Page - 80 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

80 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 The Habsburg Empire as a Catholic Space: Philosophy While the historical and philological disciplines served as mediators of state unity and cultural diversity by supporting certain narrative strains, the choice of scholars for the chairs of philosophy shows the importance of this discipline in the conservative Catholic project of the alteration of intellectual culture. In contrast to the situation in the other humanistic disciplines, how- ever, the mistrust toward recent philosophical systems and the accentuation of historical matters led to the continuation of the Habsburg philosophical tradition instead of the importation of professors from abroad.164 Even local scholars were scrutinized, however, and professors who favored speculative philosophy were supervised and/or removed from influential positions. The chair of philosophy, usually linked to pedagogy at the time, was directed to- ward the history of philosophy or moral philosophy. Although scholars active in these fields also worked on logic or aesthetics, the professionalization of philosophy as a separate academic discipline was hardly discernible, espe- cially at smaller universities. While much happened in Vienna and Prague, other universities, with just one chair of philosophy, were mostly out of the minister’s view. At the peripheral university in Cracow, even Hegelianism was accepted, although only in its Catholic version.165 The ministry’s comment, quoted above, that philosophy should become a Catholic domain should be taken literally. The ministry actively supported this, using spurious arguments. When Hermann Rosenberg, a Jewish scholar from L’viv, applied for habilitation there in 1854, the legal obstacles were largely overcome by stating that the habilitation process should not con- sider the person’s religious denomination. Nevertheless, the ministry’s final answer was short and precise: Rosenberg’s appointment could not be con- sidered given that “the teaching position in philosophy can only be granted to a man of Christian belief.”166 Also, the appointments between 1849 and 1860 show the clear dominance of Catholic philosophy, although without a clearly discernible prevalence of one of its different and conflicting versions. Since the chair of philosophy was to be a showpiece of ideology, scholarly production was less important than teaching, especially because the position covered both philosophy and pedagogy. This prominence of pedagogical functions also explains the large number of continuities with the pre-1848 situation. Although modern philos- ophy entered Habsburg academia in the 1870s, several scholars appointed