| Agnes Taubert | |
| Other Names: | A. Taubert |
| Birth Name: | Agnes Marie Constanze Taubert |
| Birth Date: | 7 January 1844 |
| Birth Place: | Stralsund, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Death Place: | Berlin, German Empire |
| Nationality: | German |
| Children: | 1 |
| Notable Works: | Pessimism and Its Opponents (1873) |
| Era: | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region: | Western philosophy |
| School Tradition: | Post-Schopenhauerian pessimism |
Agnes Marie Constanze von Hartmann[1] (; 7 January 1844 – 8 May 1877) was a German philosopher and writer. 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 notable books, under the name A. Taubert, 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.
Agnes Marie Constanze Taubert was born on 7 January 1844, in Stralsund, Kingdom of Prussia.[2] She was the daughter of an artillery colonel,[3] who was friends with the father of the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann.[4] In 1872, Taubert married Von Hartmann in Berlin-Charlottenburg and had a child with him.[5]
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.[6] [7] 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.[8]
Taubert died in Berlin, on 8 May 1877, of "an attack of a rheumatism of the joints",[9] which was described as "extremely painful".[10]
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.[11] [12] 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.