Felix Kaufmann (4 July 1895,

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

– 23 December 1949,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

) was an Austrian-American philosopher of law.

Biography

Kaufmann studied

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He became part of the legal-philosophical school of

Hans Kelsen Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian and later American jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He is known principally for his theory of law, which he named the " pure theory of law (''Reine Rechts ...

. From 1922 to 1938 he was a

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

at the University of Vienna. During this time Kaufmann was associated with the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle () 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, chaired by Moritz Sc ...

. He also wrote on the

foundations of mathematics Foundations of mathematics are the mathematical logic, logical and mathematics, mathematical framework that allows the development of mathematics without generating consistency, self-contradictory theories, and to have reliable concepts of theo ...

where, along with

Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl (; ; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist, logician and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, ...

and

Oskar Becker Oskar Becker (5 September 1889 – 13 November 1964) was a German people, German philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian of mathematics. Early life Becker was born in Leipzig, where he studied mathematics. His dissertation under Otto ...

, he was attempting to apply the

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

constructive mathematics In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find (or "construct") a specific example of a mathematical object in order to prove that an example exists. Contrastingly, in classical mathematics, one can prove th ...

. In 1938, the conditions for

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

scholars became too hard and he left for the USA. There he taught until his death as a law professor, in the Graduate Faculty of the New York School for Social Research. Kaufmann also aided fellow Austrian emigres in need of assistance during the pre-

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

years when the situation became dire for Jewish academics and scholars in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Interceding on

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...

's behalf, Popper was offered academic hospitality at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and a stipend of £150 for one year - this offer was transferable, and

Friedrich Waismann Friedrich Waismann (; ; 21 March 18964 November 1959) was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle and one of the key theorists in logical positivism. Biography Born to a ...

took it up when Popper went to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

instead (see John Watkins in Proceedings of the British Academy, 94, 645-684, 652). In 1936 he produced a book on the methodology of the social sciences (Kaufmann 1936). After moving to the United States he was invited to write a similar book in English, but what he produced (Kaufmann 1944) was significantly different, under the influence of Dewey's ''Logic: The Theory of Inquiry''. The original book was translated over 70 years later (Cohen and Helling 2014).

Works

* ''Logik und Rechtwissenschaft'', 1922 * ''Die Kriterien des Rechts'', 1924 * ''Das Unendliche in der Mathematik und seine Ausschaltung'', 1930 * ''Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften'', 1936 * ''Methododology of the Social Sciences'', New York: Oxford University Press 1941.

References

* Cohen, Robert S. and Helling, Ingeborg K. (eds) (2014) ''Felix Kaufmann's Theory and Method in the Social Sciences,'' Cham, Switzerland: Springer''.'' * Thomas Olechowski, ''Hans Kelsen. Biographie eines Rechtswissenschaftlers''. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2020. * Bruno Kohlberg, ''Felix Kaufmann, der Phänomenologe des Wiener Kreises''. In: Friedrich Stadler (ed.): ''Phänomenologie und logischer Empirismus: Zentenarium Felix Kaufmann'' (= Veröffentlichungen des Instituts Wiener Kreis). Wien/New York: Springer 1997, ISBN 978-3-211-82937-0 1895 births 1949 deaths 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers Academic staff of the University of Vienna American male non-fiction writers Austrian jurists Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States The New School faculty Philosophers of law {{Austria-bio-stub