Richard Avenarius
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| Born | November 19, 1843, Paris |
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| Died | August 18, 1896 Zurich |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Empirio-criticism (Critical positivism)[1] |
| Main interests | Empirical knowledge, philosophy of science |
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Influenced
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Richard Heinrich Ludwig Avenarius (November 19, 1843 – August 18, 1896) was a German-Swiss philosopher. He formulated the radical positivist doctrine of "empirical criticism" or empirio-criticism.
Avenarius attended the Nicolaischule in Leipzig and studied in Zurich, Berlin, and Leipzig. At the University of Leipzig, he received the Doctor of Philosophy in 1868 with his thesis on Baruch Spinoza and his pantheism, obtained the habilitation in 1876 and taught as Privatdozent. One year later, he became professor at the University of Zurich. He died in Zurich in 1896.
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Works [edit]
Avenarius believed that scientific philosophy must be concerned with purely descriptive definitions of experience, which must be free of both metaphysics and materialism. His opposition to the materialist assertions of Karl Vogt resulted in an attack upon empirio-criticism by Vladimir Lenin in the latter's Materialism and Empirio-criticism.
Avenarius' principal works are the famously difficult Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Critique of Pure Experience, 1888–1890) and Der menschliche Weltbegriff (The Human Concept of the World, 1891) which influenced Ernst Mach, Ber Borochov and, to a lesser extent, William James.[2]
He taught Anatoly Lunacharsky and was also influential on Alexander Bogdanov.
Family [edit]
Avenarius was the second son of the German publisher Eduard Avenarius and Cäcilie née Geyer, a daughter of the actor and painter Ludwig Geyer and a (step-)sister of Richard Wagner. However, there are speculations in science that her father was the biological father of Richard Wagner too. Richard's brother, Ferdinand Avenarius, led the cultural organization Dürerbund and belonged to the initiators of a culture reform movement in Germany. Wagner was Avenarius' godfather.[1]
Notes [edit]
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Avenarius, Richard Heinrich Ludwig. |
- ^ "The critical positivism of Mach and Avenarius": entry in the Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ^ David C. Lamberth, William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 86.
^ See John Deathridge, "Introduction" p. XXXIII in Richard Wagner. The Family Letters of Richard Wagner, University of Michigan Press, 1991. ISBN 0-472-10292-3
References [edit]
- Richard Avenarius in the German National Library catalogue
- Max Heinze (1902), "Avenarius, Richard", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German) 46, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 147–149
- Wolf Strobl (1953) (in German). "Avenarius, Richard ". In Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). 1. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. p. 468.
- Friedrich Carstanjen, Richard Avenarius and His General Theory of Knowledge, Empiriocriticism (1906)
- Richard Avenarius at Europeana
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