Agnes Marie Constanze von Hartmann (; 7 January 1844 – 8 May 1877) was a German writer and philosopher, known for her 1873 book ''Pessimism and Its Opponents'' and its contribution to the

pessimism controversy The pessimism controversy or pessimism dispute (german: Pessimismusstreit) is a largely forgotten intellectual controversy that occurred in Germany, starting in the 1860s and ending around the beginning of the First World War. Philosophers who t ...

in Germany.

Biography

Taubert was born in 1844, in

Stralsund Stralsund (; Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neub ...

. She was the daughter of an artillery colonel, who was friends with the father of the philosopher

Eduard von Hartmann Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, was a German philosopher, independent scholar and author of ''Philosophy of the Unconscious'' (1869). His notable ideas include the theory of the Unconscious and a pessimistic interpretation of the "best of all ...

. In 1872, Taubert married Von Hartmann in

Berlin-Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

and had a child with him. Taubert was a staunch supporter of her husband's work ''

Philosophy of the Unconscious ''Philosophy of the Unconscious: Speculative Results According to the Induction Method of the Physical Sciences'' (german: Philosophie des Unbewussten) is an 1869 book by the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann. The culmination of the speculations and ...

'' (1869) and wrote two books which both critiqued and defended his ideas, under the pen name A. Taubert. Her work ''Pessimism and Its Opponents'' (1873) was a major influence on the

in Germany. In the text, she defined the problem that

philosophical pessimism Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an Empiricism, empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existe ...

engages with as "a matter of measuring the eudaimonological value of life in order to determine whether existence is preferable to non-existence or not"; like her husband, Taubert argued that the answer to this problem is "empirically ascertainable". Taubert died in 1877, of "an attack of a rheumatism of the joints", which was described as "extremely painful".

Legacy

Taubert has been described as "one of the first women to have a prominent role in a public intellectual debate in Germany" and has been compared to

Olga Plümacher Olga Marie Pauline Plümacher (née Hünerwadel; 27 May 1839 – 1895) was a Russian-born Swiss-American philosopher and scholar. She engaged with the philosophies of the German philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, and publis ...

, a contemporary woman philosopher, who also had a significant role in the pessimism controversy, as well as the German-American philosopher Amalie J. Hathaway.

Works

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Biography

Legacy

Works

References

Further reading