Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Ethik, § 11 <small></small>
German poet and philosopher (1841–1876)
(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, . In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation) — according to , "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."
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Alternative Names:
Philipp Batz
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Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Politik, § 47 <small></small>
What is the ideal state? It will be the historical form that encompasses all mankind. However, we will not define this form in more detail, because it is quite a minor matter: the main thing is the citizen of the ideal state. He will be what individuals have been since the beginning of history: a thoroughly free man. He has completely outgrown the taskmaster of historical laws and forms and stands above the law, free from all political, economic and spiritual fetters. All external forms are fragmented: man is completely emancipated. All driving forces have gradually disappeared from the life of mankind: Power, property, fame, marriage; all emotional ties have gradually been torn: man is weary. His spirit now judges life correctly and his will is kindled by this judgment. Now the heart is filled with only one longing: to be blotted out forever from the great book of life. And the will reaches its goal: absolute death.
1. God willed to no longer be;
2. God's essence was the obstacle to his immediate entry into non-being;
3. God's essence had to disintegrate in a world of multiplicity, whose individuals all have the desire to no longer be;
4. in this striving they hinder each other, fight against each other and thus weaken each other's strength; 5. the complete essence of God passed into the world in a transformed form, as a certain sum of power;
6. the whole world, the universe, has one goal, the non-being, and achieves it through the continuous weakening of the sum of its forces;
7. each individual will be carried through the weakening of his strength, in his evolutionary process, to the point where his desire to achieve extermination can be fulfilled.
I felt serene that I had forged a good sword, but at the same time I felt a cold dread in me for starting on a course more dangerous than any other philosopher before me. I attacked giants and dragons, everything existing, holy and honourable in state and science: God, the monster of ‘the infinite’, the species, the powers of nature, and the modern state; and in my stark naked atheism I validated only the individual and egoism. Nevertheless, above them both lay the splendour of the preworldly unity, of God . . . the holy spirit, the greatest and most significant of the three divine beings. Yes, it lay ‘brooding with wings of the dove’ over the only real things in the world, the individual and its egoism, until it was extinguished in eternal peace, in absolute nothingness.
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Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter III (Teleología del exterminio), page 69, <small></small>
Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Metaphysik, § 21 <small></small>
Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Ethik, § 26 <small></small>
He who is not afraid of death, enters a house engulfed in flames; he who is not afraid of death, jumps without hesitation into a turbulent flood; he who is not afraid of death, charges into a dense hail of bullets; he who is not afraid of death, fights unarmed against thousands of armored titans; in summary, he who does not fear death is the only one who can do something for others, bleed for others, and has, at the same time, the only happiness, the only desirable good in this world: undisturbed peace of heart.