Felix Kaufmann

Felix Kaufmann (4 July 1895, Vienna – 23 December 1949, New York) was an Austrian-American philosopher of law.

Kaufmann studied jurisprudence and philosophy in Vienna. From 1922 to 1938 he was a Privatdozent there. During this time Kaufmann was associated with the Vienna Circle. He also wrote on the foundations of mathematics where, along with Hermann Weyl and Oskar Becker, he was attempting to apply the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl to constructive mathematics.

In 1938, the conditions for Jewish 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 years when the situation became dire for Jewish academics and scholars in Germany and Austria. Interceding on Karl Popper's behalf, Popper was offered academic hospitality at Cambridge University and a stipend of £150 for one year - this offer was transferable, and Friedrich Waismann took it up when Popper went to New Zealand instead (see John Watkins in Proceedings of the British Academy, 94, 645-684, 652).

Works

• Logik und Rechtwissenschaft, 1922
• Die Kriterien des Rechts, 1924
• Das Unendliche in der Mathematik und seine Ausschaltung, 1930
• Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften, 1936

External links

• Austrian Philosophy - Österreichische Philosophie at www.austrian-philosophy.at