Pilos Profiles: Arthur Schopenhauer

Born in the late 1700s, Schopenhauer was a very interesting but gloomy philosopher. He had a highly metaphysical, but radical athiestic, philosophy in the early 19th century according to which everything was Will - a development of Kant. He influenced Nietzsche a lot, who is also very good. (Nietzsche started to think that Schopenhauer had serious problems though, and for what it's worth, I actually agree with Nietszche on this one.)

He was told that he had to do the right thing, but then his father died and he absolutely rejoiced, taking some money and an ability to study philosophy seriously. He composed an entire philosophy around his ideas of the Will. He had a series of poodles, all called Atma (meaning the soul of the world!) (I wonder if  my dogJocone would have liked to meet Atma!)





One time he (Schopenhauer) threw a lady down the stairs and hurt her and had to pay her money for the rest of her life. When she died, he said something like: Abit onus, obit anus (or the other way around) which means something like 'The old woman dies, the burden departs'. I don't know how such a silly little sound means that but apparently it does. Latin is an interesting language.

Schopenhauer, whatever you think about the Will, has a lot of beautiful and interesting things to say. I really like him. But he is also very cranky a lot of the time which can get quite annoying and make you think a bit less of him. But when he's good, baby he is a motherfucker.

After the publication of his magnum opus, the work entitled The World As Will And Representation, he had a difficult time not being very well received. But when he was old he began to become more famous and this actually maybe made him a bit happier. I wonder if it changed his pessimistic views.

450 × 396 - robertsworldmoney.com