Karl Roretz, the Austrian epistemologist, philosopher of culture, and aesthetician, was born at Schloss Breiteneich. He studied law, and later philosophy, at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1906 with the dissertation "The Problem of Empathy in Modern Aesthetics." In 1922 Roretz became a Privatdozent at the university and taught history of modern philosophy until 1938, when he ceased lecturing after the Nazi takeover of Austria. He resumed lecturing in 1945 and continued until his retirement in 1951.

As an epistemologist, Roretz espoused a "critical positivism," a philosophy whose foundation is both scientific and, in Immanuel Kant's sense, criticist. The outstanding features of his thought are critical reflection, skeptical rationality, intellectual honesty, and independence of mind. He rejected dogmatism and unsupported metaphysical speculation. Like Hans Vaihinger, he regarded metaphysical concepts as self-contradictory fictions. Thus, Roretz held, metaphysics lacks any purely logical meaning.

Roretz's major work, An den...