Fritz Mauthner (22 November 1849 – 29 June 1923) was an
Austrian novelist, theatre
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
and satirist. He was an exponent of
philosophical scepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge and of
philosophy of language.
Mauthner was born on 22 November 1849 into an assimilated, well-to-do
Jewish family from Horzitz in Bohemia (now
Hořice in the Czech Republic). He was the fourth of the six children of Emmanuel and Amalie Mauthner.
He became editor of the ''
Berliner Tageblatt'' in 1895, but is remembered mainly for his ''Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache'' (''Contributions to a Critique of Language''), published in three parts in 1901 and 1902.
Ludwig Wittgenstein took several of his ideas from Mauthner, and acknowledges him in his ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (1922).
[Wittgenstein L., ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'', "4.0031 All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense)."]
Mauthner died in
Meersburg am Bodensee on 29 June 1923.
Works
;Philosophy
''Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache'' three volumes, Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta, 1901–1903.
* ''Aristoteles'', 1904
* ''Spinoza'', 1906
* ''Die Sprache'', 1907
* ''Wörterbuch der Philosophie'', 1910–11, 1923–24
* ''Schopenhauer'', 1911
* ''Der letzte Tod des Gautama Buddha'', 1913
* ''Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande'' (4 books), 1920–23
* ''Muttersprache und Vaterland'', 1920
;Fiction
* ''Anna'', 1874
* ''Lyrik''
* ''Die große Revolution'', 1872
* ''Nach berühmten Mustern'', satirical, 1878, 1889
* ''Einsame Fahrten'', 1879
* ''Vom armen Franischko'', story, 1879
* ''Die Sonntage der Baronin'', 1881
* ''Der neue Ahasver'', 1882
* ''Dilettantenspiegel'', satirical, 1883
* ''Gräfin Salamanca'', 1884
* ''Xanthippe'', 1884
* ''Berlin W.'' (trilogy of novels): ''Quartett'', 1886; ''Die Fanfare'', 1888; ''Der Villenhof'', 1890
*
Der letzte Deutsche von Blatna', novel, 1887
* ''Der Pegasus'', 1889
* ''Zehn Geschichten'', 1891
* ''Glück im Spiel'', 1891
* ''Hypatia'', 1892
* ''Lügenohr'', 1892 (under the title: ''Aus dem Märchenbuch der Wahrheit'', 1899)
* ''Kraft'', novel 1894
* ''Die Geisterseher'', novel 1894
* ''Die bunte Reihe'', 1896
* ''Der steinerne Riese'', novella, 1896
* ''Die böhmische Handschrift'', novella 1897
* ''Der wilde Jockey'', 1897
* ''Der letzte Tod des Gautama Buddha'', novel 1913
* ''Der goldene Fiedelbogen'', 1917
;Essays and theoretical works
* ''Kleiner Krieg'', 1879
* ''Credo'', 1886
* ''Tote Symbole'', 1892
* ''Zum Streit um die Bühne'', 1893
* ''Totengespräche'', 1906
* ''Gespräche im Himmel und andere Ketzereien'', 1914
;Translations
* ''Henriette Marechal'', by
Edmond de Goncourt, 1895
;Editorial
* ''Wochenschrift für Kunst und Literatur'', 1889-1890
* ''Magazin für die Literatur des In- und Auslandes'', 1991
* ''Bibliothek der Philosophen'', from 1911
;Collected works
* ''Ausgewählte Schriften'', 6 books, 1919
;Miscellaneous
* ''Erinnerungen'', autobiography 1918
* ''Selbstbiographie 1922'', in: ''Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen'', Bd. 3.
References
Further reading
*Arens, Katherine. ''Empire in decline: Fritz Mauthner's critique of Wilhelminian Germany.'' New York: P. Lang, 2001.
*Ben-Zvi, Linda. Samuel Beckett, Fritz Mauthner and the Limits of Language. ''PMLA''. Vol. 95(2): 183-200. 1980.
*Bredeck, Elizabeth. ''Metaphors of Knowledge: Language and Thought in Mauthner's Critique''. Wayne State University Press, 1992.
*Dapía, Silvia. ''Die Rezeption der Sprachkritik Fritz Mauthners im Werk von Jorge Luis Borges.'' Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1993
*Knowlson, James & Pilling, John. ''Frescoes of the skull''. London: John Calder, 1979.
*Kühn, Joachim. ''Gescheiterte Sprachkritik: Fritz Mauthners Leben und Werk.'' Walter de Gruyter, 1979.
*Ludwig, Otto & Heydrich, Moritz. ''Shakespeare-Studien''. Halle: H. Gesenius, 1901.
*Skerl, Jennie. Fritz Mauthner's "Critique of Language" in Samuel Beckett's "Watt". ''Contemporary Literature.'' Vol. 15(4): 474-487. University of Wisconsin Press, 1974.
*Sluga, Hans. Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonism. In Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.) ''Pyrrhonian Skepticism.'' Oxford University Press, 2006
*Vierhufe, Almut. ''Parody and Language Critique. Studies on Fritz Mauthner's Nach berühmten Mustern.'' Niemeyer, 1999.
*Weiler, Gershon. ''Mauthner's Critique of Language''. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
External links
Fritz Mauthner Collectionat the Leo Baeck Institute
Guide to the Fritz Mauthner Correspondence Collection 1765-1868Book review of Fritz Mauthner's Die Sprache*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mauthner, Fritz
1849 births
1923 deaths
People from Hořice
People from the Kingdom of Bohemia
Austro-Hungarian Jews
German people of Czech-Jewish descent
Czech writers in German
Austrian-Hungarian writers
Austrian male writers
19th-century Czech philosophers