Schopenhauer (and English sensualists):

At university he read Plato & the German Idealists as well as Locke & current scientific literature.  After university he contacted publishers offering to translate Hume into German.  He refers to both Locke & Hume in his The World As Will & Representation.  And in this same book he worked to disprove Hume's scepticism by arguing that Causality is not an empirical concept drawn from perceptions, but that perception presupposes knowledge of causality.

 

English sensualists:

aka British Empiricism, a school of philosophy that states knowledge comes only from sensory experience & emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in forming ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions; it emerged in the 17th century dominated by thinkers from the British Isles.  The first, Francis Bacon (English), advised empiricism in 1620 (against Descartes, in France, who upheld rationalism, 1640); later in the 17th century, Hobbes & Locke, both English, identified as empiricists.  According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas that are in accordance or discordance with each other, very different from the quest for certainty of Descartes.  In the 18th century Enlightenment, both Berkeley (Irish Anglican) & Hume (Scotland) became leading exponents of empiricism.  Berkeley (1685–1753), determined that Locke's view opened a door to atheism while Hume (1711–1776) moved empiricism to new levels of scepticism. He argued all knowledge derives from sense experience, no knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, can be conclusively established by reason; beliefs are the result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences.  Reason alone can never give rise to original ideas; reason, as distinguished from experience, can never make us conclude, that a cause or productive quality is absolutely requisite to every beginning of existence.

 

Rousseau (English sensualists):

In The Social Contract (1762) Rousseau establishes his social-contract theory as the foundations of political rights based on unlimited popular sovereignty.  While popular sovereignty was indeed novel, his social contract, the rights and responsibilities derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people, was derived from two 17th century English empiricists: Hobbes & Locke.  Hobbes established the idea of the "state of nature" which led to the social contract (Leviathan, 1651).  Like Hobbes, Locke also believed in the social contract as well as natural rights (to life, liberty, and property).  Rousseau was influenced by both men although his overall political theory differed from them.

 

Shaw (Man and Superman):

see  above page 350

 

Schopenhauer (fashionable…in 1859):

Brockhaus, Schopenhauer's first publisher, saw little in The World as Will and Representation (1818) but agreed to publish out of consideration for Schopenhauer’s mother, one of their best-selling authors.  As anticipated it did indeed suffer from poor sales.  In 1841 his "The Two Basic Problems of Ethics" was published, but again failed to draw attention to his philosophy.  In 1843, after negotiations Brockhaus agreed to print the 2nd edition of The World as Will and Representation.  The book was mostly ignored, its few reviews were mixed or negative.  Brockhaus had now had enough & when Schopenhauer sent them his Parerga and Paralipomena, he declined to publish.  In fact, when Parerga and Paralipomena was published in 1851 it became Schopenhauer’s first successful, widely read book receiving positive reviews.  However the academic community, which regarded Schopenhauer as a great stylist & cultural critic, refused to take his philosophy seriously.  Yet by the mid 1850s even the academics were starting to notice; in 1856 University of Leipzig sponsored an essay contest about Schopenhauer's philosophy.  Popular enthusiasm for his philosophy grew, copies of his portrait & photographs were sold, admirers visited the places where he lived & wrote.  Admirers gave him gifts & asked for autographs, many visited Frankfurt's Englischer Hof to observe him dining. 

 

Schelling, Hegel and Fichte:

reference to the main philosophers of German Idealism

 

Schopenhauer (clarity of writing):

Relative to other German idealists Schopenhauer’s prose is a masterpiece of clarity and elegance.  He was an avid reader of the great stylists in England and France & tried to emulate their style.  He often charged more abstruse writers such as Fichte & Hegel with deliberate obfuscation, describing the latter as a scribbler of nonsense (The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, 2nd edition).  He pulled no punches calling Fichte a windbag & Hegel "commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive, and ignorant charlatan." 

 

Schopenhauer (and Darwinism):

Schopenhauer kept abreast of the scientific literature of his day & interpreted scientific findings in the light of his philosophy.  His books were published before Darwin, but contain many ideas which anticipate Darwin, especially that of the struggle of all against all.  In The World as Will and Representation he states that living beings are “in endless and irreconcilable struggle against one another.”  This view of the Will and its endless, insatiable struggles fits well with Darwin’s natural selection.  Schopenhauer rejected Lamarck’s explanation of evolution by inheritance of acquired characteristics.  In Parerga and Paralipomena he argues that “every foetus gradually assumes the forms of the classes under its species…until it arrives at its own”.  He then asks: “Why shouldn't each new and a higher kind could have arisen because this increase in the foetal shape went one step beyond the shape of the pregnant mother?”  In other words he is suggesting that new species can originate by a mutation in the foetus.  And in the same book he asserts:  “We don't want to hide the fact that afterwards we would have the first humans to think of ourselves as born in Asia from the orangutan and in Africa from the chimpanzee …”.  Men evolved from apes.

 

Schopenhauer (and Kant):

Schopenhauer followed Kant in many ways but differed in details and eventually simplified the Kantian system.  One of his teachers G. E. Schulze, was a critic of Kantian philosophy.  His critique of Kant’s things in itself, claimed it was illogical to employ causality (one of Kant’s a priori categories) as a proof of the thing in itself.  This same argument was followed by Schopenhauer.  Above & beyond this Schopenhauer compresses Kant’s a priori 12 categories of understanding into a single category of causality.  Finally, Causality plus Time & Space, 3 interdependent principles, he simplified as the principle of sufficient reason (which he explored in his doctoral dissertation).   Schopenhauer’s magnum opus The World as Will and Representation, included an Appendix entitled Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, a discussion of the merits and faults of Kant's philosophy.  He praised Kant for his distinction between appearance and the thing-in-itself & insisted that this was a true conclusion, but drawn from false premises.

and see page 368 above Schopenhauer (and Kantian metaphysics)

 

Schopenhauer (and the Indians): * see EndNote<A>

While living in Weimar 1813-14, he was introduced to Eastern philosophy & was immediately impressed by the Upanishads & the Buddha.  He called the former "the production of the highest human wisdom", placing them on a par with Plato and Kant.  He began reading the Bhagavad Gita, and several journals devoted to Asian religions.  He held Indian philosophy in profound respect & loved Hindu texts.  Schopenhauer’s idea of representation and his concept of Will find parallels in Hindu philosophy.  However he was more intrigued by Buddhism, which he came to regard as the best religion.  He noted the similarities with Buddhism & his own ideas but claimed that he formulated most of his ideas independently. 

 

"Ueber den Willen in der Natur":

this work by Schopenhauer aimed to confirm & reiterate his metaphysical views in light of scientific evidence.  He states earlier philosophers viewed the will as conditioned by knowledge, a function of knowledge, and then goes onto argue the primacy of the will; will creates the intellect, a function of the brain, as a tool.  Will, as a thing in itself, is completely original, its objectification is the body, and knowledge, as a mere function, is a part of this body.  It also included chapters on animal magnetism and magic which reveals Schopenhauer’s interest in parapsychology.  He also wrote on Chinese philosophy, referring to the preeminent Neo-Confucian scholar, Zhu Xi (1130-1200), as well as to influential writers on Asian thought from the period.

 

Darwin (via Malthus): * see Endnote<B>

It is generally conceded that the writing of Malthus played a critical role in the formulation of the theory of evolution and in his Origin of Species Darwin admitted without hesitation that his theory of natural selection was an application of Malthus's population principle to Nature.  

 

Darwinism:

theory of biological evolution developed by the Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce; it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), including concepts predating Darwin.  Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist coined the term Darwinism in 1860, to describe evolutionary concepts in general, including earlier concepts published by English philosopher Herbert Spencer.

 

discrepant:

differing; disagreeing; inconsistent

 

Rousseau (champions ape-man theory):

In his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755) Rousseau introduces his idea of man before civilization, the noble savage, which embraces the idea of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress.  He is the first political theorist to attempt to grasp human nature as a product of social evolution founded on the biological evolution.  The biological structures & features that distinguish us from the rest of the animal world is the product of a process of evolution, making him a forerunner of Darwin.  He believed that the savage stage (as referred to by Hobbes) was not the first stage of human development, but the second stage.  Rousseau held that this stage of human development lay between the extreme states of brute, animal-like "ape-men" on the one hand and the extreme decadents of civilized life on the other.

 

Darwin (and the "Manchester School"): * see EndNote<C>

Before 1859 Darwin was exposed to Manchester liberalism & he expressed a personal predilection for free trade & economic competition.  His first opus, Voyage of the Beagle (1839) reflects this.  He was dismissive of the natives of Tierra del Fuego who lacking the concept of private property lived in a state of economic equality which he believed hindered the development of civilization.  To move forward they needed the introduction of private property so they might begin the accumulation of wealth.  After his return to England in 1836 he read Malthus & Adam Smith & came into contact with several laissez-faire associates.  Although he himself was a landowner, Darwin favoured free trade & repeal of the Corn Laws.

 

the Manchester School:

aka Manchester Liberalism, a 19th century political, economic & social movement originating in Manchester, England. Led by Richard Cobden & John Bright, it argued free trade would lead to a more equitable society, with essential products available to all.  Famous for the Anti-Corn Law League, calling for repeal of the Corn Laws that kept food prices high; they advocated the social and economic implications of free trade & laissez-faire capitalism; they took the theories of economic liberalism (Adam Smith) & aimed to make them government policy.  In the social sphere they promoted pacifism, anti-slavery, a free press & separation of church and state.