All this (I sweep my hands out in front of me) that I ostend, these Prussian meadows with their red poppies, with their pale caducous calyxes, the black firs rumbling from the sea winds, my feet on the gravel of the path (I am always careful not to sunder the lengthened warming worm-bodies scattered here […]
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When I feel my beard flapping about in the wind, nothing could convince me that it is not my own beard but rather the beard of some other fellow that I feel flapping about in that way. Not so when I observe my beard in the mirror. For it could easily be Boltzmann’s or Meinong’s beard […]
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An entry on Meingast was written for the 1923 edition of the Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie (Schwabe & Co Verlag), but Meingast’s attorney wrote a short letter demanding that it not be included because Meingast did not want “to erect his tombstone quite yet.” The publisher wasn’t able to supply a draft of the […]
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Although highly influenced by Nietzsche, Meingast departed from Nietzsche on several key points. One crucial point of contention concerns Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence. Meingast’s fervent disagreement with Nietzsche on this topic is summarized nicely in the following representative passage: “Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence remained long in my mind, from Silvester to […]
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A. L. Katz devotes some pages to an enigmatic, hastily scrawled remark in Meingast’s diary dated July 13, 1902: “Müsl, Müsl, wie du mein Wesen verhedderst!” After much deliberation and wringing of hands, Katz ascribes the umlaut to agitation, and renders the remark, “Musil, Musil, how you misunderstand my nature!” – a reflection, he […]
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