Richard Wahle (February 14, 1857,

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

– October 21, 1935, Vienna) was professor of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the Universities of

Czernowitz Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivtsi serv ...

and

. Wahle pronounced in his ''Tragicomedy of Wisdom'' (2nd edition, 1925) on what he acknowledged as only "definite, agnostic, absolute critique of knowledge" and psychology as surviving, or rather maintained that critiques of knowledge, logic and psychology have nothing to do with philosophy. As a consequence of his fundamental attitude, Wahle did not recognize the ego as a nucleus of forces but only as an imprint in the texture of the universe. In his ''Formation of Character'' (2nd edition, 1928) Wahle made important contributions to modern

characterology Characterology () is the academic study of character which was prominent in German-speaking countries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is considered a historic branch of personality psychology, which extended into psychoanalysi ...

. Wahle's devastating criticism of philosophers spared only a few, including

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

Hamann People with the German surname Hamann include: Politicians and military personnel *A. P. Hamann (1909–1977), American politician *Adolf Hamann (1885–1945), German Nazi general executed for war crimes *Joachim Hamann (1913–1945), Nazi office ...

and

Herbart Johann Friedrich Herbart (; 4 May 1776 – 14 August 1841) was a German philosopher, psychologist and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline. Herbart is now remembered amongst the post-Kantian philosophers mostly as making the greatest ...

, in whom he praised usefulness.

Works

* ''Gehirn und Bewusstsein'', 1884 * ''Die geometrische Methode des Spinoza'', 1888 * ''Das Ganze der Philosophie und ihr Ende'', 1894 * ''Über den Mechanismus des geistigen Lebens'', 1906 * ''Grundlagen einer neuen Psychiatrie'', 1931

External links

AEIOU
1857 births 1935 deaths 19th-century Austrian people 20th-century Austrian people 19th-century Austrian philosophers 20th-century Austrian philosophers Jewish philosophers Academic staff of the University of Vienna Academic staff of Chernivtsi University Austrian Jews Writers from Vienna Philosophers from Austria-Hungary Spinoza scholars {{Austria-philosopher-stub