Rudolf Haller’s Reception of Brentano’s Philosophy

Abstract In Otto Neurath’s essay on the prehistory of the Vienna Circle, Franz Brentano is mentioned but only as a rather marginal figure. In some contrast to this view, Rudolf Haller sees Brentano and his school as the second important branch of his concept of “Austrian Philosophy”, a view that became known as the Neurath-Haller thesis. This is all the more astonishing as Brentano’s reception in Austria had largely come to a standstill in the 1950s and 1960s. This essay explores the question of which sources might have influenced Haller in this remarkable reassessment of Brentano.