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).