Category: Schopenhauer
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The ‘Gordian’ Solution to the World-Knot
If the mind-body problem is the world-knot, as Schopenhauer is supposed to have said, then eliminative materialism is the 'Gordian' solution.
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Alliteration
A reader who likes my alliteration found this specimen in a post from 2010: The sobriety of solitary silence is superior to the sloughing off of self into the social . . . . Perhaps I overdo it. An argument against alliterative excess is that it could distract the reader from the content. A good…
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Would Schpenhauer Allow Comments . . .
. . . on his weblog, The Scowl of Minerva? Find out at Substack.
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On Taking Pleasure in the Death of Enemies
Is it Schadenfreude to take pleasure in the death of an enemy? Only if it is bad to be dead. But it is not clear that it is bad to be dead. On the other hand, if it is bad to be dead, it might still not be Schadenfreude to take pleasure in the death…
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Schopenhauer in Italian on Schadenfreude, La Gioia per il Danno Altrui
If to feel envy is to feel bad when another does well, what should we call the emotion of feeling good when another suffers misfortune? There is no word in English for this as far as I know, but in German it is called Schadenfreude. This word is used in English from time to time, and…
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Friday Cat Blogging! Com-Passio, Mit-Leid
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Unbegriff
This passage from Schopenhauer illustrates one of my favorite German words, Unbegriff, for which we have no simple equivalent in standard English. "An impersonal God is no God at all, but only a word misused, an unconcept, a contradictio in adjecto, a philosophy professor's shibboleth, a word with which he tries to weasel his way…
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Brunton Quotes Muhammad
"Contemplation for an hour is better than formal worship for sixty years." (Paul Brunton, Notebooks vol. 15, Part I, p. 171, #16) Brunton gives no source. Whatever the source, and whether or not Muhammad said it, it is true. Aquinas would agree. The ultimate goal of human existence for the doctor angelicus is the visio…
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Word of the Day: ‘Delope’
Wikipedia: Delope (French for "throwing away") is the practice of throwing away one's first fire in a pistol duel, in an attempt to abort the conflict. Some days I half-seriously think that dueling ought to be brought back. Some liberal-left scumbag slanders you, you challenge him to a duel, and then there is one less…
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Dale Jacquette (1953 – 2016)
Professor Dale Jacquette died suddenly and unexpectedly at his home in August of this year at the age of 63. I remember Dale from the summer of 1984. We were fellow seminarians in Hector-Neri Castañeda's National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar at Indiana University in Bloomington. Dale struck me at the time as a…
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Living Well and Living Large
One can live well without living large. And in most cases living large will militate against living well. Schopenhauer's exaggeration is apropos: "Every limitation makes one happy." It is true. In many if not most cases, restrictions, limitations, reductions in options, and the like are conducive to contentment and well-being. But only up to a…
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The Proctology of a Pessimist
Arthur Schopenhauer was a foe of noise in all its forms, as one can see from his delightful essay, On Noise. The “infernal cracking of whips” especially got on his nerves. (One wonders what he would say about the Beelzebubic booming of boom boxes.) One day, a cleaning lady made what he considered to be…
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Schopenhauer: Causa Prima and Causa Sui as Contradictiones in Adjecto
Schopenhauer, Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde (1813), sec. 20: . . . causa prima ist, eben so gut wie causa sui, eine contradictio in adjecto, obschon der erstere Ausdruck viel häufiger gebraucht wird, als der letztere, und auch mit ganz ernsthafter, sogar feierlicher Miene ausgesprochen zu werden pflegt, ja Manche, insonderheit…
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Overheard at the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft
Life is a business that doesn't cover its costs.
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Some Favorable Citations of Suárez by Schopenhauer
During a delightful rural ramble outside Prague, I mentioned to Daniel Novotný that Arthur Schopenhauer had a high opinion of Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). Daniel said he had heard as much but wondered where Schopenhauer had indicated his high regard for the scholastic philosopher. Here are some passages, though I have the sense that I am…