Richard Avenarius
Russo Krauss reconstructs Richard Avenarius’ intellectual career, from the early relationship with Wilhelm Wundt to the development of his philosophical system: Empiriocriticism. At first, Avenarius and Wundt collaborated to spread experimental psychology
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Richard Avenarius
2.1 Avenarius’ Relationship with Wundt Richard Avenarius was born in Paris in 1843, son of the publisher Eduard and brother of the poet Ferdinand, who founded the important journal Der Kunstwart (1887). The name Richard was chosen to honor his maternal uncle and godfather, the composer Richard Wagner.1 Being raised in such a stimulating environment, Avenarius grew without focusing on a single interest. He spent his early life traveling through Italy, and studying philology, psychology, and philosophy in Leipzig, Zurich, Berlin, and Munich (where he lived with his uncle, Wagner). In the years spent at these German universities, Avenarius encountered several figures that were crucial for the shaping of his philosophy, such as the philologist Friedrich Zarncke, the Herbartian Heymann Steinthal, the logician and philosopher Moritz Drobisch, the physiologist Carl Ludwig, the already mentioned Fechner, and the zoologist Karl Semper, who also became his brother in law. In 1866, Avenarius settled down in Leipzig, where he soon revealed an inclination for organizing cultural initiatives. He took part to the then rising student movement for university reform,
1 Extended biographical information on Richard Avenarius can be found in the family history written by another of his brother (Avenarius 1912, 123–150).
© The Author(s) 2019 C. Russo Krauss, Wundt, Avenarius, and Scientific Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12637-7_2
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and he founded the Akademisch-Philosophische Verein (AcademicPhilosophical Society, 1866–1900), that actively involved prominent thinkers like Hans Vaihinger and Paul Barth.2 Two years later, after obtaining his doctorate with a study on Spinoza (Avenarius 1868), a new period of wandering began, between Berlin, Dresden, and Würzburg. Eventually, once again Avenarius came back to Leipzig, where on October 29, 1875, he defended his habilitation thesis: Philosophie als Denken der Welt gemäss dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses. Prolegomena zu einer Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Philosophy as thinking of the world in accordance with the principle of the least amount of energy: prolegomena to a critique of pure experience, published in 1876). In the habilitation board sat Moritz Drobisch, Max Heinze and, precisely, Wilhelm Wundt. It was probably on that occasion that Avenarius contacted him. At that time, Wundt was just arrived in Leipzig as professor of philosophy, after a career as psychophysiologist, which only granted him “scant professional recognition” (Diamond 2001, 56). The 43-year-old Wundt and the 32-year-old Avenarius began to collaborate forthwith. The two lectured together on November 1, 1875, at the aforementioned Akademisch-Philosophische Verein.3 When Avenarius founded the Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftlichen Philosophie (Quarterly for scientific philosophy) in 1877, he engaged Wundt in the project, whose star was then rising, after the publication of the Grundzüge. Since the first issue, the journal was published “with the partic
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