Talk:Philipp Mainländer

Philip Batz talk
The following copied from the Philip Batz talk pages.

Article listed on Votes for deletion Apr 23 to Apr 29 2004, consensus was to keep. Discussion:

Nonsense, probably could have been speedily deleted. The name gets 30 Google hits, none in English. RickK 04:38, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Delete if not verified -- Cyrius|&#9998 05:06, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I've found him on enough serious German language philosophy sites. Almost exclusively under the name Mainländer though... The article itself is terrible, place in Cleanup. Pteron 06:27, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Move to Cleanup and lose the first-person POV. Maybe this can be expanded on. - Lucky 6.9 16:19, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep and cleanup. Postdlf 22:58 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep and revise. Cribcage 01:29, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep (especially since I just revised it). DS 01:27, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

End discussion

I have made this page a redirect and put the contents on Philipp Mainländer as, like Pteron, I only found him under this name. I've also cleaned it up a bit. Bookgirl 15:00, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

End Philipp Batz stuff

This and that
Sorry, Non-vandal, I didn’t know that you don’t put non-breakable spaces before superscript numbers here—that’s how it’s done in German typography, and I simply adopted that practice. However, that punctuation marks (including braces and quotes) which are directly attached to an italicised part are italicised as well, should be the case in English typography as well. At least that’s how I know it from English literature, and WP:MOS doesn’t suggest otherwise.

Another thing: That Mainländer’s mental collaps wasn’t “dissimilar to the collapse Nietzsche would suffer only years later” may not be essential knowledge, but—in my opinion—at least notable trivia, particularly with regard to the philosophical closeness of the two men. In any case, that hasn’t anything to do with my point of view, nor with original research, but is actually a widely known fact, which is referred to quite often by Mainländer researchers.

Sorry for being so fussy, I just can’t help it. ↗ Holger Thølking 16:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No matter how "widely known" a "fact" it is, it still needs referencing. You simply cannot draw such parallels and connections unless some source (ie., a scholar's) says as much, because that makes it original research; not only that, the sentence after talks about Mainländer's "megalomania" - you do see a problem with this, no? it makes a connection between Nietzsche's "illness" and Mainländer's, which isn't accurate. The bottom line, though I don't know how things are done on the German wiki, which is smaller than the English wiki, here it has everything to do with your opinion and original research. You might want to further familiarize yourself with WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:VER and WP:RS to see what exactly I mean. If Mainländer researchers (I mean "scholars") mention it so often, then it shouldn't be too difficult for you to reinsert it. For now, I've removed the statement.Non-vandal 23:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If I write that, let’s say, Schopenhauer was the originator of pessimism, I surely wouldn’t have to quote a scholar to substantiate such a truism. Independent of which Wikipedia we talk about (and peronally I believe the main reason for the German Wikipedia being smaller than the English one is, it doesn’t have articles about each individual The Simspons episode and character). ↗ Holger Thølking 14:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll ignore your quip-like remarks and be frank: you would surely be wrong about "truisms", which are not on that account ever "true", even if the words sound so similar. I must ask you again to consider seriously where I'm coming from as regards this very specific obligation of Wikipedians. As for the quip about Simpsons: size per se wasn't my point, but the demand that is placed upon a large institutional framework - which has also been running much longer than any other language wiki out there; in other words, take it seriously when there are long-enduring guidelines to follow. I would also like to point out one more thing. We are all here attempting to do the same thing: make an excellent encyclopedia - we must recognize such a burden as it is. Anyway, thank you for providing the sources as they are required. I don't think I'll bother you any time soon if that proves to you a problem. Have a good day.Non-vandal 18:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I always used the word “truism” equivalent to the German “Binsenweisheit”, which simply refers to a commonly known information—thanks for correcting me. And I am perfectly aware about this project’s guidelines, including “no original research”—I simply regarded a source unnecessary for this special information. Anyway, there’s nothing more to be said. ↗ Holger Thølking 19:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Translations
Have any of Mainlander's works been translated into English (or any other language, for that matter?) Alcmaeonid 15:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Notzucht
I changed "marital violation" to "marital rape" because "ehelicher Notzucht" in German means "marital rape" in English.Lestrade (talk) 15:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Nietzsche's view of Mainländer
I'm not sure the currently stated view that Nietzsche "did not think that these authors [including Mainländer ] were genuine German pessimists" holds water. The mention of Mainländer comes in section 357 of The Gay Science, where Nietzsche discusses breakthroughs that can be considered German in character. Ultimately, he decides that Schopenhauer's pessimism is not a German breakthrough as the disciples that followed him (Mainländer, Bahnsen etc.) did not prove that Scopenhauer's "honest horror" was a "German event." Thus he is not evaluating Mainländer on the scale of pessimisms, but pessimism on the scale of German-ness.

Kaufmann's note to the section echoes this sentiment, noting that "a large part of Nietzsche's point is, of course, that Scopenhauer's pessimism had virtually no influence on German philosophy."

HegelRoyce (talk) 05:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Nietzsche considered Schopenhauer to be the first truly pessimistic atheist in Europe. As such, Schopenhauer had no influence on noted German nineteenth–century philosophers, except for one: Friedrich Nietzsche. The German Idealists of that century were theological philosophers. Also, they were optimistic in the sense of understanding history as a progressive development.


 * As for Mainländer, who was influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche claimed that his sentimental writings do not lead to the conclusion that Schopenhauer’s pessimism and atheism were especially German. According to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer’s pessimism was the result of a generally European, not a specifically German, search for truth. The words, “He did not think that these authors were genuine German pessimists” might better be stated as “He did not think that these German authors were genuine Schopenhauerian pessimists.”Lestrade (talk) 19:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)Lestrade

The pedestal myth
As far as I know, there is no source from the 19th century that attests that Mainländer used copies of his main work as a pedestal in order to commit suicide. Can anyone find a source from the 19th century?

It has been told to me, that it is a myth of which Ulrich Horstmann is the author in order to ‘dramatize’ the final weeks of Mainländer’s life. Also Beiser’s Weltschmerz, generally a credible source, doesn’t provide a source for this claim.

Yuyuhunter (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

The marital rape statement
I think the article should clarify that assertion a bit more, because all we have right now is one of Mainländer‘s biographers saying that about him, without further elaboration.

It seems possible (to me at least) that the claim about Mainländer being a product of marital rape might have been a rumor started by others, either as an insult (akin to calling someone a bastard in English) or as a way of satirizing his beliefs (since, as a pessimist, Mainländer believed it would have been better if he had never been conceived).

I mean, in order to know for sure that Mainländer was a product of marital rape, his mother would have had to have known the exact day he was conceived _and_ that she hadn’t consented that day, and then she would have had to have told young Philipp those facts at some point! While all of this is certainly possible, it’s far from clear this was the case. And even if Mainländer’s mother had told him he was a product of rape, she might not meant it literally but it could have been something said out of anger or frustration (like when Emil Cioran’s mom said she would have aborted him if she had known how miserable he was going to be).

There probably are more sources about Mainländer in German than in English, so if you’re a German-speaking Wikipedian, it’d probably be worth looking into this in more detail. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:6466 (talk) 01:40, 21 September 2023 (UTC)