The Radiance of Vienna. Central European Philosophy and Culture in Early XX Century WF-FI-PILAT20-PCECE

This course aims at reconstructing the unique composition of factors that made Vienna of the first three decades of XX century the most exciting cultural milieu in which all kinds of new ideas in philosophy, art, music, and literature flourished. They were all connected by the awareness of the inevitable end of the epoch. Despite this feeling, Vienna of that time witnessed an unprecedented surge of ingenious novelties in practically all sphere of knowledge and culture, from new ideas in mathematics and science to groundbreaking inventions in music and architecture. It was probably the last period where all these domains were so fruitfully intertwined. Philosophy of that time both contributed to the development and benefited from it. Vienna was then home to the famous Vienna Circle, with thinkers like R. Carnap, O. Neurath, M. Schlick. It was the time when K. R. Popper and L. Wittgenstein started their philosophical work. It is where Ernst Mach acted as a highly influential and charismatic preacher of the scientific world view (empirio-criticism). It is where Brentano philosophical school gave rise to such an unlikely couple of traditions like Husserlian Phenomenology and Lvow-Warsaw School. It is where S. Freud invented psychoanalysis as a therapy as well as a theory of culture, K. Kraus run his authoritative and committed journal "Die Fackel" in which he pursued new social and political ideas and advanced radical cultural criticism. At precisely the same time, Arnold Schoenberg started to break with four centuries-long musical tonal traditions; by introducing the dodecaphonic system, he created a new beginning for both music theory and aesthetics. In architecture, Adolf Loos initiated a vehement debate about new architecture (paralleling the massive disagreement concerning the German Bauhaus) as he announced the death of ornament and preached the dominance of function. Some of these developments found artistic depictions in writers such as Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities) and Hermann Broch (The Sleepwalkers).
The course breaks down into two parts: lecture and seminar. The seminar will follow the guide of three seminal literary works: Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, Hermann Broch's The Sleepwalkers, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. The first two novels emerge directly from the Viennese background. The third one reflects similar problems and ideas from the German perspective. These readings will be extended by fragments of works by other authors belonging to the Central European cultural realm. The aim of this part of the course will be establishing links between literature, art, and philosophy.