Fritz Mauthner’s essay Die Philosophie und der Krieg, published in October 1914, is among the nationalist writings of Mauthner written during the First World War. The essay explores the question of returning to philosophy after the war. Asking this question, Mauthner examines the relationship between war and philosophy and argues that the two concepts do not share any substantial points of contact. During his discussion, an unspoken premise of the question about the return to philosophy is revealed: (...) as the science of reason, philosophy cannot understand war. The profession of philosophy can neither contribute to a military victory nor end the people’s suffering. Hence, philosophers should remain silent in times of war. Mauthner himself did not adhere to his demand. In 1914, he believed that Germany would be victorious, and emphasised in his essay that war reveals a new meaning of life by giving a meaning to death. (shrink)

(2013). Open Access Digital Data Sharing: Principles, Policies and Practices☆. Social Epistemology: Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 47-67. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2012.760663.

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Die Serie "Meisterwerke der Literatur" beinhaltet die Klassiker der deutschen und weltweiten Literatur in einer einzigartigen Sammlung. Lesen Sie die besten Werke großer Schriftsteller,Poeten, Autoren und Philosophen auf Ihrem elektronischen Lesegerät. Dieses Werk bietet zusätzlich * Eine Biografie/Bibliografie des Autors. Ein umfassendes und grundlegendes Werk mit Definitionen der wichtigen philosophischen Begriffe und einer Kritik der Sprache.

Der Philosoph und Schriftsteller Fritz Mauthner, geb. am 22.11.1849 in Horschitz, Bohmen, befasste sich hauptsachlich mit der Sprachkritik und sah dies als seine Lebensarbeit an. In der Wissenschaft galt er immer als Freigeist. Mauthners Werk Die drei Bilder der Welt" ist ein unfertiges Buch, das posthum erschien.".

1. Bd. Einleitung. Teufelsfurcht und Aufklärung im sogenannten Mittelalter.--2. Bd. Entdeckung der Natur und des Menschen. Lachende zweifler. Niederlande, England.--3. Bd. Aufklärung in Frankreich und in Deutschland. Die grosse Revolution (1. bis 11. Abschnitt)--4. Bd. Aufklärung. Grosse Revolution (12. bis 14. Abschnitt) Die letzten hundert Jahre. Reaktion. Materialismus. Gottlose mystik.

This paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the work of philosopher, writer, and journalist Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). It points out a conflict between Mauthner’s language philosophy and his political views. In his philosophical work, he argues that language is an insufficient tool for the acquisition of knowledge. When he writes about his heritage and uses notions such as Heimat, Volk, or Vaterland, Mauthner makes claims about the formation of social communities based on a shared language and (...) neglects a critical analysis. It appears as if he ignores the philosophical critique of language when it comes to political concepts. Thus, his political position is usually described without regard to his language philosophy, and Mauthner is conceived as a devoted German nationalist and a typical example of Jewish self-hatred. That reading can be contrasted with parts of his work – especially the late book Muttersprache und Vaterland (1920) – in which he criticizes political concepts from a language-philosophical point of view. I argue that Mauthner, read as a philosopher, cannot be typecast as a naïve nationalist as he is too contradictory. I show that his writings offer both a historical example of German nationalism and a deconstruction of nationalism. (shrink)

This paper investigates the political dimension of Fritz Mauthner’s writings in respect to his language critique and his ambivalent relationship to Judaism. Its aim is to oppose the common understanding of Mauthner as a German-nationalist. For doing so, Mauthner’s relation to Judaism is contextualised within his philosophical views on patriotism, mother-tongue, and the formation of social communities. By suggesting an anti-nationalist interpretation of his philosophy, it is argued that participation in a certain linguistic practice can explain what (...) it means to belong to a certain community according to Mauthner. The paper discusses to what extent Mauthner’s writings can be interpreted as anti-nationalist and concludes that he is too contradictory to be understood distinctively as a nationalist or an anti-nationalist. (shrink)

A critical examination of the philosophical theories of Fritz Mauthner. Mauthner was a prolific writer with diverse intellectual interests, but he was preoccupied with developing a comprehensive philosophy or 'critique' of language which would help resolve a whole range of persistent and controversial philosophical problems. In pursuit of this aim Mauthner pioneered a view of language which has had a very wide circulation in the twentieth century - namely that the analysis and understanding of language, particularly ordinary (...) language, is the philosophers most important task. Mauthner was very much an outsider from the German academic establishment and has little sympathy with the increasingly influential phenomenology of the time. In this thorough and authoritative study, Gershon Weiler locates his ideas in their proper historical tradition and urges that their originality now be recognised and their interest reconsidered. (shrink)

In addition to his critique of language, Mauthner wrote a four-volume History of Atheism. A radical skeptical empiricist, Mauthner held that there were no historical laws; yet there could be a craft of historical writing. Applying his idea that thinking and speaking are identical, Mauthner sought to show that the history of atheism is the gradual realization that "God" is only a word. However, the book appears to resemble the historiography of ideas ii la Hegel more than (...) Mauthner's theories should allow. This appearance is deceptive; Mauthner's History is not a true history of the development of an idea, but rather a personal recreation of the past, allowed by Mauthner's skeptical view of scientific methodology. (shrink)

Argumento que precisamos mudar de perspectiva na elucidação da referência a Mauthner no Tractatus. A pergunta a ser feita não é “Quais são as semelhanças ou diferenças entre os projetos de Mauthner e do Tractatus?”, mas “Por que Wittgenstein se deu ao trabalho de negar que sua Sprachkritik poderia ter alguma relação com Mauthner?”. A significatividade da negação em “não no sentido de Mauthner” (TLP 4.0031) não se encontra em um problema comum para o qual (...) class='Hi'>Mauthner e Wittgenstein teriam suas respostas, como pensavam Janik e Toulmin, mas no fato da Sprachkritik de Mauthner figurar, dentro do Círculo Kraus, como expressão da superficialidade moral da Europa no início do século XX.AbstractThe paper argues that we need to change our perspective to elucidate the reference to Mauthner in the Tractatus. The question is not “What are the similarities or major differences between Mauthner’s views and the Tractatus?” but “Why did Wittgenstein bother to deny that his Sprachkritik could have anything to do with Mauthner’s?” The significance of the negation in “not in Mauthner’s sense” (TLP 4.0031) is not found in a common problem to which Mauthner and Wittgenstein had different answers, as Janik and Toulmin thought, but in the fact that Mauthner’s Sprachkritik is seen within the Kraus Circle as an expression of the moral superficiality of European culture at the beginning of the 20th century. (shrink)

비트겐슈타인은 그의 전기 철학의 대표 저작인 『논리―철학 논고』4.0031에서 “모든 철학은 ‘언어비판’이다.(그러나 마우트너의 뜻에서는 아니지만)”라고 말하고 있다. 그렇다면, 그가 생각하는 언어비판이란 과연 무엇인가? 그리고 그가 부정한 마우트너의 언어비판이란 과연 무엇인가? 본 논문에서는 이 둘의 언어비판의 비교를 목적으로 한다. 먼저, 마우트너의 언어비판에 대해서 알아본다. 마우트너는 비트겐슈타인과 동시대에 살았던 인물로 오스트리아-헝가리 제국의 철학자, 비평가 겸 저널리스트이다. 그는 『언어비판 논고』에서 언어를 통한 세계인식은 불가능하기 때문에 언어로 지식을 탐구하는 것은 무용한 일이라고 주장한다. 이를 통해 그는 언어비판으로, 또 극단적 언어회의주의로 나아가며 결국엔 침묵이 우리가 할 수 (...) 있는 유일한 것이라고 생각한다. 다음으로, 비트겐슈타인의 언어비판에 대해서 살펴본다. 비트겐슈타인은 자신의 전기 철학에서 모든 철학은 언어비판이라고 한다. 그는 우리가 세계에 대하여 말한다는 것을 사실로 받아들이면서 철학의 문제는 사람들이 언어의 논리를 잘못 이해하고 있는데 있다고 주장한다. 이러한 문제를 해결하는 방법으로 그는 말할 수 있는 것에 대해서는 명료하게 말해야 하고, 말할 수 없는 것에 대해서는 침묵해야 한다는 결론을 이끌어낸다. 즉, 철학의 목적은 말할 수 있는 것과 말할 수 없는 것을 명료하게 구분하는 것이다. 이에 언어분석의 방법을 통해 언어의 논리를 제대로 이해하려는 것이 그의 언어비판인 것이다. 본 논문에서는 이 둘의 언어비판을 살펴봄으로써 그 차이점을 밝히는 것을 목표로 삼는다. (shrink)

This paper aims to suggest that Brentano’s theory of intentionality, at least in its later formulation, is not only about mind and also belongs to a tradition of deconstructing language that includes prominent figures of Austrian and German philosophy such as Mach, Vaihinger, and Wittgenstein. In order to establish this, the author explores some differences and similarities between this theory and Fritz Mauthner’s critique of language. He argues that the very starting point of both is one and the same (...) fact: the failure of existential generalization. (shrink)

Weiler presents a careful history of ‘a neglected ancestor of contemporary linguistic philosophy’. Fritz Mauthner was born in Bohemia in 1849 and died at Meersburg am Bodensee in 1923. He never held an academic post in philosophy and earned his living as a journalist and critic. He nevertheless published 14 books, some in several volumes. Although Mach wrote that his ideas would slowly become influential this has never happened and he remains a minor figure. A merely descriptive history of (...) his thought would not seem a very interesting undertaking and one would doubt the usefulness of reading one when it were written. Particularly if it cost, as Weiler’s book does, £5. However, Weiler’s work is not merely descriptive history but is properly argumentative intellectual history. It does not make at all easy reading and is in the form of a protracted debate between Weiler and Mauthner on successive issues in which Mauthner’s works are confronted with Wittgenstein, Cassirer and others with the whole brought together through Weiler’s own reflections on the problems involved. In short, the book seems to me a model of the monograph in the history of philosophy or, if one prefers, a model of philosophical exegesis. Careful working through the book would bring the reader up against many of the central philosophic questions of to-day and because of this—an incidental bonus—the book would make an excellent text-book for a BA seminar in the history of contemporary philosophy. At least contemporary linguistic philosophy. (shrink)

Robert Saudek, a Czech graphologist, journalist, diplomat, playwright, and novelist, was heavily influenced in his youth by Fritz Mauthner’s critique of language. Saudek later became a pioneer in the field of psychological graphology. In this article, I examine the impact of Mauthner’s critique on Saudek’s work and evaluate whether Saudek’s approach to graphology aligns with Mauthner’s ideas. I argue that, although Saudek’s graphology is rooted in Mauthner’s critique of experimental psychology, there remains room for further development (...) in the field of psychological graphology, centering on the analysis of language. With this in mind, I compare Saudek’s method and contemporary conceptual metaphor theory. I further suggest that Saudek’s extensive use of the autographs of well-known figures follows a method of working from examples, or specimens, which is not uncommon in the philosophy of science. Based on these findings, I propose a way of understanding Saudek’s graphology that challenges its characterization as a pseudoscience. (shrink)