Filosofía de la Redención. Antología.

by Philipp Mainländer

Philipp Mainländer set down in his Philosophy of Redemption an ambitious philosophical vision. He claimed not only to confirm the teachings of Buddhism and Christianity but also to reconcile religion with science and put atheism on a scientific foundation. All this he integrates with a cosmology that reads the universe as the emanation of a primordial event, which he construes as God's self-destruction. The universe is therefore the disintegrating relic of a divinity, a discordant unity of individual beings, egoistic manifestations of a will to death all striving for absolute annihilation. Mainländer's bleak but rapturous prognosis is here published in English for the first time.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Theory, Germany

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1876

About the author

Philipp Mainländer (October 5, 1841 – April 1, 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main.

In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation) — according to Theodor Lessing, "perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature" — Mainländer proclaims that life is absolutely worthless, and that "the will, ignited by the knowledge that non-being is better than being, is the supreme principle of morality."

Coherently with his philosophy, very shortly after the publication of the first volume of his main work, he ended his life by hanging himself.

Reviews

[Nathaniel Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The long-awaited translation has finally arrived.

I have read the book on which its author hanged himself - literally (pun intended). He stacked copies of his own book, The Philosophy of Redemption, on the floor and hanged himself from them. The question of why he did this is fascinating in its own right, but a mere glimpse into the pages yields an even more interesting question: why did he write it? What goal was he trying to achieve?

Mainlander expresses the purpose himself ad nauseum: the very motion of the universe is toward non-being, and always has been. Death is not merely a fundamental part of nature, but the very goal of nature's God. The universe exists, as it were, to be somewhere to die in.

It has been said that Nietzsche read The Philosophy of Redemption on the year of its publication. He mentions Mainlander in The Gay Science:

"Or would it be proper to count such dilettanti and old maids as the mawkish apostle of virginity, Mainlander, among the genuine Germans? After all he was probably a Jew (all Jews become mawkish when they moralize)."

Classy as always, Fred.

This term, "mawkish apostle of virginity," is not ironic. Mainlander believed that reason has but one genuine conclusion: that to refuse to reproduce, despite the innate and intense desire to do so, is the ultimate quickening of fate. He really does preach virginity, real and metaphorical. All life comes to an end, and all the matters between birth and death, whether by mere instinct or educated pragmatism, are the result of the nature of all things: to reduce the total energy in the universe.

If Mainlander were correct, then true enlightenment would be to recognize the necessary struggle, pain, confusion, in short: the inconvenience of life is hardly worth the effort. It would be to understand the movement of the human mind, the world, and the universe to be a grand journey from being to non-being. Pessimistic nihilism, the will-to-death, is enlightenment.

But Mainlander does not believe that the optimist with his will-to-life is delusional. No, quite the opposite - there is no opposition to the universal way-of-things, even when enchanted by life in a universe drunk on death. "He who denies life," he says, "spurns only the means of him who affirms it; and he does so specifically because he's found a better means to their common end." Mainlander says the wise man will not pester the fool about his will-to-life either. They can go their separate ways. They will both be buried, some day.

On the plane of mid-to-late 19th Century German Philosophy, Mainlander is no giant. But his book, to the extent to which it is understood, may be misunderstood. I did not read this at all as a case for suicide, but rather as a justification for it, just in case. It is not a coincidence that the author killed himself. He merely walked through the ever-opened door into the still night, into non-existence. And Mainlander would say that what he did was okay, because he was merely moving along the natural course of things, skipping to the end of a journey we are all on by taking a quick shortcut through the final scene to credits.

In fact, Mainlander may as well have been following in the footsteps of God - the premundane unity. There was a Big Bang, wasn't there? And you don't see God walking around, do you? Coincidence? Mainlander thinks not - the universe itself is an expression, in Mainlander's estimation, of God's very own suicide. The resulting creation is merely an expression of God's limitations - his nature doesn't allow him to merely snap his fingers and not exist. No, He had to work for it, and He continues to do so in the course of universal events as the universe unsteadily degrades toward an impending heat-death (Mainlander did not use this term); an equilibrium of forces finally at rest.

"Whoever can bear the burden of life no more, let him cast it off. Whoever can hold out no longer in the carnival hall of life... let him step out through the "ever-opened" door into the still night."

Redemption, to Mainlander, is relief from the punishment that is life. We are on our way to redemption whether we wish to be or not, and should at least embrace this redemption wholeheartedly by not condemning others (read: potential offspring) to require such redemption in the first place. The real rain on life's parade is the necessity of death. Those who are never born will never die.

So, what do we make of this mawkish apostle of virginity? How should we then be, if Mainlander has anything to say about it?

Mainlander seems to drink from the cup of the Hindus. He implies, strongly toward the end of his book, that every individual is an expression of the divine; the premundane unity which killed itself: "God has died, and His death was the life of the world." If God is the universal truth, and his death really is the life of the world, then we mortals are but pieces of this unity. He finds this to be a consolation, in fact:

"Everything that affects man: want, misery, sorrow, cares, illness, ignominy, disdain, despair - in short, all the austerity of life - is not inflicted on him by some unfathomable providence which in some inscrutable way intends the best for him; rather, he suffers all this because he himself prior to the world chose everything as the best means to that end. All the blows of fate which strike him he has chosen, because only through them can he be redeemed. His essence and chance lead him loyally through pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, fortune and misfortune, life and death to the redemption which he wants, which he wills.

Love of one's enemy is now possible for him, as for the pantheist, Buddhist, and the Christian; for the person vanishes before his deed, which was only able to appear as a phenomenon by chance because the sufferer willed it prior to the world.

Thus metaphysics bestows on my ethics the final and highest blessing."

Mainlander believes the movement of the world will take us to great heights, from which we can exit peacefully; that society is to become, gradually, more ideal and pleasant. It is in our nature to behave kindly to each other, even to strangers and criminals; the recognition, even if subconscious, that life is painful and often quite dreadful has the capacity to inspire compassion. Nothing is more natural for the higher animal than inspired compassion, says this meontological anti-natalist.

The early socialism of Mainlander can be hard to spot among the lengthy, sometimes dry metaphysics and feigned logical positivism. The Philosophy of Redemption contains the hallmarks of German chauvinism, Kantianism, Christianity, and pessimism above all. But Mainlander's takeaway from his own idealism is a great kindness and generosity of spirit which he believed everyone, everywhere, was on the road to attaining. Life is hard enough without making it harder for each other. Our individualism is not at risk if we make a few mere concessions to the whole of humanity. Allowing your ego to take a blow or two is not as costly to the greater good as contributing to the sum total of all the misery in the world.

Take it all with a grain of salt - this guy was a philosopher, after all. You have to watch out for those.

P.S.

If you are experiencing a desire to step out through the "ever-opened" door into the still night, and wish you weren't, call 988:
https://988lifeline.org/

[Patrick K.]

Thanks to YuYuHunter on Reddit for the partial translation. Looking forward to reading the whole thing in English when the Aussie dude who's apparently translating it for his PhD gets done with it!

[ℱ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need the text in English so badly.............

[Momo García · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aunque sabía que la edición del Fondo de Cultura Económica era una antología, tenía muchas ganas de leerlo y comprarlo. Por desgracia, esta es una edición sumamente desafortunada.

La antologadora ofrece un estudio preliminar útil hasta que relaciona a Mainländer con problemas contemporáneos de bioética. Después de eso, todo el libro es una caída libre.

Ni una palabra sobre la estructura original de la "Filosofía de la redención". Ni una palabra sobre los criterios de la antología. Sólo hay al final un índice con el nombre "Fuente".

Así, parece que se crearon ocho capítulos por razones personales y ocultas; cada uno de esos capítulos se rellenó con párrafos traídos de secciones bastante alejadas entre sí. El "Prólogo", por ejemplo, esta compuesto por dos fragmentos del tomo uno y un fragmento del tomo dos de la obra original.

¿El resultado? Una obra muy accidentada, poco legible y que deja muchas dudas. ¿Es culpa de Mainländer? No, es culpa de la antologadora que hizo lo que quiso. Ah, sí, y también mía por no saber alemán y tener que confiar en chapucerías como ésta.

[Chant · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, one of those books you bring to the beach and leisurely read.

[Childerich III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wahrscheinlich einer der wichtigsten Schopenhauer-Epigonen, obwohl er leider ziemlich unbekannt ist. Beeindruckendes Buch. Nicht ganz einfach zu lesen, aber seine Zeilen sind jede Mühe wert. Die pessimistische Prägung Schopenhauers führt er konsequent weiter und bietet dabei sehr wertvolle eigene Gedanken. Dass er sich mittels eines Stapels der Belegexemplare seines Buches, die am Vortag bei ihm angekommen waren, erhängt hat, erhöhen übrigens in meinen Augen den Reiz, der von diesem Autor ausgeht.

[suso · Rating 4 out of 5]

empiezas a leer por nietzsche, t quedas boquiabierto por lo zumbao q está, t ries cuando ves cómo entiende el socialismo y t pone triste la vida q llevó

[Volbet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the most famous work of German pessimism and, due to its limited availability in English, probably also the most notorious.

Alongside Friedrich Nietzsche, Philipp Mainländer is the most famous of Arthur Schopenhauer's students. And if Schopenhauer was a trailblazer, Mainländer is a bulldozer, breaking down the wall and creating a passage where non existed before. OK, that might be taking it a bit far, as his philosophy in here is not that new in its individual parts, but as a project it is rather interesting. But unlike Schopenhauer, and strangely like Nietzsche, Mainländer isn't as direct and concise in his language, opting for the poetic, conveying truth by speaking directly to the lizard brain of the reader.

The project mentioned above is interesting, but also rather strange. The book's title is rather true, as Mainländer seeks to reconcile and prove the truth value of the teachings of various religions, especially Christianity and Buddhism, but simultaneously Mainländer seeks to prove that all belief in the divine is rooted in a false perception of reality and that atheism is, in fact, backed in empirical science. it's an ambitious project that often seems to work against itself. But I guess that's where Mainländer's sneaky side-eye to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel comes to the front.

And like Nietzsche, this destruction of the religious metaphysics leads Mainländer to nihilism. But as opposed to Nietzsche that taught us to take it on the chin and overcome the meaningless, Mainländer saw the rotting corpse of God and cried. There might be a bit af solace in Mainländer, as he at least want us to be as comfy in the festering carcass as possible, but in the end we will all die and wither away. be it from old age, sickness or hung from a stack of our own books, we all participate in the danse macabre and our legs are getting tired, too tired.

[SantiMisch · Rating 5 out of 5]

al principio cualquier cosa pero seguís leyendo y toma sentido y te queres matar.

[David Val Campillo]

Una obra, en mi opinión, profundamente optimista. Una obra extremadamente coherente, maravillosa. Uno de mis textos favoritos, sin duda. El cadáver de Dios se retuerce de forma demoníaca hacia la vida, es tan dificil negarla conscientemente...

[Ernesto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda alguna La Filosofía de la Redención es lo más aproximado a la suma conclusión de aquella disputa filosófica que se dio en Alemania en el S. XIX. Lo más aproximado pues a mi parecer hay mucho por despotricar de su ética y política, y algunas aseveraciones en la sección de física fueron atrevidas para la época y ahogadas en la posteridad.

Lo que hace que Philipp Mainländer haya obsequiado un auténtico hito a la filosofía es su epistemología. La sección de analítica es la más complicada e ignorada, pero a la vez la más provechosa; el autor “ha forjado una poderosa espada”, según sus propias palabras. La contribución de la obra es afinar y corregir a Schopenhauer, principalmente mediante la liberación del idealismo de sus tendencias metafísicas. El autor halla la solución en una metafísica premundana, anterior al mundo. Dicho de otra forma, no se admite invocar fuerzas exteriores, por debajo o encima del mundo, de las que no podemos saber nada. La infame metafísica de la muerte de Dios, que ha creado una suerte de renombre sombrío en la filosofía mainländeriana, se dirige a lo único trascendental que se sabe que una vez existió, pero no existe más. La unidad simple, Dios, se despedazó, creando así el devenir de la multiplicidad. Ante tal existencia premundana «las facultades cognoscitivas quedan completamente paralizadas», el único acceso hacia aquel ámbito alejado es el reflejo opaco de la metafísica y las evaluaciones regulativas.

Si se ha de insistir en resumir lo que esta obra logra, es la resolución del enigma del mundo, para el filósofo de Offenbach tal es «la correcta relación del individuo hacia el mundo». Ante esta pregunta a lo largo de la historia se ha favorecido al uno o al otro, al mundo o al individuo. Frente a las fuerzas naturales el hombre se siente nada y retrocede asustado, abrazando el materialismo, el panteísmo y el monoteísmo*. Frente al poder del individuo, se ha propuesto la independencia absoluta, algunas religiones como el budismo lo han conceptualizado con el karma. Mainländer polemiza contra ambas posturas, reivindica tanto las potencias naturales y al individuo como poderes reales, siendo la correcta relación una semi-independencia y choque de los individuos. El individuo configura el mundo, y es a la vez restringido por éste.

Quien lea correctamente a Philipp Mainländer, encontrará no solo a un pesimista, sino a un miembro más de la poderosa guardia en defensa del individuo. Discípulo de Schopenhauer, seguidor de Heráclito, lector de Stirner y rival máximo de Nietzsche.

Esta tierra ignota, con sus supuestos misterios y espantos, que han abierto la mano a más de uno que ya había empuñado con firmeza la daga, es lo que ha tenido que aniquilar completamente la filosofía inmanente. Hubo una vez un ámbito trascendente ... pero ya no lo hay. Aquel que, cansado de la vida se plantea la pregunta: ¿ser o no ser?, ha de sacar los motivos a favor y en contra solamente de este mundo […]- Más allá del mundo no hay, ni un lugar de paz, ni de tormento, sino solamente la nada. Quien ingresa en ella, no tiene ni reposo, ni movimiento; carece de estado alguno, como en el sueño, con la única y gran diferencia de que esa ausencia de estado que es el sueño, tampoco existe: la voluntad está completamente aniquilada.

Si algo más he de remarcar, es la estética profunda y deleitable, que logra tanto celebrar la belleza como rechazar un enfoque dogmático del arte. Esta obra no puede pasar desapercibida por nadie, y es un alivio que gane cada vez más terreno luego de más de un siglo siendo descuidada.


*Puede resultar confuso que Mainländer arremeta contra el monoteísmo, pues una de las primeras impresiones al leer su obra magna es su profundo aprecio por el cristianismo. El autor designa el monoteísmo al judaísmo y al Islam, los cuales tienen al hombre como un ratón abusado por las garras de un gato. Hace la atrevida aseveración de que el cristianismo es una religión auténticamente atea. El cristianismo dignifica al individuo, pues en esta el hombre deja de ser el juguete de un Dios colérico. Identifica la Santísima Trinidad como un velo dogmático de su propia investigación. La cuestión agarra más sentido al leer el segundo volumen (los fragmentos y aforismos rescatados en la edición que leí), donde sostiene que su obra fundamenta científicamente tanto el ateísmo como el teísmo correcto.

[Steven Dai · Rating 5 out of 5]

El pensamiento del autor es muy original y a ratos unifica la filosofía con la poesía. Eso sí, el libro es triste y amargo como él solo. Desde luego que para Mainlander la única lógica era la del suicidio.

[Gustavo HdzMry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una obra filosófica enclavada en el más puro pesimismo. Su visión sobre el agotamiento de la voluntad en el mundo es más radical que la de Schopenhauer. No deja indiferente a uno.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that exemplarily explores the aspect of non-being.

[Tariq Fadel · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Everyone who observes his own selfconsciousness will soon become aware that its object is at all times his own willing. By this, however, we must understand not merely the definite acts of will that lead at once to deed, and the explicit decisions together with the actions resulting from them. On the contrary, whoever is capable of grasping any way that which is essential, in spite of the different modifications of degree and kind, will have no hesitation in reckoning as manifestations of willing all desiring, striving, wishing, longing, yearning, hoping, loving, rejoicing, exulting, detesting, fleeing, fearing, being angry, hating, mourning, suffering, in short, all affects and passions."

[Maty Candelaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philipp Mainländer is not a popular figure in the history of philosophy. Only one work of his, The Philosophy of Redemption , has been translated and published in English. To my knowledge, he has been read and commented upon by philosophers such Friedrich Nietzsche, Emil Cioran, and horror writer Thomas Liggoti. Mainländer can be traced from a philosophical lineage of pessimism which starts from the Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant, and is later built upon by Arthur Schopenhauer.

The most obvious inspirations behind this text is Schopenhauer's magnum opus, " The World as Will and Representation , where Schopenhauer (as the name suggests) argues that the world is both a simple -- primal striving -- of a singular will which exists in all beings, as well as a representation formed prior to experience. Importantly, the striving of the will leads all beings towards some form of suffering (which is essentially a desire which cannot be satisfied). The world's norm is suffering -- a Hobbesian war of all against all -- and our fleeting moments of happiness are when we temporarily relieve this suffering. Additionally, we cannot help but to strive, as our nature is thoroughly determined by all actions before us, such that our characters cannot have responded to environmental stimuli any other way. As such, Schopenhauer is a hard lined determinist, who is committed to the principle of sufficient reason.

Without going into too much detail, Schopenhauer argues that the fact that all beings struggle for existence leads us to a few important moral considerations: (1) if the will-to-life is essentially striving, and striving is suffering, then we ought to minimize suffering by quieting the will, (2) that we can also minimize suffering by acts of charity and kindness to our fellow beings, and (3) the highest moral virtue would appear in the form of religious asceticism. Furthermore, we are all united by the will-to-life, and for that reason, we should show compassion towards others.

This brief explanation of Schopenhauer's philosophy is necessary to provide the backbone of what Mainländer is responding to, and building from. Mainländer's starting point is very similar to Schopenhauer's. For example, both philosophers agree that task of philosophy is to determine how the subject constructs presentations of the world prior to experience, and they also both believe that there is a will-to-life (which is later inverted as a will to death) which explains beings struggle for existence in the world. Mainländer takes very clear inspiration from many aspects of Schopenhauer's work, and also introducing his own language (i.e. "immanent philosophy", "motion"). One of the first major deviations which Mainländer takes is in asserting "every thing-in-itself is an individual will to life" (pg. 47), as opposed to a singular, simple will.

Additionally, Mainländer takes a even more radical step in his philosophy in asserting that all existence and motion sprung from an primordial event where a simple, uncognizable, singularity (i.e. God) annihilated himself so as to pass into non-being, thus creating the world of a multiplicity of competing wills. From this point, Mainländer, in the Ethics and the Politics section, argues there is a clear telos: (1) that we should, attempt to minimize the suffering of others by adopting a Immanent Christian Ethics, and (2) promote the necessary emergence of an ideal state (i.e. Socialism), so that (3) we can all collectively make the world (and the subjects of the world) "ripe for death" (pg. 293). For Mainländer, the world emerged from a cosmic annihilation of God, and it will end as a return of all things into total annihilation, or non-being. The denial of the will to live in the form of virginity (that is, ending a lineage) is what Mainländer calls redemption . Virginity, for Mainländer, is understood to be a high point of ethical practice because by denying the compulsion of reproduction, we accelerate the natural process of the worlds transition of being into non-being . Both the so-called optimist (who supposedly wills life) and the pessimist (who wills death) both in the end are willing death. The main difference is the rate at which death is willed. The optimist wills death slowly, whereas the pessimist is an accelerationist.

I am purposely glossing over many of Mainländer's arguments to give the prospective reader a set of highlights, but these are by no means an endorsement of the text's ethical suppositions. Nietzsche calls Mainländer "the sickening apostle of virginity", and as crude as this comment is, it is completely correct. As far as I can tell, Mainländer is obsessed with the notion that the world has a goal, and that goal is total annihilation. He is so obsessed that he constructs an entire aesthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics centered around virginity. Ultimately, Mainländer's valorization of virginity is a Cosmic Metaphysics of Suicide -- a cosmic death drive. One might wonder, if accelerating the world towards its necessary state of non-being is the telos of the man, why should one use ethical means to "redeem" the world? Wouldn't using unethical means be far more expedient and effective? To his credit, Mainländer does have an answer to this question which does affirm Christian ethics such as "do not murder" and "do not steal", but it these moral principles are far overshadowed by his Cosmic-Godless narrative.

Mainländer is truly committed to the two contradictory notions that (1) God is dead, and (2) Christian Ethics are superior to all other forms. However, it should be noted that Christian ethics has as its foundation that humanity was already redeemed, and that man will (or will not be) reunited with Christ in the afterlife. In this way, common Christian ethics ties a transcendent (if not material) consequence to immoral actions which Mainländer's immanent philosophy cannot substantiate. The moral judge, so to speak, is already dead, and it is difficult to see how in Mainländer's system murder could be impermissible given that it is an expedient means to carry out the cosmic deed which he valorizes.

Although I do not think we need God to substantiate ethics, I feel that Christian ethics does not make sense without God. And by killing God, Mainländer kills ethics.

Mainlander claims in his work to be providing a philosophical justification for Atheism, but couches all of his ethical arguments in Christian Biblical Scripture. Unlike Schopenhauer who takes Eastern Religion and Philosophy as a high point in moral thinking, Mainländer argues that the ethics of Christianity overcomes the ethical issues with Pantheism and Buddhism. In my view, this "Christian-Atheism" (as Zizek might call it) supposes Christianity as the firmest moral ground without an adequate justification, and fails at its task of Atheism. While I applaud Mainländer for his attempt at creating an "immanent" philosophy, I would argue that his commitments to Christianity (in positing a "transcendent realm") gives him more problems than solutions.

I also have a few other random thoughts which I will list here:

- The "Politics" section is a sorry attempt at Anthropology, but gets slightly more interesting when going over the history of philosophy during the enlightenment. The biggest problem with this section is the lack of citation and justification, while also making very "certain" claims
-Although I am not smart enough in physics to confirm this myself, his "Physics" section appears to have a lot of pseudo-scientific nonsense
- He posits many "laws" in the Politics section with very little explanation as to what makes it a law. This leads to some very weak argumentation.
- The Aesthetics section pays way too much attention to Beauty, but does have an interesting analysis of comedy

I know that I am talking a lot of shit here. The book is very interesting, especially how it relates to Schopenhauer. I would recommend the book to anyone who is already interested in Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, who I view to be in dialogue with Mainländer. But watch out for traps.

[Alberony Martínez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filosofía de la redención del filósofo, dramaturgo y poeta alemán Phillip Mainländer quien fuera Influenciado y marcado por la obra de Schopenhauer, se dio a la tarea de iniciar su propia búsqueda para responder al “enigma del mundo”.

Pesimista radical, el cual ya de por si daba brisa de la radicalidad del pensamiento, sosteniendo que el principio del tiempo correspondía a la muerte de Dios y de la espiritualidad.

En cierto modo un ser solo que circulaba entre dos opciones: La soledad o el Suicidio. Siendo este último su elección para liberarse de si para ser consecuente con aquel principio que afirmaba que vivir es sufrir. Claramente, con el suicidio le dio honor a lo que siempre ha apoyado: la virginidad y el suicidio como medio para minimizar la creación de vida y nuevo sufrimiento.

Excelente libro para conocer un poco más el pesimismo filosófico, todo en un hombre rodeado del suicido.

[Klaus Zipperland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr gutes philosophisches Buch. Schön strukturiert, logisch und jeder Begriff wird genau definiert. Ist ein Werk, welches man sogar ohne jegliches Vorwissen lesen kann. Ich stimme dem Autor zwar in seiner Weltsicht nicht zu, aber es war doch schön, sie kennenzulernen. Wer auf pessimistische Philosophie steht, der darf aufjedenfall nicht vergessen dieses Buch gelesen zu haben, denn das ist wahrscheinlich das Pessimsitischste Buch was jemals existiert hat — ein Traum.

[Abel Martínez Vidal · Rating 4 out of 5]

El pensamiento de Mainländer me ha gustado mucho, aunque a grandes rasgos difiero de él y de sus análisis pesimistas disfruté mucho su desarrollo del socialismo y algunas de sus ideas como el suicidio de dios y la voluntad de vivir me han parecido brillantes y otras (como la defensa de la virginidad) muy curiosas. La edición está muy bien y el prólogo al libro también. Me sorprendió que la biografía del autor se pusiese al final pero no me parece mal.

[Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

La mejor filosofía suicida que he leído

[James Magrini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mainländer’s expansive philosophical treatise is written eloquently in plain language employing a minimal of technical terminology. However, despite this fact, there are aspects of this book that are undeniably tedious and difficult to get through. There are many issues that will appeal to the newest generation of non-academic “pessimists” to warrant consideration: (1) The inescapability of profuse suffering linked inexorably with our short, brutish existence; (2) The issue of “anti-natalism”; (3) The inevitability of escape – or “redemption” – from this painful existence through death; (4) The struggle for eudemonic happiness with the troubling understanding that the human’s will is not (entirely) free; and (5) the issue of embracing atheism as a logical conclusion in the face of the death of religion and religious views (there’s something of a “Death of God” theology lurking here, as in Altizer!).

Mainländer is influenced by Schopenhauer’s systematic philosophy of pessimism (World as Will and Representation), with decisive diversions that make Mainländer’s philosophy unique and appealing – for one reason, it is quite inventive when speculating on and arguing for the notion of the “Will,” in all its various manifestations, e.g., the will as encountered in God (Ur-Will/Being), and the organic and inorganic realms (individuated/atomistic/becoming). In short, the entire treatise is a detailed response to the perennial metaphysical/ ontological issue as old as the Ionian hills, namely, the concern with difference between and proposed explanation for the One and the Many.

The book is divided into six sections contributing to a coherent albeit speculative systematic philosophy: (1) Analytics (human understanding), (2) Physics, (3) Aesthetics, (4) Ethics, (5) Politics, and (6) Metaphysics. For the sake of brevity, I will offer a view of his unique metaphysics that owes its foundation, the springboard for its critique, to Schopenhauer: The Ur-Will is God – a plenary (transcendent) force – which fragments in death as it gives life to the constellation of individualistic wills (both organic and inorganic) compromising the world of our experience. The will we experience in terms of desire is the immanent aspect of our experience, which becomes the concern for what Mainländer calls “immanent philosophy” – hence the crucial distinction between the transcendent and immanent.

I note that although he might be classified as an “empiricist,” many of the theories are grounded in speculative moves emerging from arguments from analogy (clearly moving beyond direct experience and observation) – e.g., he assumes, with little concern, that we can know – albeit indirectly – the “thing-in-itself” in terms of a “dynamic force”. The redemption of which he speaks is nothing other than the individual’s “will to life” experiencing the transformative understanding and acceptance of the ultimate “will to death,” which is the eventual and most desired end where the individual is no more – his/her existence is redeemed in “nothingness” – which is the permanent eradication of self and the horrific cycle of pain and suffering that dominates our lives. Now, he does not advocate self-extinction, although he himself took his life after publishing this version of his philosophy – taking his conclusions to their logical end, as it were, he also, unlike Camus, understands that in certain instances this is a noble and necessary path for a specific individual to tread.

He's often thought of as a supreme and paradigmatic practitioner of “pessimism,” probably due to the above fact I shared regarding his self-inflicted demise, but the book is surprisingly uplifting, especially when compared to Schopenhauer’s two-volume magnum opus. I recommend it with the caveat that the writing, as stated at the outset, does become tedious. For example, Section five on politics was my least favorite chapter, it was difficulty for me to get through, but it was wholly consistent with his line of argumentation espoused throughout the book.

I conclude by stating that it is a book that non-academic lovers of philosophy will greatly appreciate – because Mainländer was not an academic, and in addition, his life story, abbreviated as it was, makes for a very interesting read. I'm happy to have finally read, in its entirety, The Philosophy of Redemption.

Dr. James M, Magrini
Former: Philosophy/College of DuPage

[読者 · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mixture of Schopenhauerian non-teleological pessimism and Hegelian teleological optimism. It's very similar to Eduard von Hartmann's own teleology, in truth (in which existence, although having negative value, is progressing towards a state in which there shall be no further suffering). There are some influences from Max Stirner as well, although Mainländer's conception of egoism is a very specific one (i.e. all acts follow from necessity from an individual ego or being, and thus in that narrow sense all acts are egoistic; it's not "egoism" understood in the common-sense that a being acts from the normative idea that its own well-being should be prioritized above the well-being of others).

Right at the outset, I must confess that I find it contradictory how Mainländer, at the very beginning of the book, proclaims that a "true philosophy must be purely immanent, that is, its substance as well as its limit must be the world". But then, right at section 24 of the Analytics, he says that our reason has a "logical compulsion" to bring the multiplicity observable in the immanent (i.e. empirical) domain to its simplest expression, which he calls the "duality". Afterwards, he brings up the existence of a transcendent domain (which no longer exists and about which we can know almost nothing besides the fact that "it existed") only to pursue such "logical compulsion".

I find this similarly problematic to how Kant (another of Mainländer's influences) postulates the existence of a domain of "things-in-themselves" while simultaneously claiming that we can't have access to that very domain through our perceptual faculties. The glaring problem is: if we don't have empirical access to the domain of the "things-in-themselves", then what kind of epistemological justification do we have to say that it even exists in the first place? At most, we can claim that our epistemological understanding of the world is limited or susceptible to change (Schopenhauer was more honest and consistent in this regard, as he considered that we can have access to the thing-in-itself through introspection).

Returning to Mainländer: it seems to me that, ultimately, he brings up this transcendent domain only to explain, in a metaphysical (universal) way, why all things in the universe are interconnected in such a way as to have death as their goal. But I still don't understand why, to bring up such argument, it was necessary to invoke such a poetic and non-empirical concept as the "transcendent unity/God". It should have been sufficient, following his own words of a "purely immanent philosophy", to observe that all organisms die; and then, from there, bring up the concept of the will-to-die.

Ultimately, I must confess that I found Sandra Baquedano Jer's Spanish antology of Mainländer to have been a much more concise and enjoyable way to grasp his ideas than by reading the entire first volume translated by Christian Romuss (about which countless parts, frankly speaking, didn't interest me nor sound very original).

[Cristian Castañeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dios murió, y el universo en el que vivimos son solo los restos de ese Dios. Una singularidad inicial se dispersó y expandió en el universo conocido. Esta dispersión de una unidad singular a una multitud de cosas ofreció una transición fluida entre el monismo y el pluralismo . Mainländer pensaba que, con la regresión del tiempo, todas las formas de pluralismo y multiplicidad volverían al monismo y creía que, con su filosofía, había logrado explicar esta transición de la unidad a la multiplicidad y el devenir.

Mainländer propugna una ética del egoísmo . Es decir, que lo mejor para un individuo es lo que lo hace más feliz. Sin embargo, todas las búsquedas y anhelos conducen al dolor. Por lo tanto, Mainländer concluye que la voluntad de muerte es lo mejor para la felicidad de todos, y el conocimiento de esto transforma la voluntad de vivir (una existencia ilusoria incapaz de alcanzar la felicidad) en la voluntad de muerte adecuada (buscada por Dios). En última instancia, el sujeto (voluntad individual) es uno con el universo, en armonía con él y con su voluntad originaria, si desea la nada.

[Isak Hegelund · Rating 4 out of 5]

A valuable and unique contribution to philosophy, containing some of the most out-there ideas one is likely to encounter (besides a solid though at times flawed critique of Kant and Schopenhauer); God committed suicide, and we are but a part of his rotting corpse. Wonderful, just wonderful! Yes, it lacks a little rigour at times, but one cannot help but applaud the effort and the unique thoughts conjured up by a unique mind.

[Joe Sabet · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read some Kant, and my fav has always been Schopenhauer. However, this book wasn’t even a fraction of the value of a single work by Schopenhauer. The analytics chapter was pedantic and mind numbing, not to mention his statements were baseless at times. In to the second chapter it just continued the nightmare. I have better things to read and learn from so I renounced reading further despite his idea of god imploding or something talked endlessly about on Youtube etc

[Nicolás Melo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aunque no comparta su conclusión final, tiene una argumentación exquisita, así como una forma de ver la existencia muy particular que sostiene con total coherencia a lo largo de todo el ensayo, y dicho sea de paso, de su vida.
Recomendado para leer después de Schopenhauer y Kant y antes de Nietzche. Para percibir la evolución de este pensamiento.

[JL Román · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probablemente el autor más importante del pesimismo luego de Arthur Schopenhauer. Una magnífica cosmogonía que constituye al universo y la vida como la muerte de Dios.

Uno de los libros más maravillosos que he leído.

[Le Reflet Des Etoiles (Mina) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ouvrage qui aurait pu etre intéressant mais il m'a perdu quand il a commencé a raconter des bêtises sur la Physique (chap 1 litt.) Ça m'a rendu un peu hermétique à la suite de la réflexion et je l'ai plus pris pour un clown qu'autre chose.

[Roberto Rangel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nada en el universo es tirado por delante o conducido desde arriba, sino impulsado desde sí hacia afuera".

[Naitirofanboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Capítulo Estética.