Ernst Mally

Ernst Mally (born October 11, 1879 in Krainburg , † March 8, 1944 in Schwanberg , Styria ) was an Austrian philosopher and student of Alexius Meinong . Mally is best known for his contributions in the field of deontic logic . He is also commonly referred to as one of the "founders" of this type of logic.

After the death of his father, the family moved from the then Austro-Hungarian Krainburg to Laibach in 1888 . There Mally got enthusiastic about the German national movement of Georg Ritter von Schönerer during his stay at the grammar school . It was also during this period that he became interested in philosophy. In 1898 he went to the University of Graz , where he studied philosophy with Alexius Meinong as well as physics and mathematics and specialized in the study of formal logic .

In 1903 Mally received his doctorate from Meinong with a dissertation on investigations into the object theory of measurement . From 1906 he worked as a high school teacher in Graz, but stayed in contact with the university and the laboratory for experimental psychology founded by Meinong. In 1913 Mally completed his habilitation with a thesis on the theoretical foundations of logic and logistics . From 1915 to 1918 he served in the Austrian Army during the First World War. In 1918 he became a member of the Greater German People's Party .

After the First World War, Mally began to teach at the University of Graz and took over Meinong's chair in 1925, where he remained until 1942. In 1938 he joined the Nazi teachers' association . In the same year he joined two months after the connection of Austria to the German Reich of NSDAP in.

He is buried in the St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz . Mally's estate is at the Graz University Library .

Works (selection)

• Investigations on the object theory of measuring , in: Investigations on the object theory and psychology , ed. by Alexius Meinong. Leipzig: Barth 1904, pp. 121–262.
• Object theoretical foundations of logic and logistics . Leipzig: Barth 1912. (Supplement to the magazine for philosophy and philosophical criticism ; Volume 148).
• Studies on the theory of possibility and similarity. General theory of the relationship of objective determinations , in: Session reports of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Philosophical-historical class 194 (1922), pp. 1–131.
• Basic Laws of Ought. Elements of the logic of the will . Graz: Leuschner & Lubensky 1926.
• Experience and reality. Introduction to the philosophy of the natural world view . Leipzig: Klinkhardt 1935.
• Probability and law. A contribution to the probabilistic foundation of natural science . Berlin: de Gruyter 1938.

literature

• Curt Christian:  Mally, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 738 ( digitized version ).
• C. Christian:  Mally Ernst. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 39.
• Ilse Korotin : German philosophers from the point of view of the Reichsführer SS security service . Ernst Mally dossier. In: Yearbook for the History of Sociology 2007 . VS Verlag 2007, ISBN 3-531-15273-4
• Markus Roschitz: Magic Book and Magic College. Ernst Mally's dynamic reality philosophy . Graz: Leykam 2016.
• Karl Wolf : Ernst Mally's late philosophy. A contribution to the history of Austrian contemporary philosophy, at the same time a necrology , in: Wissenschaft und Weltbild 5 (1952), pp. 145–153.
• Gerhard Zecha : Ernst Mally (1879–1944) , in: The School of Alexius Meinong , ed. by Liliana Albertazzi et al. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 191-203.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Mally in the catalog of the German National Library
• Alexander Hieke and Gerhard Zecha:  Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Gert-Jan Lokhorst:  Mally's Deontic Logic. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Estate at the Graz University Library