Category: Schopenhauer
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A Misattribution Corrected
Ryan Fitzgerald writes, A minor quibble. Your recent post ("Forever Reading . . .") is in error, I'm afraid. After noticing the mistake on more than one occasion throughout several years following your wonderful blog, surely the time has come that I assist a fellow stickler. Schopenahuer did not author the line, "For ever reading,…
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Schopenhauer on Islam, “The Saddest and Poorest Form of Theism”
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, tr. E. F. J. Payne, vol. II (Dover, 1966), p. 162. This is from Chapter XVII, "On Man's Need for Metaphysics" (emphases added and a paragraph break): Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all countries and ages, in their splendour and spaciousness, testify to man's need…
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Socrates, Plato, and an Ass
Schopenhauer somewhere jokes that the medievals employed only three examples: Socrates, Plato, and an ass [Esel, nicht Arsch].
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A Modernist and a Medievalist Trade Insults
Modernist to medievalist: Medieval philosophy is substance abuse! Medievalist to modernist: Modern philosophy is self abuse! (And that reminds me of a marginalium Schopenhauer inscribed into his copy of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre: Onanie! (onanism) Wissenschaftslehre translates as Theory of Science. Schopenhauer, however, referred in print to Fichte's book as Wissenschaftsleere, which sounds the same but translates…
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The World is Beautiful to Behold . . .
. . . but terrible to be a part of. (Schopenhauer) A little reminder of this truth from this morning's hike.
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On the Very Idea of a Cause of Existence: Schopenhauer on the Cosmological Argument
Cosmological arguments for the existence of God rest on several ontological assumptions none of them quite obvious, and all of them reasonable candidates for philosophical examination. Among them, (i) existence is a ‘property’ of contingent individuals; (ii) the existence of individuals is not a brute fact but is susceptible of explanation; (iii) it is coherent…
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The Punctum Pruriens of Metaphysics
Man is a metaphysical animal. He does not live by bread alone, nor by bed alone, and he does not scratch only where it physically itches. He also scratches where he feels the metaphysical itch, the tormenting lust to know the ultimate why and wherefore. And where is that punctum pruriens located? What is it…
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A Reading for Schopenhauer’s Birthday
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on this date in 1788. I don't imagine he was given to the celebration of birthdays for reasons that may be gleaned from this YouTube reading by D. E. Wittkower. It is an accurate and pleasant reading of the whole of "The Vanity of Existence" (from Parerga) with only one insignificant divergence…
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Would Schopenhauer Allow Comments?
If Schopenhauer were a blogger, would he allow comments on his weblog, The Scowl of Minerva? I say no, and adduce as evidence the following passage that concludes his Art of Controversy, a delightful essay found in his Nachlass, but left untitled by the master: As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual…