Robert Musil was an Austrian philosophical writer.
31 Facts About Robert Musil
2.
The orientalist Alois Robert Musil was his second cousin.
3.
Robert Musil was baptized Robert Mathias Musil and his name was officially Robert Mathias Edler von Musil from 22 October 1917, when his father was ennobled, until 3 April 1919, when the use of noble titles was forbidden in Austria.
4.
Robert Musil was short in stature, but strong and skilled at wrestling, and by his early teens, he proved to be more than his parents could handle.
5.
Robert Musil invented Musilscher Farbkreisel, the Musil color top, a motorised device for producing mixed colours by additive colour-mixing with two differently colored, sectored, rotating discs.
6.
In March 1902, Robert Musil underwent treatment for syphilis with mercurial ointment.
7.
Robert Musil grew tired of engineering and what he perceived as the limited world-view of the engineer.
8.
Robert Musil launched a new round of doctoral studies in psychology and philosophy at the University of Berlin under Professor Carl Stumpf.
9.
In 1905, Robert Musil met his future wife, Martha Marcovaldi.
10.
Robert Musil had been widowed and remarried, with two children, and was seven years older than Musil.
11.
In 1909, Robert Musil completed his doctorate, with a thesis on the philosopher Ernst Mach, and Professor Alexius Meinong offered him a position at the University of Graz, which he turned down to concentrate on writing.
12.
Robert Musil worked on a play entitled Die Schwarmer, which was published in 1921.
13.
In 1916, Robert Musil visited Prague and met Franz Kafka, whose work he held in high esteem.
14.
Robert Musil published a collection of short stories, Drei Frauen, in 1924.
15.
Robert Musil admired the Bohemian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whom Musil called "great and not always understood" at his memorial service in 1927 in Berlin.
16.
Robert Musil sometimes expressed annoyance at the success of better known colleagues such as Thomas Mann or Hermann Broch, who admired his work deeply and tried to shield him from economic difficulties and encouraged his writing even though Musil initially, was critical of Mann.
17.
In Vienna, Robert Musil was a frequent visitor to Eugenie Schwarzwald's salon.
18.
In 1932, the Robert Musil Society was founded in Berlin on the initiative of Mann.
19.
The fundamental problem Robert Musil confronts in his essays and fiction is the crisis of Enlightenment values that engulfed Europe during the early twentieth century.
20.
Robert Musil endorses the Enlightenment project of emancipation, while at the same time examining its shortcomings with a questioning irony.
21.
Robert Musil believed that the crisis required a renewal in social and individual values that, accepting science and reason, could liberate humanity in beneficent ways.
22.
Robert Musil took aim at the ideological chaos and misleading generalizations about culture and society promoted by nationalist reactionaries.
23.
Robert Musil wrote a withering critique of Oswald Spengler entitled "Mind and Experience: a Note for Readers Who Have Escaped the Decline of the West ", in which he dismantles the latter's misunderstanding of science and misuse of axiomatic thinking, to try to understand human complexity and promote a deterministic philosophy.
24.
Robert Musil deplored the social conditions under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and foresaw its disappearance.
25.
Robert Musil was a staunch individualist who opposed the authoritarianism of both right and left.
26.
Robert Musil participated in the anti-fascist International Writers' Congress for the Defense of Culture in 1935 in which he spoke in favor of artistic independence against the claims of the state, class, nation, and religion.
27.
The last years of Robert Musil's life were dominated by Nazism and World War II: the Nazis banned his books.
28.
Robert Musil saw early Nazism first-hand while he was living in Berlin from 1931 to 1933.
29.
From 1933 to his death, Robert Musil was working on Part III of The Man Without Qualities.
30.
Robert Musil's writings began to reappear during the early 1950s.
31.
Robert Musil's work has received more attention since that time, including the philosophical aspects of his novels.