Alois Höfler (April 6, 1853 – February 26, 1922) was an Austrian philosopher and university professor of education in Prague and Vienna. He was seen by the logical positivist

Otto Neurath Otto Karl Wilhelm Neurath (; 10 December 1882 – 22 December 1945) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. He was also the inventor of the ISOTYPE method of pictorial statistics and an innovator in mu ...

as an important link between

Bernard Bolzano Bernard Bolzano (, ; ; ; born Bernardus Placidus Johann Gonzal Nepomuk Bolzano; 5 October 1781 – 18 December 1848) was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest of Italian extraction, also known for his lib ...

's work and 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, ch ...

Family

Alois Höfler was born in Kirchdorf in Upper Austria. His father and mother died while he was in his early and middle teens. He and his two younger sisters were then raised by a second mother, Amalie Boheim. He had four sons with his wife Auguste Dornhöffer, including

Otto Höfler Otto Eduard Gotfried Ernst Höfler (10 May 1901 – 25 August 1987) was an Austrian philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. A student of Rudolf Much, Höfler was Professor and Chair of German Language and Old German Literature at the Uni ...

Career

In the Fall of 1871, Höfler entered the University of Vienna where he studied mathematics and physics with

Ludwig Boltzmann Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of ther ...

and

Josef Stefan Josef Stefan ( sl, Jožef Štefan; 24 March 1835 – 7 January 1893) was an ethnic Carinthian Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet of the Austrian Empire. Life and work Stefan was born in an outskirt village of St. Peter (Slovene: ; to ...

. After his teaching examination in 1876 at the age of 23, he taught in the Josefstädter- gymnasium and other gymnasiums (advanced secondary schools) in Vienna. He received his doctoral degree in 1885, under Meinong supervision in Graz, with a thesis titled ''Some Laws of Incompatibility between Judgments''. He received his habilitation in 1894 at the University of Vienna with a thesis titled "Psychic work". During the 1870's and 1880's Höfler also attended evening classes taught by

Brentano Brentano is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Antonie Brentano, philanthropist * August Brentano, bookseller * Bernard von Brentano, novelist * Christian Brentano, German writer * Clemens Brentano, poet and novelist ...

and Meinong. His philosophical view was strongly influenced by Meinong. From 1881 to 1903 he taught mathematics, physics and philosophical propaedeutics at the grammar school of the

Theresian Academy Theresianum (or Theresian Academy; german: Theresianische Akademie) is a private boarding and day school governed by the laws for public schools in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1746 by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. History Early hi ...

in Vienna. He became professor of philosophy and pedagogy in Prague in 1903 (as successor to Otto Willmann) and 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 hist ...

in 1907 (as successor to Theodor Vogt). His increasing interest in philosophy and in making it more scientific led him to study and write increasingly on logic and psychology as well. In the opinion of the ardent

logical positivist 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 of ...

, through his involvement in the

School of Brentano The School of Brentano was a group of philosophers and psychologists who studied with Franz Brentano and were essentially influenced by him. While it was never a school in the traditional sense, Brentano tried to maintain some cohesion in the schoo ...

, Höfler was an important connection between the work on logic of

and the

. In 1914, he reprinted the 77 years old Bolzano's Theory of Science, which was said to be almost impossible to find at the time. He also loved music, poetry, and the arts. He strongly opposed attempting to reduce their role in schools.

Abbreviated references

References

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hofler, Alois 1853 births 1922 deaths Academic staff of the University of Vienna 19th-century educators Austrian psychologists 20th-century philosophers