Ferdinand Ebner. Tagebuch 30.1.1916 - 7.1.1917

Ferdinand Ebner (1882-1931) is the most important Austrian philosopher of language in the 20th century next to Ludwig Wittgenstein. In Das Wort und die geistigen Realitäten - Pneumatologische Fragmente, his main work, he delivers a new kind of philosophical anthropology that is based on a dialogic view of mankind. Apart from his philosophical writings, Ebner has written many letters and diaries. The diary of 1916 (Jan 30, 1916 - Jan 7, 1917) is one of 14 diaries that have come down to us. They are kept at the Innsbruck Brenner Archives, together with the letters and the philosophical estate. The Fragment aus dem Jahre 1916 - Mit einem Nachwort 1931, written in 1916 and revised in 1931, the year of Ebner`s death, is a key text for the understanding of the development of Ebner`s thinking. The diary presented here is both journal intime and working diary. It contains many culturally and linguistically critical remarks about political and cultural events during 1916, as Ebner was a keen observer and a careful reader of newspapers and magazines. Above all, however, it contains a wide range of philosophical reflections that allow for a reconstruction of Ebner`s thinking during the period. In his autobiographical remarks written down in 1931, Ebner himself expressly referred to the year of 1916 as a pivotal year for his thinking. In terms of Ebner`s complete works, the present diary and the Fragment aus dem Jahre 1916 were written in between Ethik und Leben: Fragmente einer Metaphysik der individuellen Existenz, an incompleted early work Ebner has been working on during 1914, and the main work, Das Wort und die geistigen Realitäten: Pneumatologische Fragmente, written in 1918/19. The diary of 1916 clearly illustrates the development from an existential philosophy mainly based on Otto Weininger and Henri Bergson towards a philosophy of language and dialogue ("Pneumatology", Ebner`s term) developed on the grounds of Christian thought and a close reading of Sören Kierkegaard. In 1916, Ebner for the first time expresses some thoughts that would enter his main work, among them the basic dialogic idea of the word as a mediator between the "mental fundamentals" ("geistige Realitäten"), the "I" and the "You". The diary also contains a conception of a theology of prayer that mediates Ebner`s personal conception of God with his dialogic thinking. Apart from the close reading of Kierkegaard mentioned above, Ebner`s philosophical development in 1916 also involves readings of Bergson, Boutroux, Descartes, Fichte, Kant, Palgyi, Pascal, Plato, and others. He also intensely studies literature, from the classics (Aeschylus, Sophocle), to Jean Paul and Shakespeare, to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Balzac and Baudelaire. The results of these intellectual efforts can also be traced in compressed form in the Fragment aus dem Jahre 1916, which follows the text of the diary in the present book and which was critically edited for the first time in the course of this research project. Both texts, the diary of 1916 and the Fragment aus dem Jahre 1916, are followed by a comprehensive commentary that clarifies biographical, literary, philosophical, historical and other matters. Moreover, both writings are preceded by forewords by the editors that help to fit in the texts with respect to the complete works and to the biographical context.