The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of LifeArthur SchopenhauerOmniClassics · Literature
The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life
Arthur SchopenhauerAn inquiry into happiness asks how much depends on possessions, reputation, and the person who experiences them.
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About the book
Schopenhauer approaches practical happiness by distinguishing what a person is, what a person owns, and how a person appears in the estimation of others. He gives particular weight to character, health, and intellectual resources, arguing that external advantages cannot supply the same experience to every individual. Discussions of wealth, rank, honour, and fame expose the dependency created by seeking satisfaction through other people's opinions. The opening explicitly qualifies this practical project in relation to his darker philosophical account of existence. Readers therefore encounter an accommodation to ordinary aspirations, rather than a simple reversal of his pessimism. The essay's sharp judgments and illustrative comparisons invite disagreement as well as recognition, especially wherever advice about independence reveals the author's own assumptions about whose life and opportunities are being considered.
- Happiness
- Reputation
- Inner resources
Why read it
For a sharply argued distinction between the resources of a person and the advantages that wealth or public esteem can provide.
Philosophical essay · translated by T. Bailey Saunders