Thammasat University students who are interested in philosophy, literature, ethics, history, political science, and related subjects may find a book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Library useful.

Young Schopenhauer: The Origin of the Metaphysics of Will and its Aporias is by Dr. Alessandro Novembre, an Italian historian of philosophy.

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation.

Schopenhauer was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to appreciate major tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance.

His writings have impacted literature and science as well as philosophy. Schopenhauer’s ideas about aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists.

The TU Library collection includes several other books by and about Schopenhauer.

In philosophy, the word aporia as cited in the subtitle The Origin of the Metaphysics of Will and its Aporias, refers to a state of puzzlement.

Toward the end of his life, Schopenhauer acquired a bronze Buddha statue, about a foot high, for his private collection. Made in the 1700s, it was discovered in an antique shop in Paris, where it was purchased by an acquaintance of the philosopher.

Schopenhauer assumed that it was Tibetan, and he had it gilded to follow the tradition of gilded temples in Asia. He placed the Buddha in a shrine-like area of his living room as an object of worship, as he told friends.

A 2011 research article argues that although later biographers have claimed that the statue was really from Thailand, based on a surviving photograph, since the statue itself has been lost, it is more probably in the Shan style, from Myanmar.

Here are some thoughts by Schopenhauer from books, some of which are in the TU Library collection:

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

• Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899)

We must recognize the fact that mankind cannot get on without a certain amount of absurdity, that absurdity is an element in its existence, and illusion indispensable; as indeed other aspects of life testify.

• Religion: A Dialogue, and Other Essays (1910)

 Life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth. […] The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence. […]

The composer reveals the innermost nature of the world, and expresses the profoundest wisdom in a language that his reasoning faculty does not understand.

• The World as Will and Representation

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

• On Genius, 1844

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man.

Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.

• On the Basis of Morality (1840)

No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! my head is too good for that; it shall be active only in its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an individual.

• On Genius (1851)

In a field of ripening corn I came to a place which had been trampled down by some ruthless foot; and as I glanced amongst the countless stalks, every one of them alike, standing there so erect and bearing the full weight of the ear, I saw a multitude of different flowers, red and blue and violet. How pretty they looked as they grew there so naturally with their little foliage!

But, thought I, they are quite useless; they bear no fruit; they are mere weeds, suffered to remain only because there is no getting rid of them. And yet, but for these flowers, there would be nothing to charm the eye in that wilderness of stalks.

They are emblematic of poetry and art, which, in civic life—so severe, but still useful and not without its fruit—play the same part as flowers in the corn.

• Similes, Parables and Fables (1851)

To be a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom (for wisdom is nothing but truth), it is not enough for a man to love truth, in so far as it is compatible with his own interest, with the will of his superiors, with the dogmas of the church, or with the prejudices and tastes of his contemporaries; so long as he rests content with this position, he is only a philautos, not a philosophos [a lover of self, not a lover of wisdom].

For this title of honor is well and wisely conceived precisely by its stating that one should love the truth earnestly and with one’s whole heart, and thus unconditionally and unreservedly, above all else, and, if need be, in defiance of all else.

Now the reason for this is the one previously stated that the intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth.

• Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real

Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost. Rascals are always sociable — more’s the pity! Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.

• Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

• Counsels and Maxims

Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn’t money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn’t fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure.

It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

• On Philosophy and the Intellect

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)