The Entropics of Discourse: the Nihilistic Teleology of Philipp Mainländer

This article examines the teleological historical system of Philipp Mainländer, an under-researched 19th-century German philosopher in the Schopenhauerian tradition. From both theogonical and physical arguments, Mainländer endorses a theory of general entropy, whereby the sum of forces in the universe gradually expends itself to the point of annihilation. Consistent with this, Mainländer presents the course of history as the movement of individuals both politically and spiritually towards a paradoxical “willed will-lessness” in terms of a Socialist state and spiritual heaven.