Philipp Mainländer

Who was Philipp Mainländer?

Philipp Mainländer was a German poet and philosopher. Born as Philipp Batz, he later changed his name into Mainländer from adoration for his hometown Offenbach am Main.

In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung —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.”