Page - 232 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

232 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 and which he hurt through his conversion to Protestantism.”79 The third scholar proposed was Jodl, whom Gautsch appointed. While the minister had criticized Riehl for conflicts with religious authorities, he did not use the same argument with respect to Jodl, probably because Mach lobbied the ministry directly in favor of the appointment of the Prague scholar.80 However, the ministry and the faculty swiftly balanced Jodl with a philosopher with more conventional confessional ideals. To achieve this, the chair previously held by Brentano, vacant for fifteen years, was filled. Since earlier proposals for this chair had resulted only in the appointment of an associate professor, Franz Hillebrand, to help with the lectures,81 it seems likely that Jodl’s nomination triggered the reactivation of the chair. At the time, Hillebrand was being considered for a professorship at Innsbruck, and thus the potential shortage of teaching staff may have been another reason, although it does not explain the search for a full professor.82 The faculty committee, with Mach as chair, decided that, to balance Jodl’s position, a historian of philosophy should be appointed; it proposed two philosophers from the German Empire. Although this was accepted by an overwhelming majority (forty-one to two), Zimmermann opposed it and proposed Laurenz Müllner, a priest and professor of Christian philosophy at the theological faculty in Vienna. On 18 May 1896, forty days after Jodl’s appointment, the ministry presented Franz Joseph with a proposal to move Müllner to the phil- osophical faculty, with the ultimate aim of teaching Catholic philosophy.83 With this decision, two priests had been transferred from theological faculties to teach philosophy within two years, the first being Stefan Pawlicki in Cracow in 1894. In his case, however, the faculty had proposed the trans- fer, although it was opposed by the only philosopher in Cracow, Maurycy Straszewski, who preferred Wincenty Lutosławski, a young Warsaw-born scholar who was teaching in Kazan. Pawlicki, whose early ideas linked Catholicism with positivism, successfully defended the university against trends in philosophy in later years that were unwelcome to the Catholics. For example, he antagonized Lutosławski, who for a short time taught as a Privatdozent in Cracow, and criticized “materialism,” opposing the cre- ation of the Institute of Experimental Psychology (Instytut Psychologii Eksperymentalnej).84 The appointments of Jodl, Müllner, and Pawlicki illustrate the general trend of Habsburg philosophy, which constantly sided with Catholicism; scholars opposing the state religion hardly had a chance of being appointed. As an academic discipline, philosophy was connected with pedagogy for