On Alois Riehl's Scientific Theory and Metaphysical Criticism

On Alois Riehl was an im-portant and influential early representative of the program of the Critique of metaphysics and ideologies, as it was brought back into focus by Ernst Topitsch from the late 1950s on. Riehl's examination of the structures and developments of scientific knowledge and methods had an impact that should not be underestimated and influenced thinkers such as Max Weber, Kurt Lewin, Alexander Herzberg, and Friedrich Jodl. Riehl was concerned with testing the epistem-ic value of metaphysical hypotheses. For this purpose, he introduces a criterion of meaning in order to distinguish rationally meaningful statements from meaningless statements. While scientific hypotheses can be verified by proving that the hypothesis is correct, metaphysical hy-potheses lack epistemic value with respect to reality. Riehl describes metaphysical systems as an expression of an early phase of the development of science and an older type of thinking, which is characterized above all by a) the claim to be able to give a closed system of knowledge about the world b) a disregard for experience and a tendency towards transcendence and c) a confusion between value-free knowledge and ideology