Arthur Schopenhauer

E. F. J. Payne

The German philosopher explains his thoughts about intellectual perception and abstract representation and critically analyzes Kant's ideas and teachings. Bibliogs.

The World as Will and Representation

Deniz Erkaradağ

This is THE book that every intellectual should read. I'm going to insert some quotes that fascinated me the most:

"Whoever in his thinking takes note of his own age will influence only a few." (from Seneca)

"Just as in sight or vision we have recognized the sense of the understanding, and in hearing that of the faculty of reason, so smell might be called the sense of memory, because it recalls to our mind more directly than anything else the specific impression of an event or an environment, even from the most remote past." (This reminded me Proust)

"Since scholasticism, really in fact since Plato and Aristotle, philosophy has been for the most part a continued misuse of universal concepts, such as, for example, substance, ground, cause, the good, perfection, necessity, possibility, and very many others. A tendency of minds to operate with such abstract and too widely comprehended concepts has shown itself at almost all times. Ultimately it may due to a certain indolence of the intellect, which finds it too onerous to be always controlling thought through perception. Gradually such unduly wide concepts are then used algebraical symbols, and cast about here and there like them. In this way philosophizing degenerates into a mere combining, a kind of lengthy reckoning, which (like all reckoning and calculating) employs and requires only the lower faculties. In fact, there ultimately results from this a mere display of words, the most monstrous example of which is afforded us by mind-destroying Hegelism, where it is carried to the extent of pure nonsense. But scholasticism also often degenerated into word-juggling. ... But philosophy, down to the time of Locke and Kant, really pursued the path prepared by the scholastics; these two men at last turned their attention to the origin of concepts. "

"...imperfection of the intellect depends the rhapsodical and often fragmentary nature of the course of our thoughts... and from this arises the inevitable distraction of our thinking."

"Kant's propositon: 'The I think must accompany all our representations,' is insufficient, for the "I" is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since, by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. (This train of thought, and many others, leads to Freud)

"A second, though not a numerous, class of persons, who derive their livelihood from men's need of metaphysics is constituted by those who live on philosophy. Among the Greeks they were called sophists; among the moderns they are called professors of philosophy."

"The merely practical man, therefore, uses his intellect for that for which nature destined it, namely for comprehending the relations of things partly to one another, partly to the will of the knowing individual. The genius, on the other hand, uses his intellect contrary to its destiny, for comprehending the objective nature of things."

"There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy. ... So long as we persist in this inborn error, and indeed even become confirmed in through optimistic dogmas, the world seems to us full of contradictions. ... Now, while the thoughtless person feels himself vexed and annoyed hereby merely in real life, in the case of the person who thinks, there is added to the pain in reality the theoretical perplexity as to why a world and a life that exist so that he may be happy in them,answer their purpose so badly."

"We may still try to put the blame for our individual unhappiness now on the circumstances, now on the other people, now on our own bad luck or even lack of skill, and we may know quite well how all these have worked together to bring it about, but this in no way alters the result, that we have missed the real purpose of life, which in fact consist in being happy. The consideration of this then often proves to be very depressing, especially when life is already drawing to an end; hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of what is called disappointment."

The World as Will and Representation

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