Schopenhauer on What Constitues Philosophy

In most introductory philosophical textbooks, the standard definition of philosophy presented is usually etymological in nature. It is pointed out that philo and sophy are derived from the words that mean love and wisdom respectively in Ancient Greek, so philosophy is presented as an enquiry into wisdom and left at that.

For the purposes of an introductory textbook, such a definition I suppose is decent enough. Schopenhauer, however, gets much closer to the truth, if not hitting it directly, when he talks of philosophy as follows in his The World as Will and Representation:

The mode of explanation employed in various fields of study explains things in reference to one another, but it always leaves unexplained something that it presupposes. In mathematics, for example, this is space and time; in mechanics, physics, and chemistry, it is matter, qualities, original forces, laws of nature; in botany and zoology, it is the difference of species and life itself; in history, it is the human race with all its characteristics of thought and will. And in all these it is the principle of sufficient reason in the form appropriate to each. Philosophy has the peculiarity of presupposing absolutely nothing as known; everything to it is equally strange and a problem, not only the relations of phenomena, but also those phenomena themselves.

Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein's Ladder

Wittgenstein was one of the few philosophers of note that did not read much of what other philosophers had written. One exception, however, was the work of Schopenhauer.

I presented Wittgenstein's ladder to you before, but the germ behind the philosophy and the metaphor itself can be found in Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation as follows:

Perception is not only the source of all knowledge, but is itself knowledge par excellence; it alone is the unconditionally true genuine knowledge, fully worthy of the name. For it alone imparts insight proper; it alone is actually assimilated by man, passes into his inner nature, and can quite justifiably be called his, whereas the concepts merely cling to him.

And later:

For the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memories do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below for ever, since they are carrying what ought to have carried them.

The Pale Art of Imitation

From Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire comes the following delightful extract concerning the power of the ancients:

The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to deviate from these models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigour of the imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honour. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.

Pierre Menard's Translations

For the Borges heads, here comes this interesting piece of trivia from George Steiner's After Babel:

The latter's masterpiece [Menard's], of course, was to consist 'of the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of the first part of Don Quixote and a fragment of chapter twenty-two'. (How many readers of Borges have observed that Chapter IX turns on a translation from Arabic into Castilian, that there is a labyrinth in XXXVIII, and that chapter XXII contains a literalist equivocation, in the purest Kabbalistic vein, on the fact that the word no has the same number of letters as the word sí?)

Divinations

I thank George Steiner for introducing me to the word moromancy in his book, After Babel, which means "a foolish divination".

Montaigne Against Empty Learning

In Montaigne's essay, On the Education of Children, is found the following anecdote against prolixity and empty formalities:

The Samian ambassadors had come to Cleomenes, King of Sparta, prepared with a fine long speech urging him to declare war against the tyrant Polycrates. After hearing them to the end, the Spartan King gave them their answer: 'As for your introduction and exordium, I no longer remember them, or the middle of your speech either; and as for your conclusion, I will do nothing of the sort.'

Nicaraguan Cuba

I was reminded of the naivete of Cubans when reading the following excerpt from Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile, which has as its subject matter the author's time in Sandinistan Nicaragua:

Later, one of the interpreters asked me a breathtaking question: 'What's a labour camp?'

'What's a labour camp?' I echoed, disbelievingly.

'Oh, I can see what you're trying to say it is,' she said. 'Something like a concentration camp. But are you really saying they have such things in the Soviet Union?'

'Um,' I stumbled, 'well, yes.'

'But how can it be?' she asked in obvious distress. 'The USSR is so helpful to third world countries. How can it be doing things like this?'

There is a kind of innocence abroad in Nicaragua. One of the problems with the romance of the word 'revolution' is that it can carry with it a sort of blanket approval of all self-professed revolutionary movement. Donaldo Altamirano told me how deeply he felt in solidarity with the Provisional IRA.