From the past to the future: Cognitive Sciences in Vienna
Cognitive Sciences comprise research in various disciplines, such as Biology, Psychology, Neurosciences, Philosophy, Linguistics, Computer Science, Anthropology and more recently also Art history and Musicology.
The University of Vienna, being Austria’s oldest and most distinguished academic institution, hosts all these disciplines; due to this diversity it has a comprehensive historical background in areas at the heart of Cognitive Sciences.
Historical Roots
At the end of the 19th century the University of Vienna was a central cradle for innovative developments intertwining philosophy, several other humanities subjects and psychology: art history with Franz Wickhoff (1853-1909) and Alois Riegl (1858-1905), musicology with Guido Adler (1855-1941), and philosophy of mind with Ernst Mach, Franz Brentano (1838-1917) and Alexius Meinong (1853-1920). These areas were established in Vienna as academic disciplines often through empirically-based modes of inquiry.
The Gestalt-theory was just one of the results of this kind of fertile interdisciplinary discussion, but other examples include the work of Karl Popper (1902-1994) who fostered interdisciplinary thinking in the realm of Cognitive Sciences and Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) who laid the ground for comparative biology.
As a historical starting point in developing a future profile in Cognitive Sciences, the platform explicitly acknowledges three prominent researchers with strong association to Vienna during the 20th century: Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) and Karl Bühler (1879-1963).
They serve as role models for the interdisciplinary study of the three year program. However, though bound to these historical roots, the program is based on the state-of-the-art research and the strengths which are present in the diversity of methods and approaches in existing collaborations.
Cognitive Sciences today
Today, the Cognitive Sciences represent one strong field of research at the University of Vienna with a strong emphasis on empirical, mostly experimental, as well as epistemological research.
Research groups active in Cognitive Sciences at Vienna comprise specializations in vision (biology, cognitive psychology), in comparative studies and evolution (cognitive biopsychology; cognitive linguistics), social context (cognitive biology, neuropsychology, art history), visual communication (cognitive psychology, art history, philosophy) language (cognitive linguistics) and knowledge studies/technologies and innovation (philosophy, linguistics, cognitive psychology).
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