Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Essays and Aphorisms (The Penguin Classics) by Arthur Schopenhauer, R. J. Hollingdale ISBN: 0-14-044227-8 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: May, 1973 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: one of the greatest philosophers to ever live
Comment: arthur schopenhauer is, without a doubt, one of the most important, poetic, talented, brilliant, and also humorously misanthropic thinkers to ever live. his writing is so brilliant that i have trouble understanding that why his greatest admirer friedrich nietzsche is so much more well known and constantly discussed than he is. i would say that they are both on the same par, ingenious equals who are indispensable in terms of philosophical greatness and force of personality. these essays and aphorisms are so vivid and beautifully written that not only is the attentive reader riveted by his thoughts and theories, but even temporarily convinced by his extreme cynicism and pessimism? i am one of those who see schopenhauer's dark view of life and the world as less temperamental and more grounded in reality than many scholars and biographers of the man like to admit. schopenhauer is perhaps, along with nietzsche and other monumental evolutionary thinkers like bergson and stirner, one of the most prophetic and simply gigantic men to ever live. he is, as the back of this particular edition of his aphorisms and essay says, "aware that everything might not be all for best." no false optimism or transcendentalism here, and no sugary coating on the disturbing truths of man's isolation and confusion in a universe that seems to be purposeless, indifferent, and entirely ephemeral. he rails bitterly against the majority of human beings with the hatred and resentment of one who, as a result of his brilliance and intellectual genius, been ostracized and at times actively abused by the more mediocre and less passionate masses all through his life. schopenhauer's greatest and most vital characteristic is his uncompromising intellectual integrity and his refusal to ignore the very real and in fact almost immobilizing fact of horrendous evil and senseless, unjustified human suffering. his philosophy of renunciation and asceticism, which he in no way actually lived or practiced personally, is the only flaw or inconsistency i can find in his work, and like nietzsche i would say that it is the result of weakness and lack of courage rather than logical thinking or supposed 'objectivity'. also unique is schopenhauer's stubborn belief and recognition that only the present actually exists, and that 'the future' is an illusory projection we create to make up for the inevitable and inescapable dissatisfaction and perpetual disillusion with the here and now. he doesn't offer any fictitious solutions or illusions of salvation which cannot be verified empirically, and he exhorts the individual to stand apart from the crowd of people and realize their potential while understanding that he or she will never attain to what the majority of people pursue frantically, perfect happiness. "in this existence, in which no perfect state exists and satisfaction can only be relative and minimal, we must aim less for the delusion of positive pleasure and more for the securing of our safety and the careful avoidance of suffering or impoverishment." truer words have never been spoken. it is, as with all legendary artists and thinkers, as if arthur schopenhauer is sitting in your room and talking to you himself--such is the power of his incredibly accurate and poignant commentary on our existence and it's ultimate meaninglessness and emptiness.
Rating: 5
Summary: Pessimism isn't bad, what's wrong with the truth?
Comment: His essays on "The Suffering of the World" and "The Vanity of Existance" are two of the best essays i've ever read, not to mention his other classic "On Suicide." Schopenhauer is great at explaining things, well at least I think so, take for instance this quote from "On Suicide":
"Christianity carries in its innermost heart the truth that suffering is the true aim of life: that is why it repudiates suicide, which is opposed to this aim, while antiquity from a lower viewpoint approved of and indeed honored it... It therefore seems that the extraordinary zeal in opposing it displayed by the clergy of monotheistic religions- a zeal which is not supported by the Bible or by any cogent reasons- must have some hidden reasons behind it: may this not be that the voluntary surrender of life is an ill compliment to him who said that all things were very good? If so, it is another instance of the obligatory optimism of these religions, which denounces self-destruction so as not to be denounced by it."
Of course in order to fully appreciate that quote you'd have to read the whole essay, but I think it's a good sample. His philosophies are pretty pessimistic, but like my title says, what's wrong with the truth?
Rating: 5
Summary: insightful
Comment: Insighful ideas written in lucid language (very rare for a philosopher) with thoughts on existence, suicide, women, religion, politics, ethics, aesthetics, psychology, and other sundry ideas.
Scopenhauer's ideas are a reflection of the post-Kantian era. The Zeitgeist of spiritual nihilism, which is nothing more than greater minds expressing the religious tendency. Scopenhauer seems like one who finds very little value in the world but he doesn't reverberate the nihilist slogan, "Since all is false, everyhing is permitted." He at once preaches to us that the world is inherently meaningless and that all movement is the result of an obscure force he calls "Will," and yet he proscribes compasion and empathy, as can be exemplified by his outrage over slavery and his sensitivity to animals.
While it's easier to tear down walls then to build them up, I nevertheless have a few problems with his ontological presuppositions.
Scopenhauer writes that his "ethics is ... actually in the spirit of the New Testament.." obviously appreciating it's ascetic nature yet in his dialogue on religion, he castigates Christianity and surprisingly exalts the Greeks (who affirmed life and did not practice an official religion ), exemplifying the superiority of their metaphysics to that of Christian metaphysics. He does this by comparing the periods in which these two systems reigned over their respective societies. The result of the Greek outlook was "the fairest unfolding of humanity, a spelndid state structure, wise laws, a carefully balanced legal administration, rationally regulated freedom, all the arts, together with poetry and philosophy, at their peark, creating works which after thousands of years still stand as unequalled models of their kind, almost as the production of higher beings whom we can never hope to emulate.." while when Christianity took over as the reigning religion in Europe there was a "hideous ignorance and darkness of mind, and in consequence intolerance, quarrelling over beliefs, religious wars, crusades, persecution of heretics and inquisitions..." etc. From my perspective, Christianity's dogmatism and its devaluation of life caused the cultural stagnation in the dark ages (Why champion reason and seek insight through philosophical inquiry when the catechism of Christianity has all of the answers?) but the devaluation seems to be what Scopenhauer is attracted to and yet he fails to realize that. Nevertheless, Scopenhauer ends his dialogue on religion with Demopheles declaring to Philalethes, "Let us see, rather that, like Janus - or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death - religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloom: you have had your eyes fixed on one face, I have had mine fixed on the other."
My second problem is that Scopenhauer proposes that the intellect is a result of the Will and does not exist on its own accord. But in the section "On Philosophy and the Intellect" he says that which inspires the genius is not related to subjective self-interest, and in turn the Will, but to objectivity. But since intellect, in Scopenhauer's view, arose in organisms as a function to serve the Will, how can the intellectual pursuits of the genius evade servicing the Will? The pursuits of the genius might be a result of a surplus of energy from within, causing him to seek knowledge beyond himself and his own self-serving interests, but isn't the very attempt of coping with such a surplus of energy a fulfillment of need and isn't an unquelled need a source of suffering? Need arises from self-interest and therefore from the subjective Will.
One final problem is that Scopenhauer's ontological premise is that everything is Will but then he insists that it be renunciated. Wouldn't the desire to renounce the Will be in vain if the Will is the fundamental drive behind all aims, including intellectual ones? So perhaps what Scopenhauer really intends is not the renunciation of the Will but rather the sublimation of it.
Scopenhauer lived a very participatory lifestyle so in light of that we should not take his pessimism too seriously. Good read.
 |
Title: The World As Will and Idea: Abridged in One Volume (Everyman Library) by Arthur Schopenhauer, David Berman, Jill Berman ISBN: 0460875051 Publisher: Everymans Library List Price(USD): $10.50 |
 |
Title: The World As Will and Representation (Volume 1) by Arthur Schopenhauer ISBN: 0486217612 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1966 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: The Philosophy of Schopenhauer by Bryan Magee ISBN: 0198237227 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims (Great Books in Philosophy) by Authur Schopenhauer, T. Bailey Saunders, Arthur Schopenhauer ISBN: 1573920339 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: December, 1995 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
 |
Title: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche ISBN: 0486406636 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 16 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
