Abstract
Robert Musil was a novelist, essayist and playwright who had studied engineering, mathematics, philosophy, physics, and psychology and worked productively in all these areas. All these interests converge and reach their fullest expression in his fiction, and especially in his novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften [The Man Without Qualities, vols. 1 & 2: 1930-1933; vol. 3, edited by Martha Musil: 1943]. Musil's scientific training inculcated in him an abiding respect for mathematical standards of accuracy in representation. His most powerful commitment as a scientist, psychologist and artist was to the closest fit possible between the world itself and the representation of the world that we make to ourselves. Musil was …