Non-Kantianism or Anti-Kantianism?

Abstract The present article proposes to revisit the “Neurath-Haller thesis” – i.e. the claim that Austrian philosophy is distinct from German philosophy because Kantianism did not play a major role in shaping it – by examining the development of Brentano’s dismissive attitude towards Kant through the lens of Brentano’s idea of immediate evidence. Its main point is that although the presuppositions of this idea are elaborated on in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint , it is in Brentano’s later epistemological writings that this idea is invoked in order to corroborate Brentano’s understanding of what grounds philosophical insight. The article concludes by comparing this account of the development of Brentano’s philosophy with the role Brentano’s Anti-Kantianism is assumed to play according to Haller’s conception of ‘Austrian philosophy’. I will argue that, while the Neurath-Haller thesis is not mistaken, there is a subtler story to be told about the role Kant played in Austria as well as about the reasons why Austrian philosophy “spared itself the interlude with Kant”.