Fritz Mauthner (22 November 1849 – 29 June 1923) was an Austrian philosopher and author of novels, satires, reviews and journalistic works.

He became editor of the Berliner Tageblatt in 1895, but is remembered mainly for his Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache (Contributions to a Critique of Language),[1] published in three parts in 1901 and 1902.

[3] Fritz Mauthner was born on 22 November 1849 into an assimilated, well-to-do Jewish family from Hořice in Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic).

In the autobiography, Mauthner writes "I do not understand at all if a Jew born in a Slavic region of Austria is not pushed into linguistic research.

His autobiography is largely a critique of the school system of the time, which was limited to corporal punishment and learning by rote.

At the university, Mauthner attended lectures in philosophy, music, physics, art history, medicine and theology.

[11] Mauthner passed the first state examination in law and worked as a theatre critic, writer and poet alongside his studies.

[clarification needed] Some of his books, such as the parodies,[14] were very successful, and were translated and published in several print runs during Mauthner's lifetime.

[16] 1893 Mauthner began to work on the Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache (Contributions to a Critique of Language).

[17] He suffered from depression and developed a strong dislike of the city life in Berlin and of his journalistic work, which he had always continued to do as a bread-and-butter occupation.

[18] In 1905, at the age of 56, Mauthner left Berlin and lived in Freiburg, where he met and married the physician and writer Hedwig (Harriet) Straub in 1907.

His book on Spinoza was published in 1906, and as from 1907 he attended university lectures in mathematics and natural sciences,[19] while devoting himself mainly to philosophy and writing.

Mauthner regarded Hugo von Hofmannsthal's The Lord Chandos Letter (1906) as a work influenced by his own critique of language.

[20] In 1909,[21] Mauthner moved with his wife Hedwig to Meersburg on Lake Constance, in a well-known house called Glaserhäusle.

In three volumes with about 2,000 pages in total, Mauthner exercised his critique of language, set out in the Contributions, exemplified on the central concepts of Western philosophy.

His eye disease worsened during the process; he dictated the text to his wife Hedwig to write down and read out aloud.

During the National Socialist regime, as the widow of a Jew, she was banned from publishing books in 1933 and her pension payments were stopped.

[25] Fritz and Hedwig Mauthner are buried together at Meersburg cemetery; their gravestone reads Vom Menschsein erlöst (Redeemed from being human).

[28] Mauthner's philosophy, like logical empiricism, is characterised by an anti-metaphysical attitude and a methodical approach through linguistic analysis.

[32] In this context, Mauthner introduces the term Scheinbegriff (pseudo-concept),[33] which later became one of the central concepts in the tradition of logical empiricism.

The deception that words refer to an extra-linguistic reality particularly affects philosophy, which he criticises as being metaphysically charged by historic traditions: "I live by the belief and the conviction that the sceptical nominalism, with which I have shown the inadequacy of human language in general, particularly affects philosophical concepts, and among them most strongly the most general concepts.

"[36] While Mauthner's literary work can be considered forgotten, his philosophy of language resonated in the literature of the 20th century.

Mauthner's influences can be found in the work of Jorge Luis Borges,[37] Samuel Beckett[38] and James Joyce.

Hermann Häfker and Theodor Lessing were critical of Mauthner and accused him of confusion in his philosophical foundations.

The most influential reception in the English-speaking world comes from philosopher and writer Gershon Weiler, who published the first comprehensive English-language monograph on Mauthner,[46] along with numerous essays.