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Studies in Pessimism
by Arthur Schopenhauer
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| Editorial Review |
| Editorial Review |
| Publisher: Swan Sonnenschein Publication date: 1908 Subjects: Pessimism Education / Philosophy |
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| Product Details |
- Publisher: Cosimo Classics
- ISBN-10: 1-60206-349-4
- ISBN-13: 978-1-60206-349-5
- Amazon.com Sales Rank #2946633
- Published on: June 01, 2007
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 108 pages
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| Customer Review |
magellan: A supreme pessimist  |
I like Schopenhauer although his philosophy and metaphysics, which is called absolute voluntaristic idealism, hasn't faired that well in the last 100 years, although when I was in college 30 years ago he seemed to be popular among the students I knew who enjoyed reading philosophy.
There are several reasons why Schopenhauer's thought is still important. An idealist like Kant, he kept Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal, between the mental and external representations of reality. Kant's defense of idealism, that some ideas or at least mental processes are innate, is still relevant in modern brain science and neurobiology and in Chomsky's theories in linguistics, especially in regard to Chomsky's ideas about language learning and acquisition, in which there is support from brain science for a built-in facility in humans for language, and possibly an innate syntactical generator component to language ability.
Although innate ideas probably don't exist in the way that Kant envisioned them, modern brain science has supported his theory that the mind or brain is actively involved in the organizing and structuring of the data from the senses, and that we couldn't make sense of reality if we didn't have inborn aptitudes and capabilities to do that.
Schopenhauer emphasized the importance of Eastern philosophy and the validity of its introspective methods, while maintaining his overall empirical approach. His moral and ethical philosophy is based on compassion rather than on practical and reasonable considerations like Kant's. He was probably the first important western philosopher to give credit to Zen and Buddhist thought, while remaining faithful to the empirical principles of science.
Outside of philosophy his thoughts have had a major impact on psychology and the arts. He was the most important influence on both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, and he also had a great influence on Freud and Jung, and on writers and composers from Wagner to Tolstoy. During the 20th century, Schopenhauer's reputation faded and the importance of his work has been to a great extent overlooked, but recent books show that his importance is being rediscovered and reappraised.
I have a personal anecdote to recount. My college roommates and I used to read Schopenhauer at night to each other over a couple of beers, and we found his acerbic, trenchant style and sharp wit a delight to read, and this book is perhaps the best example of his prose in that regard. One Schopenhauer quote I still remember after 30 years is: "Intellect comes from the mother; character from the father," which might say a lot about his family life and how he grew up.
Schopenhauer is also famous for quotes such as:
"The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom."
(from his Essays, Personality; or What a Man Is).
"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as pretty fair measure of it."
"To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties."
I have to include my favorite quote on marriage here, although it isn't Schopenhauer's, and I don't know where it came from, although it echoes his sentiments: "Marriage is the institution where the woman loses her the name and the man his solvency."
His dyspeptic view of life might have been fostered by his delicate digestive system. He would spend many minutes and even hours poring over the menu before ordering his food in the cafes where he usually dined, because a wrong choice "could send his nerves ringing for days," according to one comment I read about him. Whatever the source of his pessimism, Schopenhauer seemed almost embarrassed and ashamed to be in a human body, because he did not seem to find much good in humans or human society. No doubt he would have preferred to be a higher, more intelligent species than humans, if such exists somewhere else in the universe. But Schopenhauer didn't seem to think that intelligent life existed here. :-)
Whatever the current fate of his reputation, Schopenhauer was a uniquely gloomy intellect who contributed much to several areas of philosophy. And not the least of his virtues is that he was a true cynic and pessimist--surely the most accurate view of life, after all. :-) |
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