Society/Culture The Philosophy Thread: Schopenhauer

[Gethelred]

Alright.

This thread is for discussion of individual philosophers or philosophies. First up with be Arthur Schopenhauer, known for The World as Will and Representation and The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Should conversation die down on Schopenhauer, a poll will be placed at the top of the thread after posters have provided suggestions for who the next philosopher should be, and you can vote on the candidate you wish to talk about. A biography and introduction to the resident philosopher's ideas will be provided by one of the people who voted for the philosopher when the thread changes.

Mods will try and be as permissive as we can, but philosophers must be able to be discussed within forum rules. We're not doing Alfred Baeumier, for example.

Go nuts from here. dorianyates, Episode IV (or anyone else) let me know if this is roughly what you were thinking or if you have any suggestions.

 

[rugmop]

Thanks for taking the time to reply like that.
The World as Will and Idea is the book I’ve read as well as some of his essays.
When I was in my 20’s I tried to read Beyond Good and Evil and couldn’t make sense of it. I’ll try reading it again soon.

It represents no failure on your part to not immerse yourself in Nietzsche's thought. I studied (in a formal sense) his works on morals, arts, religion and others, over a period of three years. Subsequently, I read everything he wrote (over about ten years), which has been published in English (for recreational purposes).

He can be quite opaque. His conclusions at the end of an argument might seem to be at odds with what he has been arguing. This is his deliberate and peculiar way of asking you to examine the totality of what he has written, rather than just what seems obvious. He is a harsh and demanding taskmaster towards the reader, yet in a thoroughly playful way. I found that it was in no way unusual to have to read entire chapters 3 or 4 times (sometimes line by line/paragraph by paragraph) before I got the gist of what was meant (this might be because I'm a bit of a drongo). Excuse my tendency to exaggerate, but I think him to be the finest writer I've read. His influence upon 20th Cent. literature and philosophy was immense.

Despite my having little time for Freud's thought (though he too was mostly misinterpreted, especially by his devotees), he did say that Nietzsche understood himself better than any man he ever knew.

If forced to recommend a book for Nietzsche beginners I would suggest The Antichrist. It is among the most excoriated of his works, by religious critics, because of Nietzsche's caustic treatment of the topic at hand. However, the work represents Nietzsche at his most accessible and scathingly witty.

Finally, any man who can construct this sentence gets my vote: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

 

[dorianyates]

It represents no failure on your part to not immerse yourself in Nietzsche's thought. I studied (in a formal sense) his works on morals, arts, religion and others, over a period of three years. Subsequently, I read everything he wrote (over about ten years), which has been published in English (for recreational purposes).

He can be quite opaque. His conclusions at the end of an argument might seem to be at odds with what he has been arguing. This is his deliberate and peculiar way of asking you to examine the totality of what he has written, rather than just what seems obvious. He is a harsh and demanding taskmaster towards the reader, yet in a thoroughly playful way. I found that it was in no way unusual to have to read entire chapters 3 or 4 times (sometimes line by line/paragraph by paragraph) before I got the gist of what was meant (this might be because I'm a bit of a drongo). Excuse my tendency to exaggerate, but I think him to be the finest writer I've read. His influence upon 20th Cent. literature and philosophy was immense.

Despite my having little time for Freud's thought (though he too was mostly misinterpreted, especially by his devotees), he did say that Nietzsche understood himself better than any man he ever knew.

If forced to recommend a book for Nietzsche beginners I would suggest The Antichrist. It is among the most excoriated of his works, by religious critics, because of Nietzsche's caustic treatment of the topic at hand. However, the work represents Nietzsche at his most accessible and scathingly witty.

Finally, any man who can construct this sentence gets my vote: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Were you a philosophy major?
I don’t understand why anyone would deliberately make themselves hard to understand.
By the way, good luck for Saturday.

 

[Gethelred]

Were you a philosophy major?
I don’t understand why anyone would deliberately make themselves hard to understand.
By the way, good luck for Saturday.

Have you ever tried to read Derrida? Page after page after page without page paragraphs, obscure to the point to be nonsensical (some would subscribe to the idea that Derrida was nonsensical anyway) but if you got through it he was rather difficult to refute.

 

[dorianyates]

Have you ever tried to read Derrida? Page after page after page without page paragraphs, obscure to the point to be nonsensical (some would subscribe to the idea that Derrida was nonsensical anyway) but if you got through it he was rather difficult to refute.

No. I’ve only read some of Plato’s works and Schopenhauer. Both were fairly clear writers and I felt like they weren’t talking down to the reader. Schopenhauer in particular wanted his reader to understand what he was saying.
I’d like to hear more of your thoughts about philosophy/society/culture.
For starters many people feel passionate about religion do you think religion and in particular Christianity is a costume for a philosophy? If so, what is it?

 

[evo]

A great man, one of my favourites.

 

[Osho]

What a nice thread, Schopenhauer is most certainly under appreciated, even ignored. Nice that his name is still raised.

Though the tide may be turning a bit now as Idealism is making a comeback as the limits of Materialism and Scientism become more obvious. Schopenhauer lays down a very intricate and clear justification for Idealism, unity of reality, even Vedanta.

Schopenhauer in my (perverse) opinion is a clear window into the density of Kant's arduous and brilliant analysis of knowledge, if you like approaching things a bit backward.

Schopenhauer's Will is also the precursor of N's Will to Power. Despite my pro N proclivity, I like his style, and he was the world's first Incel before there was an In. What a prophet! But Schopenhauer's Will may be the better bet. At least it can be extended to an eternal essence if there is such a thing, whereas N's Will seems to end up with Raskolnikov, Hitchcock's The Rope, and Foucault's post humanist identity as clothing to be worn and cast off when the novelty wears off.

Arthur also loved Poodles. What a bloke he was.