Philosophie of the University of Graz. Among the Graz colleagues,
I wish particularly to express my gratitude to Harald Berger, Thomas Binder,
Wolfgang L. Gombocz, Johann Christian Marek and Werner Sauer for their continu-
ous support and friendship throughout the years. A special mention goes to Rudolf
Haller, who recently passed away, and who was editor of the series Studien zur
österreichischen Philosophie, in which I published my first book on Benussi and an
edition of Benussi’s German writings.
A special thought also goes to another prematurely departed mentor, Giuseppe
Mucciarelli, who during my years at the University of Bologna shared my interest
in Benussi and decidedly stimulated the continuation of my research.
I also thank all the institutions that have provided me with their archival material:
the Archives of the Universities of Graz and Padua, the General Administrative
Archive of Vienna and the Central State Archive of Rome, the University Library
and the Forschungsstelle und Dokumentationszentrum für österreichische Phi­
losophie of Graz, the Archivio Storico della Psicologia Italiana (Aspi, Historical
Archive of Italian Psychology) of the University of Milano-Bicocca.
Special thanks go to Pietro Rizzi and Natale Stucchi who shared the work on the
digital edition of Benussi’s Archive, which led to the founding of the Aspi Research
Centre. And many thanks to the Aspi staff: Paola Zocchi, Dario De Santis and
Elena Canadelli who over the last ten years have strongly supported my work as

vii
viii Acknowledgements

Director, thereby making possible a reality which is currently unique at an

­international level.
I sincerely thank Angela Tagini and Biagio Tassone for their precious assistance
in the revision of this manuscript.
Last but not least, I thank Valentina and Nicoletta for their patience. This book is
dedicated to them.

Milan
May 2018
Contents

1 Introduction................................................................................................ 1
2 The Austrian Path Toward Gestalt Psychology: From Brentano
to Benussi, via Meinong............................................................................. 3
2.1 Scientific Psychology in Germany and Austria at the Turn
of the Century..................................................................................... 3
2.2 “Austrian Psychology”........................................................................ 7
2.3 The Empirical and Descriptive Psychology of Franz Brentano......... 14
2.3.1 A New Empirical Psychology on an Aristotelian Basis....... 14
2.3.2 The Classification of Mental Phenomena............................. 21
2.3.3 Descriptive Psychology and Ontology of the Mind.............. 25
2.4 Psychology in Meinong’s Philosophical Thinking............................. 27
2.4.1 Psychology and Philosophy.................................................. 27
2.4.2 Meinong’s Pathway to Psychology....................................... 29
2.4.3 Meinong Between Empiricism and Descriptive
Psychology............................................................................ 33
2.4.4 Sensation, Presentation, Perception, and Structure.............. 44
2.4.5 Form and Organisation: Meinong, Stumpf, and Husserl...... 55
2.4.6 Christian von Ehrenfels and the “Gestalt Qualities”............ 63
2.4.7 From Gestalt Qualities to Complexions
and Founded Contents.......................................................... 70
2.4.8 Psychic Analysis................................................................... 73
2.4.9 The Objects and Their Ordered Levels................................. 76
2.4.10 The Production Theory: Rudolf Ameseder
and Stephan Witasek............................................................. 90
2.4.11 The Assumption (Annahme) and the Classification
of Mental Phenomena........................................................... 97

ix
x Contents

3 Vittorio Benussi: A Difficult Life, a Tragic Fate..................................... 101

3.1 His Personality.................................................................................... 101
3.2 From Trieste to Graz........................................................................... 105
3.3 Benussi and the Graz School.............................................................. 112
3.4 Scientific Maturity.............................................................................. 120
3.5 The Difficult Years.............................................................................. 126
3.6 From Graz to Padua............................................................................ 130
4 The Graz Period......................................................................................... 145
4.1 Theoria vs Empiria............................................................................. 145
4.2 The Heritage of Brentano and Meinong............................................. 147
4.3 The Inadequate Perception of Forms.................................................. 148
4.3.1 The Optical-Geometrical Illusions....................................... 148
4.3.2 The Illusions: Judgment Illusions vs Presentational
Inadequacy............................................................................ 152
4.3.3 Perception and Judgment: Benussi and the Theories
of Brentano’s School............................................................. 154
4.3.4 Presentational Inadequacy and Its Classification.................. 157
4.3.5 Act, Content and Object of Presentation.............................. 162
4.3.6 Gestalt Ambiguity................................................................. 164
4.3.7 Phenomenal Salience (Auffälligkeit).................................... 170
4.3.8 The Laws of the Inadequate Perception of Gestalten
and Sensory and Non-Sensory Perceptual Inadequacy........ 173
4.4 Time.................................................................................................... 176
4.4.1 Subjective and Objective Time............................................. 176
4.4.2 The Mental Present............................................................... 179
4.4.3 Grouping and Phrasing......................................................... 182
4.4.4 Temporal Comparisons......................................................... 184
4.4.5 The Tau Effect....................................................................... 188
4.4.6 Präsenzzeit and Gegenwartszeit............................................ 191
4.4.7 The Origin of Temporal Presentations.................................. 194
4.5 The Phenomenology of the Latent Subject......................................... 196
4.5.1 Benussi and Husserl.............................................................. 196
4.5.2 Static vs Genetic Phenomenology........................................ 198
4.6 The Benussi-Koffka Dispute. Production Theory vs
Gestalt Theory.................................................................................... 206
4.6.1 s (Sensory) and S (Non-Sensory) Apparent Motions........... 206
4.6.2 Max Wertheimer, the φ Phenomenon
and “Physiological Short Circuits”....................................... 211
4.6.3 Koffka and Kenkel: The β and α Motions............................ 214
4.6.4 Göttingen, 1914.................................................................... 216
4.6.5 Koffka, 1915: The Confrontation with Benussi.................... 220
4.6.6 The Revision of Benussi’s Theory........................................ 232
4.6.7 Benussi Between Gegenstandstheorie and Gestaltheorie..... 234
Contents xi

4.7 Psychology of Testimony.................................................................... 238

4.7.1 The Psychology of Testimony in the Early
Twentieth Century................................................................. 238
4.7.2 Hans Gross and “Criminal Psychology”............................... 242
4.7.3 The “Psychological Diagnosis of Facts”:
Max Wertheimer and Julius Klein........................................ 245
4.7.4 Carl Gustav Jung and His Diagnostic Studies
on Associations..................................................................... 246
4.7.5 Benussi and the Psychophysiology of Emotions.................. 250
4.7.6 Respiratory Symptoms of Lies and Truthfulness................. 253
5 The Padua Period....................................................................................... 261
5.1 Suggestion and Hypnosis as “Means of Real Mental Analysis”........ 261
5.2 The Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations
of Real Mental Analysis...................................................................... 264
5.2.1 Mental Functions and Their Classification........................... 264
5.2.2 Perception and Its Internal Determinants............................. 267
5.2.3 The “Individual’s Constant Conditions”
(Condizioni Costanti Individuali)......................................... 271
5.2.4 The Biological and Adaptive Role of Mental Functions...... 272
5.3 Hypnosis............................................................................................. 274
5.3.1 Suggestion and Hypnosis...................................................... 274
5.3.2 Emotional Functional Autonomy
(Autonomia Funzionale Emotiva)......................................... 276
5.3.3 The Convergent Validity of Introspective
and Psychophysiological Indices.......................................... 283
5.3.4 Perception and Hypnosis...................................................... 291
5.3.5 The “Action Fragments” (Frammenti d’azione)................... 302
5.4 Benussi and Psychoanalysis............................................................... 304
5.4.1 The Course on Psycho-Analysis........................................... 305
6 Conclusion.................................................................................................. 319
6.1 Genetic Experimental Phenomenology and Embodiment.................. 319
6.2 Psychoanalysis, Cognitive and Affective Neurosciences................... 326

Appendix........................................................................................................... 333

References......................................................................................................... 343

Index.................................................................................................................. 371
Chapter 1
Introduction

There are only a few figures in the history of psychology whose work continues to
be relevant over the span of a century, and Vittorio Benussi (Trieste, 1878 – Padua,
1927) is one of them. However, his work for various reasons did not receive full
recognition, neither during his lifetime nor subsequently, that is, until a few years
ago.
As an outstanding member of the Graz School of Experimental Psychology and
of Object Theory, which gathered around Alexius Meinong, and as the founder of
the Italian School of Gestalt psychology, Vittorio Benussi was one of the foremost
experimental psychologists of his time. His scientific contributions, from 1902
onward, received “the highest recognition of the Graz School from psychology and
philosophy” (Russell 1905, p. 538), such as to have made him “the most productive
and effective experimental psychologist that Austria [and Italy] had” (Boring 1950,
p. 446; my addition). The contributions of Benussi, one of the first trained psycholo-
gists, were particularly relevant in the fields of visual and tactile perception, time
perception, forensic psychology, hypnosis and suggestion, the unconscious and
emotions. His classical papers are impressively original in their energy, the range of
approaches, the experimental skill, the wealth of findings and the quality of the
theoretical discussions.
Benussi’s work, however, did not have the resonance it should have evoked in the
psychological context of German-speaking countries, or in Italy, after his move to
Padua in 1918. Many unfavourable circumstances converged to obscure Benussi,
including the peripheral role of the Graz School when compared to the main
European research centres; the upheavals following the First World War and the col-
lapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; his move to Italy which was located on the
fringes of international psychological research; his reserved character; his writing
style which would discourage any reader; and finally his premature death.
The scientific activity of Benussi was therefore destined to be ignored: many of
his insights, which although ahead of their time, were the expression of the classical
psychology paradigm which was gradually fading. Thus, with the gradual ­emergence

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M. Antonelli, Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology,
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2 1 Introduction

of the Berlin Gestalt School, Benussi had to settle for the role of being their mere
forerunner, as predicated by the manuals, although he had been among the first to
experimentally investigate the perception of Gestalt. A crucial factor that contrib-
uted to Benussi’s work being largely forgotten was his dispute with Koffka (Koffka
1915). Even his subsequent research, carried out during the Padua period, in which
he resorted to suggestion and hypnosis, did not have the resonance it should have
had. On the one hand, it was regarded with suspicion by experimental psycholo-
gists, as it seemed to come too close to psychoanalysis which was considered dis-
reputable; on the other hand, it was viewed with suspicion by psychoanalysts, since
it was carried out with the strict method of an experimentalist.
It is only in recent years that a renewed interest for Benussi’s work emerged in
Italy and in German-speaking countries, as a result of cognitive psychologists
reviewing classical psychology in a return to their origins. This was not only a his-
torical interest for one of the great forgotten figures of psychology of the past but
also due to the relevance of his research projects. In particular, some of Benussi’s
great scientific projects (such as the psychology of perception, the psychology of
time, the induction of emotional states through the modification of breathing
rhythms, the psychology of testimony, the attempt to reconcile psychoanalysis and
experimental research) appear today in all their disconcerting actuality. They con-
firm the genius of the psychologist from Trieste who was capable not only of
extraordinary insights, by means of which he was ahead of his time, but also to
translate them – albeit with the scarcity of means at his disposal – into projects to be
pursued with patient and tireless research.
This book covers the basic guidelines of Benussi’s research during both his Graz
and Padua periods, also in the light of the thorough study of his Nachlass, preserved
at the Aspi Research Centre – Archivio Storico della Psicologia Italiana (Historical
Archive of Italian Psychology) of the University of Milano-Bicocca. The objective
is not only a re-evaluation of Benussi’s work as a historical piece but also for it to
be a source of inspiration for contemporary psychologists and philosophers of the
mind. To currently propose a book about Benussi is thus an invitation to approach
with an original and ingenious psychologist, whose modernity can finally be
recognised.
Note. All citations from German, Italian and French, unless otherwise specified
(“Eng.”), were translated by the author. The titles of the works by Benussi, Meinong
and other authors are indicated in English with the original title in brackets, if an
English translation exists; otherwise, the original title is cited and the English trans-
lation is in brackets.
Chapter 2
The Austrian Path Toward Gestalt
Psychology: From Brentano to Benussi,
via Meinong

2.1  cientific Psychology in Germany and Austria

S
at the Turn of the Century

Around 1900, when Vittorio Benussi’s research and publications began to appear,
psychology was already an established science. By comparison, in previous decades,
the new science of experimental psychology had displayed impressive growth, but
all the while proceeding in a confused and disorganised manner. With the participa-
tion of many researchers from different European countries contributing insights
from many diverse fields, such as philosophy, physiology, neurology, psychiatry,
and biology, the modern psychologists became an active research community which
could count on well-equipped laboratories, scientific societies, specialised journals,
national and international conferences, and other means of communication to
advance their discipline. Psychology was thus a science that “had freed itself from
its national confines” (Ebbinghaus 1901, p. 60), and was developing on the basis of
a multidisciplinary approach (Gundlach 2004a).
The various national traditions differed not only in the degree to which the
above-­mentioned disciplines contributed to the promotion of psychological inquiry,
but also in the time-scales, modalities, and particular academic contexts in which
psychology became insititutionalised as a discipline. From the start, the new disci-
pline of psychology took on an essentially biological form, especially within the
more recently established North American universities which had not been weighed
down by age-old traditions and practices. There, psychologists were provided with
their own departments and laboratories (there were about forty in 1900), which
included professorships and formative curricula, and psychology consolidated its
position as a discipline with numerous applications. On the contrary, in august
Europe psychology had developed both more slowly and in a more complex fash-
ion. This was particularly true in Germany, the cradle of the new science, where for
a long time psychology remained a specialised field of inquiry within the wider

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 3

M. Antonelli, Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology,
Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 21,
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4 2 The Austrian Path Toward Gestalt Psychology…

context of philosophy and, as such, taught by professors or Privatdozenten in that

field. From a curricular standpoint, in fact, psychology was not a set of courses lead-
ing to a degree, nor was it a specific module, but simply one of the subjects of the
Faculties of Philosophy which were, in the main, in the business of overseeing the
general formation of secondary school teachers.
Up to the nineteenth century, German Universities had upheld their traditional
organisation, which dated back to the Middle Ages. The German University was
composed of four faculties: Philosophy, Theology, Law, and Medicine. However,
the Faculties of Philosophy, which were the seat of the liberal arts, unlike the other
three faculties that educated specific professional figures, initially had an essentially
propaedeutic function. Their aim, in fact, was to provide introductory knowledge
and the formative basis for the other three higher faculties. It was only with the
reforms in the first decades of the nineteenth century, which led to the institution of
Secondary Schools (Gymnasien) in German-speaking countries, that the Faculties
of Philosophy lost their traditional function, which was subsequently taken over by
the schools themselves. The Faculties of Philosophy thus became places in which
secondary school teachers were educated and concluded their studies by taking a
state examination. Thus, these Faculties also acquired the function of forming pro-
fessionals, which had, until then, been the prerogative of the other three faculties.
Hence, psychology became one of the obligatory courses necessary for the acquisi-
tion of a teaching certificate. A specific Chair was responsible for the course, which
was usually defined as a Professorship in Philosophy (or Logic), Psychology, and
Pedagogy (Gundlach 2004b, 2017, pp. 71–94).
During the last decades of the 1800s, the establishment of an experimental
approach to discovering psychological facts led to psychology courses that were
held in the traditional manner (in terms of relying on a philosophical psychology
based on a particular school of thought or the expression of the personal orientation
of its proponent) in some universities, while in others it acquired a new connotation.
In these latter universities, the courses were held by Philosophy Professors who
dedicated their research and teaching to the “new” psychology, characterised by
methods derived from the natural sciences.
Exponents of Neo-Kantianism and Historicism were among the advocates of
traditional philosophical psychology. Starting from Dilthey’s (1883) distinction
between explanation and understanding and Windelband’s (1894) differentiation
between nomothetic and idiographic sciences,1 these scholars crucially conceived
psychology as being comprehending and idiographic in nature, and believed that it

1
The reference here is to the famous Methodenstreit, which arose within the foundations of eco-
nomic sciences, but soon extended to philosophy. It developed in marked opposition to French and
English positivism which intended to quash the epistemological distinction between natural and
human sciences. German historicists, in opposition to the reductionist methodological monism
typical of positivism, sustained the irreducibility of natural sciences to human sciences. This
occurred on the basis of the ontological distinction between nature and the historical world
(Dilthey) and the epistemological difference between explanation and understanding (Windelband,
Rickert). In this regard, see Hughes 1976; Willey 1978; Iggers 1983; Bambach 1995; Signore
2005; Feest 2010.
2.1 Scientific Psychology in Germany and Austria at the Turn of the Century 5

was not reducible to the mathematical orientation typical of modern sciences. Apart
from Dilthey’s Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytical Psychology (Ideen
über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie) (Dilthey 1994),2 clear
examples of this type of psychology were the Geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie
of his pupil Eduard Spranger (Spranger 1913, 1921), and the Verstehende Psycho­
logie of Karl Jaspers (1913).
In order to extend our understanding of the context, it should be added that
although Natur- and Geisteswissenschaften3 still co-existed in the Philosophy
Faculties during the 1800s, their dualism arose and developed in the context of
the so-called Methodenstreit at the end of the nineteenth century. The Naturwis­
senschaften thus gave rise to specific Institutes with their research laboratories, and
the Geisteswissenschaften to specific Seminars (Gundlach 2012). In this framework,
Wilhelm Wundt’s founding of the Institute of Experimental Psychology in 1879,
with its laboratory in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Leipzig, consti-
tuted an absolute novelty that was soon imitated by other German and many North
American universities. In fact, amongst the many advantages of having independent
Institutes and Laboratories, was that these institutions had more consistent financial
resources than the Seminars. Furthermore, Psychology Institutes and Laboratories
soon attracted numerous students among which were many foreigners. Many of
these students were drawn to psychology from humanistic disciplines away from
which they were enticed by the unconventional nature of the research program.
While the familiar research methods that the psychologists employed attracted
those who were trained in scientific disciplines.
Thus, a somewhat anomalous situation came about. Psychology was practiced
and taught in two utterly different ways. There were those who employed experi-
mental methods and who acquired knowledge, abilities and research methods that
were increasingly specialised, and which were inaccessible to exponents of tradi-
tional philosophical psychology. At the same time, and from the philosophers’ point
of view, the experimentalists were incapable of gaining the thorough and extensive

2
As is widely known, the publication of this work irritated Hermann Ebbinghaus who in a long
review essay (Ebbighaus 1896) replied that Dilthey’s criticism of the use of causal hypotheses and
explanations in psychology was only justified in the case of the old associationist psychology and
Herbartian psychology. These, however, had been surpassed once and for all, since they had con-
ceived psychology in analogy to chemistry and physics, rather than biology. For Ebbinghaus,
Dilthey’s thesis according to which explanatory psychology functioned just like physics, adhering
to the principle that a cause is equal to an effect, was incorrect. Instead, psychology could and
should only declare that “the contiguity of two sensations is considered a causal relationship
because a later representation of one sensation gives rise to a presentation of the other” (Ebbinghaus
1896, p. 186).
3
The Faculties of Philosophy usually had the largest number of professors, lecturers and students
in German universities. From the first decades of the 1800s onwards, these faculties were divided
into departments, generally named Philologisch-historische Abteilung and Naturwissenschaftlich-
mathematische Abteilung. It was only during the following century that the departments gave rise
to distinctive faculties, usually called Philosophische and Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät.
6 2 The Austrian Path Toward Gestalt Psychology…

philosophical expertise which justified their holding a philosophical professorship

in a Faculty of Philosophy.4
In 1913, this led to the famous “declaration of the philosophers” (Erklärung
1913), which was promoted by the main exponents of the Neo-Kantian movement.
It requested that no further professorship in philosophy be assigned to experimental
psychologists. This declaration was signed by over a third of professors and
Privatdozenten of the Faculties of Philosophy in German-speaking countries (i.e.
including Swiss and Austrian universities). It can be assumed that, apart from ideo-
logical reasons, more concrete and practical considerations were also involved;
namely, the defence of consolidated positions and their advantages (cf. Ash 1985;
Gundlach 2004a, Gundlach 2017, pp. 71–94).
This protest5 did not have any concrete consequence and was soon absorbed by
the outbreak of the First World War. However, this situation of academic psychol-
ogy in Germany hindered the developmental needs of the discipline itself. The
anchoring of psychology to philosophical chairs became an obstacle, if only for
access to research funding. Furthermore, basic research produced specialised
knowledge which was as yet of little practical use and consequently inapplicable.
The situation in Austria, and more generally within the Habsburg Empire, did not
differ significantly. After the 1848 revolutions, Austria had essentially adopted the
curricular organisation of Prussian universities, which had spread to other federal
states in Germany (Benetka 1990, pp. 51–54). In Austria, however, the academic
organisation of psychology was considerably delayed and its development beset by
greater difficulties, although it did not involve the conflicts that had animated the
German academic world. From a temporal point of view, for instance, the first
exclusively psychological Chair was established in Germany at the University of
Jena in 1923 (Eckardt 1973; Lück et al. 1987, p. 68; Geuter 1988, p. 92), while in
Austria it was only inaugurated in 1938 at the University of Graz.6 As to the ­conflicts

4
This was also admitted by the exponents of experimental psychology. For example, in 1912
Oswald Külpe underlined how “seniors” could still cultivate and teach both philosophy and experi-
mental psychology, while it had become “practically impossible” for younger generations to “be at
the service of both without falling into amateurism or frenetic superficiality”, considering the
increasing request for experimental investigations (Külpe 1912, pp. 266 f.; cf. Ash 1985, p. 53).
5
Wundt and the School of Leipzig were not exempt from participating in this occupation. Thus, it
could be expected that Wundt would take sides with psychology against philosophy in this contro-
versy. Instead he adopted a ‘philosophical’ position with which he intended to mediate, and, at the
same time, serve psychology: without philosophy, psychology would be degraded to a mere tech-
nique, and it was in the philosophers’ and psychologists’ interest that psychology “remain faithful
to its philosophical roots”, and that university habilitations should not be allowed for “those who
were mere experimenters without a psychological and philosophical education, and those lacking
in philosophical interest” (Wundt 1921, p. 543). For Wundt, psychology was in fact not limited to
experimental psychology, but also included Völkerpsychologie, which was to be developed with
ethnological, philosophical and historical methods, and which was, as such, similar to the Neo-
Kantian geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie. As a consequence, experimental psychology was
reduced to serving a far more extensive general psychology, which only by being complete and
exhaustive could aspire to founding the Geisteswissenschaften as a whole (Wundt 1893, I, pp. 3–5).
6
The reference here is to the Chair at the University of Graz for Othmar Sterzinger, requested by
Meinong, but only obtained many years after the latter’s death.
2.2 “Austrian Psychology” 7

involved, it should here be emphasised how the dualism between natur- and
geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie which had characterised the German land-
scape did not occur in Austrian academia. This could be attributed to the relative
absence of the Neo-Kantian orientation, which in Germany had represented the
firmest opposition to experimental psychology becoming an organic part of the
philosophical disciplines.
In Austria, from the mid-seventies onward, Franz Brentano and his School domi-
nated academic philosophy. They were decidedly against Kantianism in all its
forms, and enthusiastic promoters of theoretical, empirical and experimental psy-
chological investigations. In fact, it should be recalled that only very few and non-­
influential Austrian academics had been among those who had signed the 1913
petition, none of whom belonged to Brentano’s School.7 Among Brentano’s pupils,
the only one who signed the 1913 petition was Edmund Husserl, who had moved to
Germany in 1886, and who, after the so-called transcendental turn his thought had
taken, had become a staunch opponent of empirical psychology, and due to this
stance, allied himself with the Neo-Kantian philosophers.

2.2 “Austrian Psychology”

The development of psychology in Austria had specific characteristics, which nota-

bly differed from its evolution in other German states. The idea of an Austrian
Psychology is here suggested by the hypothesis of a specifically Austrian philoso­
phy, which had emerged in historiography during the past decades. The latter refers
to a constellation of specifically Austrian (or Austro-Hungarian) ideas and modes of
thought that had developed in antithesis to “German philosophy” in the main uni-
versities of the old Habsburg Empire around the turn of the nineteenth century.
Mainly as a consequence of the rise of Nazism, it would then extend to the Anglo-­
Saxon world.
Otto Neurath, one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle, was the first author
who mentioned the homogeneity of styles and themes in Austrian philosophy.
According to Neurath (1936), Austrian philosophy differed significantly from that
of other German-speaking countries for a number of reasons, not the least of which
was that it was “spared […] the Kantian interlude” (Neurath 1935, p. 676). Moreover,
according to Neurath, Austrian philosophy could be traced back to the Prague phi-
losopher Bernhard Bolzano, and it found a different point of reference within
Brentano’s philosophy, and its further development by his followers. Neurath sug-

7
Only 5 of the 117 signatures belonged to Austrian philosophers. Among the professors the follow-
ing should be mentioned: Hugo Spitzer (1854–1936), a long-term colleague of Meinong at Graz,
and Gustav Philipp Otto Willmann (1839–1920), a Herbartian pedagogue at the university of
Prague. Among the Privatdozenten, one should mention Oskar Ewald (1881–1940), who was one
of the most authoritative exponents of the “religious socialists”, Heinrich Gomperz (1873–1942),
son of the more famous Theodor, exponent of the empirio-criticism, and Robert Reininger (1869–
1955), exponent of immanence philosophy. See Erklärung 1913.