Karl Acham

Karl Acham (Leoben, Styria, November 15, 1939) is an Austrian sociologist, philosopher and historian of science.

After attending the Bundesrealgymnasium Leoben, Acham studied philosophy, history and German studies at the University of Graz, where he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1964 (On the problem of historicism with Wilhelm Dilthey and Martin Heidegger) and completed his habilitation in philosophy in 1971 (on the fundamental problems of the social sciences). After substitute and visiting professorships in Hamburg and Bern and first place on the list for full professor of philosophy at the University of Bern, he was a full professor and head of the Department of Sociological Theory, History of Ideas and Philosophy Doctrine. Science since December 1974, and from 2005 until his retirement in September 2008 as a spokesperson for the research area "History and Theory of Sociology" at the Institute of Sociology of the Karl-Franzens University in Graz. He did not accept another invitation to become a full professor of philosophy of science at the University of Bochum in 1977. From 1983 to 1985, he was the dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, and from 2004 to 2008, a member of the Academic Senate of the Karl Franzens University in Graz.