49 Facts About Fritz Mauthner

Fritz Mauthner was an Austrian philosopher and author of novels, satires, reviews and journalistic works.

Fritz Mauthner was an exponent of philosophical scepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge and of philosophy of language.

Fritz Mauthner became editor of the Berliner Tageblatt in 1895, but is remembered mainly for his Beitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache, published in three parts in 1901 and 1902.

Ludwig Wittgenstein took several of his ideas from Fritz Mauthner, and acknowledges him in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Fritz Mauthner died in Meersburg am Bodensee on 29 June 1923.

Fritz Mauthner was born in 1849, as the fourth of six children of Emmanuel and Amalie Mauthner.

Fritz Mauthner describes his father in the autobiography as having "literally grown up without knowledge of any catechism" and his educated mother, who took care of the children's education, as "anti-religious".

Fritz Mauthner's family spoke German, unlike most of the Bohemian population.

Fritz Mauthner's parents were proud of the fact that they spoke German.

Fritz Mauthner learned German through his family, Czech through his nursemaid and a little Hebrew through a private teacher.

In 1855, the five-year-old Fritz Mauthner moved to Prague with his family to be educated.

Fritz Mauthner received private lessons, attended a private Jewish school and later two secondary schools.

Fritz Mauthner considered himself highly gifted and was resentful of the school system.

Fritz Mauthner's autobiography is largely a critique of the school system of the time, which was limited to corporal punishment and learning by rote.

Fritz Mauthner wanted to become a writer; his father wanted him to become a merchant.

At the university, Fritz Mauthner attended lectures in philosophy, music, physics, art history, medicine and theology.

Fritz Mauthner read Arthur Schopenhauer and Ernst Mach, under whom he attended lectures.

Fritz Mauthner passed the first state examination in law and worked as a theatre critic, writer and poet alongside his studies.

Fritz Mauthner published unsuccessful volumes of poetry, and worked as a journalist and playwright.

In 1876, at the age of 27, Fritz Mauthner moved to Berlin, known on the theatre scene as a critic and author.

Fritz Mauthner chose Berlin and not Vienna because he was enthusiastic about Bismarck and because he did not want to be patronised by his family in Austria.

In Berlin, Fritz Mauthner worked as a journalist for several newspapers and wrote literary and theatre criticism for the Berliner Tageblatt, a leading liberal daily newspaper.

Fritz Mauthner published books and volumes of poetry and became a well-known cultural figure.

Fritz Mauthner's novels were historical, socio-critical, German-national, satirical, and columnist.

Some of Fritz Mauthner's novels contain reflections that would later be considered philosophically.

Fritz Mauthner collaborated with anarchist philosopher and pacifist Gustav Landauer to finish the text.

Fritz Mauthner suffered from depression and developed a strong dislike of the city life in Berlin and of his journalistic work, which he had always continued to do as a bread-and-butter occupation.

Fritz Mauthner called journalism a "trade with words" and expressed his dissatisfaction several times in letters.

In 1905, at the age of 56, Fritz Mauthner left Berlin and lived in Freiburg, where he met and married the physician and writer Hedwig Straub in 1907.

Fritz Mauthner regarded Hugo von Hofmannsthal's The Lord Chandos Letter as a work influenced by his own critique of language.

In 1909, Fritz Mauthner moved with his wife Hedwig to Meersburg on Lake Constance, in a well-known house called Glaserhausle.

Fritz Mauthner worked on the Worterbuch der Philosophie and Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande.

In three volumes with about 2,000 pages in total, Fritz Mauthner exercised his critique of language, set out in the Contributions, exemplified on the central concepts of Western philosophy.

Fritz Mauthner developed a godless mysticism as a culmination of the critique of language.

Fritz Mauthner reflected on the connection between philosophy and war; although he did not embrace the war, he placed the importance of Germany's military success above any philosophy.

Hedwig Fritz Mauthner continued to live in the Glaserhausle after her husband's death.

Fritz Mauthner survived through the help of friends and the Meersburg town priest Wilhelm Restle, and died impoverished in 1945.

Fritz and Hedwig Mauthner are buried together at Meersburg cemetery; their gravestone reads Vom Menschsein erlost.

Besides these works, Fritz Mauthner published shorter works on the philosophy of Aristotle, Spinoza and Schopenhauer, as well as on various topics related to his philosophy of language.

Fritz Mauthner's writing style is unorthodox: he draws on a variety of sources, combines his biography with theoretical considerations, he writes redundantly and, above all, comprehensively a lot.

Fritz Mauthner consistently pursues this approach to the conclusion that all philosophical problems are problems of language.

Fritz Mauthner's philosophy stands for the tragic admission that it is impossible to gain knowledge through the means of language.

Fritz Mauthner describes empiricism as the school of thought that gave him the idea of the critique of language.

Fritz Mauthner argues that language is language use, similar as Wittgenstein does later.

Fritz Mauthner intends to show that an abstract language consisting of grammatical rules and vocabulary is an artificial abstraction that the negates psychological reality.

Today, Fritz Mauthner's philosophy is mainly received in relation to with Wittgenstein.

Hermann Hafker and Theodor Lessing were critical of Fritz Mauthner and accused him of confusion in his philosophical foundations.

The first monograph on Fritz Mauthner was published in 1926 by Theodor Kappstein, which is regarded as an uncritical praise by Kuhn.

Wittgenstein mentions Fritz Mauthner in the Tractatus, and although it is a delimiting remark, this mention can be understood as an expression of appreciation, since Wittgenstein mentions very few philosophers by name.