Friedrich Stadler

Friedrich Stadler (born July 17, 1951, in Zeltweg, Styria) is an Austrian historian and philosopher and professor for history and philosophy of science at the University of Vienna. He is the founder (in 1991) and long-time director of the Institute Vienna Circle, which was established as a Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education of the Vienna University in May 2011. Currently he is a permanent fellow of this department and serves at the same time as the Director of the co-operating Vienna Circle Society, which is the continuation of the former Institute Vienna Circle as an extra-university institution.

Stadler studied philosophy, psychology, education and history at the University of Graz and the University of Salzburg. In 1977 he obtained his Magister degree. After teaching at high schools for several years, he completed his Ph.D. in 1982.

Since 1989 Stadler has held teaching positions at the University of Vienna. In 1997 he became associate professor at the University of Vienna. In 2008 Stadler was appointed Professor for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Vienna (joint appointment of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education and the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies).

Stadler's main research interests are modern history and philosophy of science, intellectual history and exile studies, the history, theories and methods of the cultural studies, contemporary history of the Vienna University, and Austrian history of philosophy and science with a special focus on the Vienna Circle and logical empiricism. In this field his international expertise is documented by two books he has written (on Ernst Mach and on the Vienna Circle in German, English and Spanish) and his editorship of many volumes in connection with his activities as chair and director of the Institute Vienna Circle resp. Vienna Circle Society.

He was involved in various research projects at the Institute for Science and the Arts and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society in Salzburg and Vienna, and he conducted several research projects funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

From 2001 to 2018 he has organized the yearly "Vienna International Summer University – Scientific World Conceptions". He initiated and co-ordinated the interdisciplinary Master studies program "History and Philosophy of Science" and was a member of the faculty of the Ph.D. program "The Sciences in Historical, Philosophical, and Cultural Contexts" at the University of Vienna. From 2009 to 2013 he served as president of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA). Since 2007 he was an assessor and advisor for the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science/Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (DLMPS). From 2015 to 2018 he served as President of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. From 2005 to 2013 he worked as a member of the Kuratorium (reporter for philosophy) of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

He is a board member of the journals General Philosophy of Science, European Journal of Philosophy of Science, Journal for the History of Philosophy of Science.

He was the project leader of research projects on the history of philosophy of science, of the Forum Contemporary History of the University of Vienna at the Department of Contemporary History, which he headed from 2001 to 2008 and where he was in charge of a commission investigating the history of the Vienna University on the occasion of its 650th anniversary in 2015, for which he is the series and volume editor of 5 volumes on its history.