Philosophers’ steps
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The philosophers’ steps

From the mezzanine to the Ceremonial Chamber

Like the lawyers’ steps on the south side the splendid philosophers’ steps on the north side lead from the mezzanine to a reversing platform and via 2 staircases on each side to the first floor. In its early years this representational staircase led to the Dean’s Office for Philosophy – giving rise to the name “philosophers’ steps”.

Today they are the access point for the Dean’s Offices for Historical and Cultural Studies and Philological and Cultural Studies. In addition they lead you to the Rector’s Office, Senate Chamber and directly to the Main Ceremonial Chamber.

Halfway up you will find an inscription in the floor. It commemorates Professor Moritz Schlick who was murdered on the philosophers’ steps in 1936.

The German physicist and philosopher Moritz Schlick had been teaching natural philosophy at the University of Vienna since 1922. He founded an interdisciplinary discussion group which acquired some standing under the name “Vienna Circle”. Until 1936, great philosophers and scientific theorists met here for weekly talks.

The indictment against Schlick’s murderer, who had studied and graduated under his wing, states, “The accused, being of a naturally religious inclination, saw it necessary to counteract the destructive tendencies of atheistic positivism.”

Allowances were made for the murderer’s “act of conscience” and soon anti-Semitic circles exploited the act for their own purposes. A few weeks later Viennese philosophy professor Johann Sauter reinterpreted the murder, albeit abominable, as an understandable reaction to Schlick’s close ties with Jewish intellectual groups in Vienna.

Schlick’s murder is a symbol of right-wing violence at the University of Vienna coming to a head prior to the Anschluss in 1938 and the enforced compliance with Nazi practices that ensued. Schlick’s murder also meant the end of the Vienna Circle. Many of its members had left Austria by 1940 – an immense loss for science as well.

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