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Alexander Tille

German philosopher (1866-1912)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 1, 2024
Entity authorityQ106022 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alexander Tille (April 30, 1866 in Lauenstein – December 16, 1912 in Saarbrücken) was a German philosopher. He published the first English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra in 1896. Tille strongly supported eugenics and Social Darwinism. He claimed Christian ethics, democracy, equality, humanism and socialism were only the delusions held by the weak. Tille felt slums were good, since they could help purge society of the "unfit". He also thought disabled and mentally ill people should be left to starve, with food only given to the "fit".

References

Bibliography

Fritz Hellwig: "Alexander Tille." In: Peter Neumann (ed.): Saarländische Lebensbilder. Vol. 4. (1989), ISBN 3-925036-20-2.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alexander Tille” is german philosopher (1866-1912). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alexander, Tille and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1866, 1912, 1896, 1989—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1866-03-30. For this dossier, Alexander, Tille and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german philosopher (1866-1912)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q106022. VIAF identifies the subject as 35249706. The Library of Congress control number is n81061611. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866, 1912, 1896 and 1989.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alexander Tille”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alexander Tille primary sources, Alexander Tille archive and Alexander research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alexander Tille”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alexander Tille” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.