Background
Kraft, Victor was born on July 4, 1880 in Vienna.
Librarian philosopher university professor
Kraft, Victor was born on July 4, 1880 in Vienna.
Kraft studied philosophy, geography and history at the University of Vienna. He received in 1903 his Doctor of Philosophy with a dissertation on "The Knowledge of the External World". In 1914 he completed his habilitation under Adolf Stöhr with his book "Weltbegriff und Erkenntnisbegriff" (The Concept of world and the Concept of Knowledge).
He participated in the events of the University’s Philosophical Society, as well as with private circles (especially Oskar Ewald, Otto Weininger and Othmar Spann). Then he moved to Berlin to continue his studies under Georg Simmel, Wilhelm Dilthey and Carl Stumpf. Kraft started working in 1912 at the University’s library, where he was a scientific civil servant ("Beamter") until 1939.
After the Anschluss Kraft was forced to leave his librarian position because of his wife"s Jewish background.
He lost his habilitation as university teacher as well. Kraft continued his philosophical research with great difficulties as "inner emigrant" during the Nazi regime.
He regained his post at the university library in 1945, and became Generalstaatsbibliothekar (national librarian) in 1947. In this year he was also appointed associate professor for philosophy.
Three years later he became full professor and co-director of the school of philosophy.
He retired from his post in 1952. Kraft kept his research and publishing until his death. The Kraft Circle, which he chaired between 1949 and 1952/3, was named after him, and it was during this period that he supervised the dissertation of Paul Feyerabend.
Kraft remained an unbiased empiricist throughout his political career. His main fields of work were methodology, epistemology and value theory. He accepted that philosophy should be a science provable by experience, but Kraft rejected the sensualistic interpretation of experience stressing his realistic position. All our perception is founded on constructions of thoughts which complement sense impressions. These mental constructions are bound to be tested by experience. Knowledge is defined as a normative concept. Only in connection with other statements can the validity of statements be proved. The possibility of inductive inference is denied. In his book of 1925 Kraft propounds a hypothetic-deductive model of science, thus influencing Popper's Logic of Discovery (1935). In his value theory Kraft emphasizes that value-concepts do also have a cognitive content. They can therefore be justified in connection with other judgements. Perhaps the widest echo of Kraft’s work came from his book on the Vienna Circle, which also contains his own critique of physicalism and other positions.
Austrian Academy of Sciences.