From Unity to Dissolution: A Structural Convergence Between Mainländer’s Metaphysics and Thermodynamic Entropy

This paper examines a structural convergence between Philipp Mainländer’s The Philosophy of Redemption (1876) and the scientific concept of entropy in thermodynamics. While originating from distinct domains,metaphysics and physics,both frameworks describe a unidirectional transition from unity toward dispersion. It is argued that this convergence is structural rather than conceptual: thermodynamic entropy accounts for this process through statistical probability and physical law, whereas Mainländer interprets the same directional tendency as the unfolding of a primordial metaphysical act of self-negation. Drawing on the historical development of entropy from Carnot to Boltzmann, on Schrödinger’s account of biological order maintenance, and on recent philosophical scholarship, the paper demonstrates how two disciplines arrive at analogous structural descriptions of reality while diverging fundamentally in their accounts of causation, teleology, and ontological endpoint.