Benno Kerry


Benno Kerry was an Austrian philosopher.

Life

Kerry was born as Benno Kohn in Vienna. He studied under Ernst Laas and Otto Liebmann at the University of Strassburg and from 1877/78 under Franz Brentano at the University of Vienna. In 1881 he obtained his doctorate with the dissertation Untersuchungen über das Causalproblem auf dem Boden einer Kritik der einschlägigen Lehren J. St. Mills. In Vienna, as part of the School of Brentano he befriended Alois Höfler.
In 1885 he obtained his habilitation as Privatdozent in Strasburg with Grundzüge einer Theorie der mathematischen und nicht-mathematischen Grenzbegriffe. Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnistheorie and became the assistant of the neo-Kantian Wilhelm Windelband.
Kerry was influenced by Bernard Bolzano and became an important conduit of his work. He was among the first students of Brentano to distinguish clearly between concept and object.
Kerry died on 20 May 1889 as a result of an ear infection.
Kerry was double first cousins with Fritz Kerry, who was the father of Richard Kerry and grandfather of John Kerry.

Influence

Kerry exercised an influence not just within the circle of Brentano, especially on Alois Höfler, Edmund Husserl, and Kazimierz Twardowski, but also on Gottlob Frege. In fact, Frege conceived his paper "Concept and Object" as a reply to Kerry's criticisms. Furthermore he was in close contact with Georg Cantor and it is thanks to his review of the Mannigfaltigkeitslehre that Bertrand Russell came to know of the work of Cantor.

Kerry and Frege

Kerry criticized Frege for having confused concept and object in his Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik and in Begriffsschrift. Frege responded to a number of aspects of this critique in 1892 with the paper "Begriff und Gegenstand". The controversy became known as the "concept horse problem" or "Kerry's paradox."

Works

Untersuchungen über das Causalproblem auf dem Boden einer Kritik der einschlägigen Lehren J. St. Mills 1881. Grundzüge einer Theorie der mathematischen und nicht-mathematischen Grenzbegriffe. Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnistheorie
  • Review of "Paul du Bois-Reymond Allgemeine Functionentheorie. Erster Theil Tübingen 1882" in Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 9, 1885, pp. 245–255.
  • "Ueber G. Cantor's Mannigfaltigkeitsuntersuchungen" in Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 9, 191–232.
  • "Ueber Anschauung und ihre psychische Verarbeitung" in Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 9, 433–493; 10, 419–467; 11, 53–116, 249–307; 13, 71–124, 392–419; 14, 317–353; 15, 127–167. Ernst Laas' Literarischer Nachlaß: I. Idealistische und positivistische Ethik. II. Oekonomische Mängel unseres nationalen Bildungswesens. III. Gymnasium und Realschule Verlag der "Deutschen Worte": Wien: 1887System einer Theorie der Grenzbegriffe. Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnisstheorie. Erster Theil, ed. by Gustav Kohn, Franz Deuticke Verlag, Leipzig-Wien 1890.