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Agnes Taubert
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Agnes Marie Constanze von Hartmann (née Taubert; 7 January 1844 – 8 May 1877), who wrote under the names A. T. and A. Taubert, was a German philosopher associated with Post-Schopenhauerian pessimism. Born in Stralsund and later based in Berlin, she married the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann in 1872 and became an advocate for his Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). She published two books that both defended and criticised Hartmann's ideas, Philosophie gegen naturwissenschaftliche Ueberhebung (1872) and Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner (1873; translated as Pessimism and Its Opponents); Frederick C. Beiser writes that the use of a pen name meant her work was received as if it had been written by a man. Beiser credits her books as playing a significant role in the German pessimism controversy, and has described Taubert as "one of the first women to have a prominent role in a public intellectual debate in Germany". Carol Bensick has compared Taubert with Olga Plümacher and Amalie J. Hathaway.
Key Information
Biography
[edit]Early and personal life
[edit]Agnes Marie Constanze Taubert was born on 7 January 1844 in Stralsund, Kingdom of Prussia,[2] to Albert Hartmann Taubert and Friederike Agnes Wilhelmine Taubert.[3] She was baptised on 1 February in Pommern.[3] Her father was an artillery colonel, who was acquainted with the father of the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann.[4][5] In 1872, she married von Hartmann in Berlin-Charlottenburg, and the couple had one child.[6]
Career
[edit]Taubert supported her husband's work, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869) and wrote two books under the pen names A. T. and A. Taubert, respectively, both criticising and defending his ideas.[1][7][8] Frederick C. Beiser asserts that publishing under a pen name meant she was not identified as a woman philosopher and her work was received as if it had been written by a man.[9]
Beiser argues that Taubert's books, Philosophie gegen naturwissenschaftliche Ueberhebung (1872) and Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner (1873; translated as Pessimism and Its Opponents), played a significant role in the pessimism controversy in Germany, according to Frederick C. Beiser.[9][10] According to Von Hartmann's publisher, Carl Heymons, Taubert was closely involved in planning and managing Hartmann's responses to his critics during the controversy.[10]
In her work, she defined the central problem of philosophical pessimism as "a matter of measuring the eudaimonological value of life in order to determine whether existence is preferable to non-existence or not."[11] Like her husband, she argued that the question could be addressed through empirical observation.[11]
Death
[edit]Taubert died in Berlin on 8 May 1877, aged 33, of "an attack of a rheumatism of the joints", which was described as "extremely painful".[2][10][12]
Legacy
[edit]Taubert has been described by Frederick C. Beiser as "one of the first women to have a prominent role in a public intellectual debate in Germany".[8] Beiser has also referred to Taubert and Olga Plümacher as forgotten philosophers of the late 19th century.[10] In a 2018 post for the American Philosophical Association, Carol Bensick compared Taubert with Plümacher and Amalie J. Hathaway in the context of the pessimism controversy.[13]
Beiser contributed a chapter on Taubert and Plümacher, titled "Two Female Pessimists", to the 2024 volume The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition.[9]
In 2023, Ediciones Sequitur published a Spanish translation of Taubert's Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner, titled El pesimismo y sus adversarios.[14]
Works
[edit]- T., A. (1872). Philosophie gegen naturwissenschaftliche Ueberhebung: eine Zurechtweisung des Dr. med. Geo. Stiebeling und seiner angeblichen Widerlegung der Hartmann'schen Lehre vom Unbewußten in der LeIblichkeit [Philosophy Against the Overreach of the Natural Sciences: A Reply to Dr. Med. Geo. Stiebeling and His Purported Refutation of Hartmann's Doctrine of the Unconscious in Bodily Existence] (in German). Berlin: Duncker. OCLC 555590478.
- Taubert, A. (1873). Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner [Pessimism and Its Opponents] (in German). Berlin: Carl Duncker's Verlag (C. Heymons). OCLC 16408190.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Taubert, Agnes". Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (in German). Retrieved 26 November 2024.
- ^ a b c "Taubert, Agnes (1844-1877)". Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
- ^ a b "Agnes Marie Ernstarge Taubert". Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1971. Ancestry.com. p. 107. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
- ^ Tsanoff, Radoslav A. (1931). The Nature of Evil. New York: The Macmillan Company. pp. 344–347.
- ^ Hall, Granville Stanley (1912). Founders of Modern Psychology. New York: Appleton. p. 184.
- ^ Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der briefadeligen Häuser [Gothaisches Genealogical Pocket Book of the Post-Aristocratic Houses] (in German). Gotha: J. Perthes. 1907. p. 270.
- ^ Cusack, Andrew (2021). Johannes Scherr: Mediating Culture in the German Nineteenth Century. Rochester, New York: Camden House. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-64014-057-8.
- ^ a b Beiser, Frederick C. (1 May 2016). "The Pessimism Controversy, 1870–1890". Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900. Oxford University Press. pp. 162–200. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198768715.003.0009. ISBN 978-0-19-182207-0.
- ^ a b c Beiser, Frederick C. (21 March 2024). "Two Female Pessimists". In Gjesdal, Kristin; Nassar, Dalia (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition. Oxford University Press. pp. 471–492. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190066239.013.30. ISBN 978-0-19-006623-9. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
- ^ a b c d Beiser, Frederick C. (2016). "Two Forgotten Women Philosophers". After Hegel: German Philosophy, 1840–1900. Princeton University Press. pp. 217–220. doi:10.23943/princeton/9780691163093.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-691-17371-9. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
- ^ a b Dahlkvist, Tobias (2007). Nietzsche and the Philosophy of Pessimism: Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Leopardi (PDF) (PhD thesis). Uppsala University. pp. 77–79. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2025.
- ^ Hartmann, Edward von (1895). "Translator's Preface". The Sexes Compared and Other Essays. Selected and translated by A. Kenner. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. p. v.
- ^ Bensick, Carol (12 April 2018). "An Unknown American Contribution to the German Pessimism Controversy: Amalie J. Hathaway's 'Schopenhauer'". Blog of the APA. American Philosophical Association. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
- ^ Taubert, Agnes (6 March 2023). El pesimismo y sus adversarios (in Spanish). Translated by Manuel Perez Cornejo. Contributions by Fernando Burgos Cruz. Ediciones Sequitur. ISBN 978-84-15707-92-9.
External links
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