About Philipp Mainländer
Philipp Mainländer (German: [ˈmaɪ̯nlɛndɐ]; 5 October 1841 – 1 April 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main. In his central work, Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation) — according to Theodor Lessing, "perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature" — Mainländer proclaims that life is of negative value, and that "the will, ignited by the knowledge that non-being is better than being, is the supreme principle of morality." == Biography == === Early life and career === Born in Offenbach am Main, on 5 October 1841 "as a child of marital rape", Philipp Mainländer grew up the youngest of six siblings. One of his brothers was mentally ill, according to Cesare Lombroso in The Man of Genius; as was his grandfather, who died of suicide at the age of 33. Mainländer attended the Realschule in Offenbach from 1848 to 1856. In 1856, at his father's instruction, he entered the commercial school of Dresden to become a merchant. The following year, his older brother, Daniel Batz, committed suicide, cementing the family history of succumbing to mental illness. In 1858, Philipp was employed in a trading house in Naples, Italy, where he learned Italian and acquainted himself with the works of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and – most notably – Leopardi. Mainländer would later describe his five Neapolitan years as the happiest years of his life. During this critical period of his life, Mainländer discovered Arthur Schopenhauer's central work The World as Will and Representation.
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