Richard Avenarius

Richard Heinrich Ludwig Avenarius (November 19, 1843 – August 18, 1896) was a German-Swiss philosopher. He formulated the radical positivist doctrine of "empirical criticism" or empirio-criticism. He was a professor at the University of Zurich.

Avenarius believed that scientific philosophy must be concerned with purely descriptive definitions of experience, which must be free of both metaphysics and materialism. His opposition to the materialist assertions of Karl Vogt resulted in a violent attack upon empirio-criticism by Vladimir Lenin in the latter's "Materialism and Empiriocriticism".

Works

Avenarius' principal works are the famously difficult "Kritik der reinen Erfahrung" ("Critique of Pure Experience", 1888-1890) and "The Human Concept of the World" (1891) which influenced Ernst Mach, Ber Borochov and, to a lesser extent, William James.

Family

Avenarius was the second son of the German publisher Eduard Avenarius and Cacilie Wagner, Richard Wagner's youngest sister. Wagner was Avenarius' godfather ref|Wagner.

Notes

* See John Deathridge, "Introduction" p. XXXIII in Richard Wagner. "The Family Letters of Richard Wagner", University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0-472-10292-3