Philipp Mainländer

Uncommon card · No. 119733

Philipp Mainländer (German: [ˈmaɪ̯nlɛndɐ]; 5 October 1841 – 1 April 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. Mainländer is best known for his pessimistic philosophy, deeply influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer. In his central work, The Philosophy of Redemption, Mainländer argued that non-existence is preferable to existence, positing that the universe originated from a primordial divine fragmentation, that God committed cosmic suicide by shattering himself into the time-bound, fragmented physical matter. Mainländer believed that everything in life, matter, and celestial bodies is the decaying corpse of this original entity driven by a cosmic "will to die", challenging Schopenhauer's "will to live" and is steadily progressing toward absolute nothingness. Driven by his philosophical conviction that individual annihilation aligns with the universe's ultimate goal, Mainländer hanged himself...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0