Agnes Taubert

Agnes Taubert
Born	Agnes Marie Constanze Taubert (1844-01-07)7 January 1844 Stralsund, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	8 May 1877(1877-05-08) (aged 33) Berlin, German Empire
Other names	A. Taubert
Spouse	Eduard von Hartmann ​ (m. 1872)​
Children	1
Philosophical work
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Post-Schopenhauerian pessimism
Notable works	Philosophy Against the Overreach of Natural Sciences (1872) Pessimism and Its Opponents (1873)

Agnes Marie Constanze von Hartmann (née Taubert; 7 January 1844 – 8 May 1877), who wrote under the name A. Taubert, was a German philosopher. She was married to the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann and was a passionate advocate for his work, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). She authored two books that both critiqued and defended his ideas: Philosophie gegen naturwissenschaftliche Ueberhebung ("Philosophy Against the Overreach of Natural Sciences"; 1872) and Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner ("Pessimism and Its Opponents"; 1873). These works played a significant role in the intellectual debates surrounding the pessimism controversy in Germany.

Biography

Agnes Marie Constanze Taubert was born on 7 January 1844, in Stralsund, Kingdom of Prussia. She was the daughter of an artillery colonel, who was friends with the father of the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann. In 1872, Taubert married Von Hartmann in Berlin-Charlottenburg and had a child with him.

Taubert was a staunch supporter of her husband's work, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869), and wrote two books—both critiquing and defending his ideas—under the pen name A. Taubert. By publishing under a pen name, she was not recognized as a woman philosopher and was instead engaged with as if she were a man.

Taubert's works, Philosophie gegen naturwissenschaftliche Ueberhebung ("Philosophy Against the Overreach of Natural Sciences"; 1872) and Der pessimismus und seine gegner ("Pessimism and Its Opponents"; 1873), significantly influenced the pessimism controversy in Germany. In her work, she defines 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." Like her husband, Taubert argued that this question could be answered through empirical observation.

Taubert died in Berlin, on 8 May 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". She has been compared to Olga Plümacher and Amalie J. Hathaway, two contemporary women philosophers who also contributed to the pessimism controversy. Taubert has also been described, along with Olga Plümacher, as a forgotten philosopher of the late 19th century.

A chapter on Taubert and Plümacher, written by Frederick C. Beiser, was included in the 2024 book, Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition.

Further reading

• pp. 77–79

External links

• Drawing of Taubert