The article reviews some of the commonalities between Mauthner's theory of language and determinate philosophic categories elaborated by Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgestein. The critical fortune for Mauthner is mainly linked to the fecundity of some considerations on the limits of language as an instrument of knowledge. The analysis considers the reception of these observations by several writers of different calibre, from James Joyce to Helmut Eisendle. Moreover, the author scrutinises some epistemological implications contained in Mauthner's thought, confronting them with analogous speculations developed by Karl Popper.
