Table Of ContentFOUNDATIONS FOR A SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF VALUE
VIENNA CIRCLE COLLECTION
Editorial Committee
HENK L. MULDER, University ofA msterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University, Boston,Mass., U.S.A.
BRIAN McGUINNESS, The Queen's College, Oxford, England
Editorial Advisory Board
ALFRED J. A YER, Wolfson College, Oxford, England
ALBERT E. BLUMBERG, Rutgers University,NewBrunswick,N.J., U.S.A.
HASKELL B. CURRY, Pennsylvania State UniverSity, Pa., U.S.A.
HERBER T FEIGL, University ofM innesota, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.A.
ER WIN N. HIEBERT, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
JAAKKO HINTIKKA
KARL MENGER, nlinoisinstitute of Technology, Chicago, nL, U.S.A.
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University ofL eyden, Leyden, TheNetherlands
ANTHONY M. QUINTON, Trinity College. Oxford, England
J. F. STAAL, University of California. Berkeley, Calif.. U.S.A.
VOLUME 15
EDITOR: HENK L. MULDER
VICTOR KRAFT
FOUNDATIONS FOR
A SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS
OF VALUE
Edited by
HENK L. MULDER
Translated by
ELIZABETH HUGHES SCHNEEWIND
With an introduction by
ERNST TOPITSCH
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT: HOLLAND I BOSTON: U.S.A.
LONDON:ENGLAND
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kraft, Viktor, 1880-1975
Foundations for a scientific analysis of value.
(Vienna circle collection; v. 15)
Translation of: Die Grundlagen einer wissenschaftlichen Wertlehre.
''Victor Kraft bibliography": p.
Includes index.
1. Values. I. Mulder, Henk L. II. Title. III. Series.
BD232.K713 121'.8 81-739
ISBN-13: 978-90-277-1212-7 e-ISBN: 978-94-009-8397-7
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-8397-7
DIE GRUNDLAGEN EINER WISSENSCHAFTLISCHEN WERTLEHRE
zweite neubearbeitete AUflage
© 1973 and 1951 by Springer-Verlag in Vienna
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada
by Kluwer Boston Inc.,
190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group,
P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland.
D. Reidel Publishing Company is a member of the Kluwer Group.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
and Copyrightholders as specified on appropriate pages within
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
Soflcover reprint of the hardcover I st Edition 1981
VICTOR KRAFT (4 July 1880-3 January 1915)
T ABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor's Note ix
Introduction by Ernst Topitsch xi
Foreword by Victor Kraft xvii
I. Introduction
1. The Present State of Value Theory
2. Absolutism and Empiricism with Respect to Value 3
3. Determination of Concepts 6
II. Value Concepts 10
I. Logical Analysis: Material Content and Value Characteristic 10
2. The System of Values 15
3. The Hierarchy of Values 16
III. Value as a Characteristic: A Psychological Analysis 22
1. Psychology of Value up to the Present 22
2. Evaluating and Adopting an Attitude 28
3. Development of the Characteristic of Value 34
4. Value as a Specific Characterization with Respect to Adopting
an Attitude 39
5. Value Concepts, Value Judgements, and Valuation 45
6. The Sources of Distinction 50
(a) Pleasure and Pain 50
(0<) Pleasure and Pain Attaching to Sense Qualities 53
«(3) Pleasure and Pain Attaching to Forms (Gestalten) 54
(y) Pleasure and Pain in Bodily and Mental Functioning 54
(b) Feelings 60
(0<) Feelings and Distinction 60
«(3) Feelings and Pleasure·Pain 63
('Y) Feelings and Excitement.Quiescence 65
(0) Feelings in Literary Enjoyment 67
(e) Refutation of Hedonism 73
(c ) Satisfaction ofInstinctive Drives 84
(d) Satisfaction of Desires 91
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viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
(e) Habit 97
(I) Derivative Distinction 98
(O!) Materially Derivative Distinction 98
(.6) Logically Derivative Distinction 99
(g) Adopted Distinction 102
(O!) Suggestion 104
(Il) Imitation 105
(h) Exhaustiveness of the Sources of Distinction 108
IV. Value Judgements 129
1. The Meaning of Impersonal Value Judgements 129
(a) Value Judgements as Propositions about Actual Deter-
mination of Attitudes 131
(b) Value Judgements as General Guidelines for Attitudes 138
2. The Validity of Impersonal Value Judgements: Super-Individ-
ual Value 142
(a) Validity Based upon Natural Laws 146
(b) Validity Based upon Logical Inference 148
(c) Validity of Principles of Evaluation 153
(O!) A Social Basis for Super-Individual Valuations 155
(Il) Conditional Establishment of Principles of Evaluation 170
V. The Science of Value 182
Postscript (1973) 186
Bibliography of the Writings of Victor Kraft 188
Index of Names 192
EDITOR'S NOTE
Die Grundlagen einer wissenschaftlichen Wertlehre (Foundations for a Scien
tific Analysis of Value) by Victor Kraft first appeared in 1937. There was a
second, revised edition in 1951, on which the present English translation is
based.
In January 1975, when Kraft died, he had indeed completed his postscript
to the last chapter but unfortunately had not carried out his intention of
writing a special introduction for the English edition. For this reason I turned,
when the translation was nearing completion, to Professor Ernst Topitsch, the
great expert on Kraft's life and work, and asked him whether he would be
prepared to write an introduction. I was very gratified when he agreed and
still more when he wrote an introduction dealing not only with the Analysis
of Value but also, in appropriate measure, with Kraft's whole career and
philosophical development. This introduction does not, however, replace
Kraft's own Preface to the 1951 edition, which we here retain and in which
Kraft explains why a second edition had become necessary.
Apart from some minor but indispensable supplementation of bibliograph
ical references, Kraft's footnotes have been left as nearly as possible in their
original form. English translations of works cited are indicated when they exist.
The Bibliography contains all published works of Kraft, other than news
paper articles and book-reviews, and gives details of their original publication.
Reprints of books and articles are also listed, and translations into English but
not those into other languages. Titles are listed under the year of publication.
The book closes with an Index of Names.
Thanks are owed to all who contributed to the publication of the present
volume. In particular I wish to thank Professor E. Topitsch (Graz) for his
willingness to write a special introduction, Dr. F. Stadler, Dr. E. Frodl-Kraft,
and Professor W. Frodl (Vienna) for their contributions to the Bibliography,
Mrs. E. Hughes Schneewind (the translator) for bibliographical help regarding
works cited in footnotes and English translations of those works, and fma1ly
Mr. B. McGuinness (Oxford) for his translation of Topitsch's Introduction
and for his invaluable help in checking the translation of the work itself.
University ofA msterdam, HENK L. MULDER
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
Ix
INTRODUCTION
In English-speaking countries Victor Kraft is known principally for his account
of the Vienna Circle.! That group of thinkers has exercised in recent decades
a significant influence not only on the philosophy of the western world, but
also, at least indirectly, on that of the East, where there is now taking place
a slow but clearly irresistible erosion of dogmatic Marxism by ways of think
ing derived from a modem scientific conception of the world. Kraft's work as
historian of the Vienna Circle has led to his being classed, without further
qua1ification, as a neo-positivist philosopher. It is, however, only partially
correct to count him as such. To be sure, he belonged to the group named, he
took part in its meetings, and he drew from it suggestions central to his own
work; but he did not belong to the hard core of the Circle and was a con
scious opponent of certain radical tendencies espoused, at least from time to
time, by some of its members. Evidence of this is provided by the theory of
value now presented in English translation, since no less a thinker than Rudolf
Carnap had, originally at any rate, obeyed a very narrowly conceived criterion
of sense and declared value judgements to be senseless. 'The objective validity
of a value or norm cannot (even according to the ideas of philosophers of
value) be empirically verified or deduced from empirical propositions; it can
not, therefore, be affirmed at all (by a proposition with sense)."
Kraft was proof against suelt exaggerations in virtue of the simple fact that
a thorough grounding in history and the humanities formed part of his educa
tion. Altogether his careful, judicious, and (in the best sense) critical habit of
mind was averse to the dogmatism and doctrinaire attitudes that disfigured
the writings of some members of the Vienna Circle. Moreover, he had already
reached maturity, both as a man and as a philosopher, when that group was
formed round Moritz Schlick in the 20's and he had by then brought to com
pletion important works entirely of his own. Thus, though his style of think
ing and the aims of his work as a philosopher had many points of contact
with neo-positivism, he was far too independent to start again as a disciple.
Victor Kraft carne from a family of teachers. He was born on 4 July 1880
in Vienna. He attended a High Seltool in that city and in 1899 obtained a
distinction in his fina1 examination. He then entered the University of Vienna
to study geography and history, but his interests extended to botany, geology,
xi
xii INTRODUCTION
art-history, and economics. Quite soon, however, he felt attracted as a student
towards pure philosophy, and it was in this subject that he won the title of
Doctor at Christmas 1903. His dissertation Dos Problem der Aussenwelt
[The Problem of the External World) subsequently appeared as a contribu
tion to the Archiv jUr systematische Philosophie in 1904, which can serve as a
proof of its being an independent and solid philosophical work. After grad
uating Kraft broadened his knowledge by a semester of study in Berlin, where
he attended the lectures or classes of Dilthey, Simmel, and Stumpf among
philosophers, and also those of the art-historian Wiilfflin.
Already in these years, as a young scholar, Kraft aspired to an academic
career, but he was considerably hampered in the necessary preliminaries by a
tendency to ill-health. For this reason he decided in 1912 to take up libra
rianship and he held an academic post for several decades in the University
library of Vienna, where the philosophy section in particular was entrusted
to him. He qualified to lecture at a university in 1914, a few months before
the outbreak of the First World War, submitting as inaugural dissertation his
book Weltbegriff und Erkenntnisbegriff [World-concept and Knowledge
concept), which had appeared two years earlier. However, unfavorable cir
cumstances deprived him of academic success for many years. As a result of
the economic distress of the post-war years there were only a few official
chaIrs of philosophy in Austria; besides, Kraft's sober and scholarly attitude
as a philosopher was not absolutely acceptable to the political and ideological
currents of thought prevalent at that time. The award in 1925 of the title
of Professor Adjunct - to which there was attached neither a salary nor a seat
or vote on the Board of the Faculty - was a shabby device to put him off
rather than a recognition of his services to scholarship up to that point.
Subsequently the Nazi seizure of power brought a severe reverse: his license
to lecture in a university was brusquely and brutally withdrawn and shortly
afterwards he was sent into premature retirement from the library, all because
his wife counted as 1e wish under the Nuremberg Laws. Mter the collapse of
the Third Reich he was completely rehabilitated. Then too he obtained,
fma1ly, the recognition, deserved long since, of his services to scholarship.
Mter leaving the library service he was designated in 1947 Professor Adjunct
(this time in reality), and in 1950 Professor in Ordinary, of Philosophy. He
remained in this post until 1952, when he became Professor Emeritus. He
declined a period of further activity as Honorary Professor in order to be able
fma1ly to devote all his powers to the realization of his scholarly projects.
Only then did the most fruitful period of his life begin. Nor was public recog
nitionlacking: Kraft had been elected a corresponding member of the Austrian
