The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc.
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~30,500 words · 145 passages
Cite this work
- APAArthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc.. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-religion-a-dialogue-etc
- MLAArthur Schopenhauer. "The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc.." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-religion-a-dialogue-etc.
- ChicagoArthur Schopenhauer. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc.. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/the-essays-of-arthur-schopenhauer-religion-a-dialogue-etc.
What it is about
A dialogue on religion between two characters, Demopheles and Philalethes, with other essays.
Context and history
The dialogue form spares him having to choose: one defends religion as the people's metaphysics, the other attacks it as a useful error. It is among the places where Schopenhauer is most honest about what he cannot settle. A note on the edition: Essays of Schopenhauer is not a book Schopenhauer wrote under that name. It is a selection of chapters from Parerga und Paralipomena (1851) made by the English editor, under a title of the editor's own. The text is Schopenhauer's; the book is not. This is an old English translation, in the public domain. The German original is also in the catalogue, and is what should be cited.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers who can be generally understood without a commentary. All his theories claim to be drawn direct from the facts, to be suggested by observation, and to interpret the world as it is; and whatever view he takes, he is constant in his appeal to the experience of common life. This characteristic endows his style with a freshness and vigor which would be difficult to match in the philosophical writing of any country, and impossible in that of Germany. If it were asked whether there were any circumstances apart from heredity, to which he owed his mental habit, the answer might be found in the abnormal character of his early education, his acquaintance with the world rather than with books, the extensive travels of his boyhood, his ardent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and without regard to the emoluments and endowments of learning. He was trained in realities even more than in ideas; and hence he is original, forcible, clear, an enemy of all philosophic indefiniteness and obscurity; so that it may well be said of him, in the words of a writer in the _Revue Contemporaine, ce n'est pas un philosophe comme les autres, c'est un philosophe qui a vu le monde_. It is not my purpose, nor would it be possible within the limits of a prefatory note, to attempt an account of Schopenhauer's philosophy, to indicate its sources, or to suggest or rebut the objections which may be taken to it. M. Ribot, in his excellent little book, [Footnote: _La Philosophie de Schopenhauer_, par Th. Ribot.] has done all that is necessary in this direction. But the essays here presented need a word of explanation. It should be observed, and Schopenhauer