Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- 6 Hegel's Critique of “Those Plant-like Beings”
- 7 Schopenhauer's Justification for Good
- 8 Nietzsche's Inability to Escape from Schopenhauer's South Asian Sources
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Schopenhauer's Justification for Good
from III - Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- 6 Hegel's Critique of “Those Plant-like Beings”
- 7 Schopenhauer's Justification for Good
- 8 Nietzsche's Inability to Escape from Schopenhauer's South Asian Sources
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It sometimes happens that some men who are at odds with their age show that they belong to it by the extent of their opposition to it. Some are rebels, others want to admonish and others still are eccentrics who obtain learning from ancient books and look quietly with complete detachment at their world, as though they themselves did not belong to it. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer belonged to the last category.
— Golo Mann, The History of Germany since 1789 (1958)Schopenhauer's Brand of Vedānta
MANN'S QUOTE MAY BE TRUE and one could argue that Asian philosophy, which often emphasizes cultivating detachment from what Nietzsche would call the “all-too-human,” would naturally appeal to one who was already detached in many ways, as was Arthur Schopenhauer. One of Hegel's primary rivals, Schopenhauer was out of step with his contemporaries in the tradition of German idealism. He was, however, one of the most avid readers of the English Indological publications discussed earlier. His interest in Hindu and Buddhist topics began around the age of twenty-five, just after he submitted his doctoral thesis at Jena University, “Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde” (On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason). His introduction to such ideas is thought to have occurred in late 1813, after the acceptance of this thesis, when he met Majer at the young philosopher's mother's salon in Weimar, then, with Heidelberg, one of the centers of what has come to be called die Hochromantik (High Romanticism).
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- Information
- The Indo-German IdentificationReconciling South Asian Origins and European Destinies, 1765–1885, pp. 142 - 161Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010