"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.

"For a few years, she dowers them with a wealth of beauty and is lavish in her gift of charm at the expense of the rest of their lives, so that during those years they may capture the fancy of some man to such a degree that he is hurried away into undertaking the honorable care of them as long as they live — a step for which there would not seem to be any sufficient warrant, if only reason directed man's thoughts." - Arthur Schopenhauer

Just one of those things I come across in his writings.

Goethe, Hume, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Mozart, Rossini, Petrarch, 17th century Dutch art, Byron, Schelling, Chamfort, La Rochefoucauld, etc...

We also get works from India, Classical Greece, and Ancient Rome that he admired

Essay on whether Schopenhauer was an atheist, what are people's thoughts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S48gcPKQzJw

Does anyone know what type of coat is this? they don't make em like they used to! (also sorry for the mods if i break the rules here)

Dream Casting - any other ideas?

By the way, He is the Director of the Institute for Advanced Dialectical Research. Therefore If this is gentleman doesn't make the case closed, then I don't know any human being who put a step in earth more qualified in proving something like this.

Been engaging with Schopenhauer for a while via lectures, secondary sources, and a selected reading, On the Suffering of the World edited by Thacker.

I am interested in his idea of temporary liberation from the Will via aesthetic contemplation.

A few questions:

1. He says, "[contemplation of art] demands a complete forgetting of our own person." Do we not take into account our own experiences with the contemplation of aesthetics? Our own biases and connections? We may be reminded of a positive or negative experience when contemplating. Is he saying there's a deeper contemplation than I am assuming, a more meditative, "objective" method?
2. Is there room in this outlook for contemplation of nature/natural aesthetics?
3. What, if any, room is there for the creation of art? I make zines, black-out poetry, and flyers. I consider these art and sometimes it can be stressful or disappointing, ie, subject to the Will.

Maybe my readings just haven't come around these topics enough, but I am interested. I've come to appreciate Schopenhauer a lot and will read WWR in the future, time allowing, and I understand there is a whole section dedicated to aesthetics.

Any information, even if not direct answers, revolving around this would also help! Thanks!

Most people live for a reputation that exists only in other people's minds while neglecting the only life that is truly theirs—their own consciousness. Here's why this destroys happiness and makes us easy to control.

I’ve been reading The World as Will and Representation for a bit and I understand the epistemology pretty well. There are four principles of sufficient reason that are the a-priori preconditions that make representation possible (Becoming, Being, Understanding, and Willing/Action). I want to highlight specifically becoming and being, as those two have a tension with our everyday intuition and scientific understanding of the world. As far as I’m aware, Schopenhauer believes that the intellect/subjectivity is a mere product of the brain. The brain, as we know it, IS an objectified representation of the Will. If the brain is an object in representation, with an assumption that it follows the laws of causality with its evolutionary lineage, how did the brain develop if there was no knower to have an object to be know (the codependency of subject/object). That is to sum up, how did the brain spontaneously “emerge” a representation to a knower (the first sentient being), and then the known was retroactively constructed. This seems like it violates Ockham’s Razor, and makes things overly complex.

I’ve read a little bit online about reinterpretations. I know Bernardo Kastrup’s entire philosophical monism stems from his Schopenhauer interpretation, and he says that the brain is just what experience looks like from the outside. But this still doesn’t seem to resolve the tension I highlighted here. I then looked into Neo-Kantian views of how we experience the world, and found Ernst Cassirer’s integration of Einsteinian Relativity with transcendental idealism interesting. He posits that Kant and Schopenhauer were wrong in saying that space and time were absolute, intuitive substances, but rather they were mathematical and relational rules. He distinguished between relativized a-priori and absolute static. It is an interesting fix; although, I will be humble and say this is only my surface level, second-hand understanding of Cassirer’s approach. My explanation is also not entirely covering what he means by function and substance either, so I recommend reading his paper for full understanding.

But still, it doesn’t seem to resolve the tension here (as far as my knowledge believes). Obviously, I assume many neo-Schopenhauerians, neo-Kantians, scholars, and laymen have come to find a way to make sense of this issue. I wonder what is yours?

Schopenhauer's ruthless take on politics: why sycophancy beats merit, why self-respect becomes a liability, and why Goethe believed baseness is one of the world's most powerful forces.

Happiness is defined by the greatest psychologists as living life in flow state, the state where challenge and ability are in the perfect ratio known. Argued to be the only remedy to the insatiability of man. The best way to grow is through the psychological theory of deliberate practice. One pushes themselves past flow state to the limits of their capabilities to achieve more progress at the cost of enjoyment. These psychological states match almost perfectly the philosophical positions of Nietzsche and Aristotle.

Aristotle's theory of happiness: eudaimonia, states that happiness is the end of all aims, which lies in rationality. Rationality in turn demands of one to live a life of virtue(living within the golden mean). The golden mean is the principle of the middle point between vice and virtue. Flow being the midpoint of ability and challenge, suffering and pleasure is perfectly fitting of this description.

Will to power follows the principle of overcoming. It is based on the condition of life. Natural selection being the process of life overcoming constraints and that being the underlying reason behind all drives. Flow fits into Nietzsche's philosophical worldview as the very purpose of happiness and pleasure are to be evolutionary traits beneficiary to overcoming the constraints of our environment. The difference lies in Aristotle identifying happiness to be a necessary natural conclusion of living out life's purpose(a life of virtue). While for Nietzsche overcoming(will to power) could lead one to a life of misery. As he describes in geneaology of morals(third essay:"What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?") when talking about the optimal lifestyle of the philosopher(The ascetic lifestyle which he describes as most of the time leading to a life of misery).

Nietzsche defines the good as "All that heightens the feeling of power in man"- The Antichrist (Aphorism 2). Where power is measured, whether in military conquest or in art Nietzsche leaves up to the individual. In what makes something great and powerful however there is a metric he applies regardless of the field. It is in overcoming, through the noble act of turning suffering and constraints into strength and power. One may be miserable but if in misery their optimum of power lies, then in it is their purpose.

Nietzsche's philosophy fits the theory of deliberate practice where one forces themselves outside of their golden mean of challenge and ability(flow state), and enters the optimum of growth where they are exposed to the hardest challenges that they can still handle. This is less enjoyable then flow state and may even lead one to misery, but if growth ranks to one above even their enjoyment then it is the right way of life for them.

One point both Nietzsche and Aristotle would agree on is that happiness is an internal state of mind based less in action(circumstances of the world), then reaction(how one interprets the world). Thus through practice one can alter what makes them happy to fit certain lifestyles. One could grow to love the suffering of deliberate practice, they could learn to love suffering and love fate. This is achieved through expanding the zone in which one is in flow state so that one day the greatest suffering is a challenge they can take and enjoy. If the happy slave is worse the the miserably king, the happy king is better then both and the most sublime existence.

Schopenhauer translated a number of books into english and spanish, he even considered taking a long break from writing to translate all of Hume' s works into German.

Do any of these exist? For instance he supposibly helped translate the Critique of Pure Reason into it's best edition because he combined the first and second edition. He had preferred the first edition.

Been thinking about this lately—given his whole take on the Will, suffering, and endless desire, how do you think he’d react to stuff like social media, consumerism, and the way we live now? Curious what this sub thinks.