Essays and Aphorisms (Classics) [Paperback]

Schopenhauer is rightly accorded one of the finest writers ever to publish serious philosophy. And here, in his Essay's & Aphorisms, you can taste just a little of his prose.

As far as his philosophy (the most pessimistic you'll ever find) goes this is a far easier though much less expansive volume than his great World as Will & Representation. This volume is, in effect, an appetizer. However, he does offer us a few interesting essays which can provide the springboard into his mammoth two volume masterpeice.

Particularly of interest is Schopenhauer's essay on aesthetics, and his work on suffering.

However, women may find his essay On Women a little hard to stomach: he makes Neitzche look like Shere Hite.

There is also a fine introduction by Hollingdale, one of the best scholars of German philosophy about. So: read this, then read the major work.

If your serious about finding out what life is all about, or if your just looking to expand your cleverness by kicking idiocy off her rusty stool, then read The World as Will and Representation. It may not be as potent, today, as it was back in its day; even so, the Will can still give you an ontology peeling experience and send a shiver through the hollow glass orb you call your will; by putting you back in the cockpit of your life vehicle.

You don't need drugs to expand your seeing you see; you can awaken by reading the right philosophy. Back in the 1940's, scientists discovered consciousness expanding chemicals; a spiritual antidote to the atom bomb if you like. These chemicals allowed the testosterone driven monkey mind a glimpse through the veil of Maya. Taking LSD was like watching a high definition, 3D, film for the first time. Your sensory ratios were enhanced for the better, but inevitably, the real world would forever appear dull and dreary. It was thought that by expanding your awareness you stopped being a selfish arshole. It didn't work by the way.

Reading great philosophy can also do this. The genius of reading what genius' have said is that your mind expands like a balloon, and, if you don't pop, you see further; you realise that the rat race is an insult to your time and those mortgage payments they told you will make you happy, are not the meaning of life after all, and so you stop being an envious arshole because you see something more outside the dreary Kantian cave.

Carl Sagan said there are millions of books; the point is, read the right ones. Reading can change your neuronal ratios, making you smarter, but, inevitably, your world will probably look duller.

Philosophers today don't talk like this. These days' philosophy books are marketed to American teenagers. This is why the level of intelligence is plummeting like a pebble in a pond. You won't find this problem with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer; oh know. Schopenhauer was the LSD of his day, he really was.

This is why the philosophy of this old pessimist is a consciousness expanding agent, though I doubt he will have the same effect as he once did, but this is only because our world is so saturated with noise, that even God is drowned out. Schopenhauer is now silent when he should be read by free thinking spirits; after all, Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger were fans.

Arthur Schopenhauer is a historical anomaly who wrote about space-time 80 years before the physicists and discovered the unconscious 60 years before Freud. So he is a historical anomaly but you can probably still get a week psychedelic hit by reading The World as Will and Representation and have a corner of the great veil lifted. Also, I will add, grab your consciousness by the short n curly and move your ontological moorings slightly to the left, just like a tectonic plate sliding on acid.

I used the word `pessimist' above because this is the smelly label that dangles over Schopenhauer's system. If you go to Wikipedia or the Stanford encyclopaedia, you will come away with the wrong idea about the man's ideas. Reading what someone else has written about the philosophy of Schopenhauer is like wanting someone else to digest your food for you. I mean, would you read history books if you had a DeLorean? Then why do we insist on reading second hand writings, and second hand scribbling about great literature at that, because that is what Schopenhauer is; literature comparable to a grand symphony. Isn't this obvious, that reading secondary texts is analogous to having some bloke whistle Beethoven in your ere, when you can listen to the real thing instead?

LSD inventor, Albert Hoffman, was a young man in Vienna when Schopenhauer's fame was most felt. Years later, aged 103, Hoffman spoke about what happens after death, he said "I go back to where I came from, to where I was before I was born, that's all." This is from Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer's thoughts are preceded by the translator's introduction. This contains interesting background material. But beware: the introduction is a rather dismissive attempt to rationalise or "explain" the roots of Schopenhauer's world view. Do not be distracted by this - Hollingdale may well be a fine translator but he is not the philosophical genius that Schopenhauer was.