Schopenhauer Research Articles

The Pessimistic Existentialism of Arthur Shopenhauer: An Expository and Evaluative Study

This work interrogates the seeming ambivalence between Arthur Schopenhauer's existentialist pessimism and his advocacy for artistic, moral and ascetic forms of awareness, as means of managing the absurdities and frustrations of life. The objective of this work is to discover whether or not his apparently orthogonal positions can be reconciled in any way at all, and what that might portend for the contemporary philosopher. Schopenhauer's metaphysics and philosophy of nature led him to the doctrine of pessimism: the view that sentient beings, with few exceptions, are bound to strive and suffer greatly, all without any ultimate purpose or justification and thus life is not really worth living. Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first 19th century philosophers to contend that at its core, the universe is not a rational place. Inspired by Plato and Kant, both of whom regarded the world as being more amenable to reason, Schopenhauer developed their philosophies into an instinct-recognizing and ultimately ascetic outlook, emphasizing that in the face of a world filled with endless strife, we ought to minimize our natural desires for the sake of achieving a more tranquil frame of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence. Often considered to be a thoroughgoing pessimist, Schopenhauer in fact advocated ways to overcome a frustration-filled and fundamentally painful human condition. He believed that the "will-to-life" (the force driving man to survive and to reproduce) was the driving forces of the world, and that the pursuit of happiness, love and intellectual satisfaction was essentially futile and anyway secondary to the innate imperative of procreation. This essay argues that phenomenologically, Schopenhauer had an “existentialist” orientation towards the spatio-temporal world that informed his pessimism, but also engenders further questions regarding the actual sincerity of his mental commitment to such a position.

Beckett and Buddhism

Beckett and Buddhism

Schopenhauer and religion: Translating myth into metaphysics

The article assesses Arthur Schopenhauer’s reinterpretation of religious myths, particularly those of Christianity, in terms of his philosophical system, and applies his ideas to the mythical cosmology of shamanistic and animistic religions. Schopenhauer, a 19th-century Romantic philosopher, although an atheist himself, took religious myths very seriously, translating them into the terms of his metaphysical system. His view was that Roman Catholicism, for him the true form of Christianity, shared the pessimism and the focus on suffering of Hinduism and Buddhism, rather than the alleged optimism of Protestantism, Judaism and Islam, excepting the myth of the Fall. For Schopenhauer, this pessimism was evident in the central symbol of Christianity, the figure of the crucified Christ. Schopenhauer put forward his ethic of compassion (and asceticism), aligning him, despite his atheism, with the altruistic ethics of the major world religions. The article also explores the extent to which Schopenhauer’s philosophy as, arguably, a form of panpsychism can be applied to shamanistic and animistic religions. While Schopenhauer translated religious myths into his metaphysical terms – based ultimately on Kant’s distinction between phenomena (things as they appear) and noumena (things as they are) – his understanding of the noumenon as the universal will to life was itself an explanatory myth for an essentially unknowable reality. Therefore, the attempt of Schopenhauer’s philosophy to translate myth into metaphysics in turn contained a myth at its very core. Nonetheless, the article argues that Schopenhauer’s argument may satisfy those dissatisfied with materialism’s shortcomings yet not willing to subscribe to a supernatural order.Contribution: The article applies to shamanism and animism the neglected philosopher Schopenhauer’s method of interpreting religious myths in terms of his metaphysical system, relating this very briefly to current philosophical debates on panpsychism.

Schema Incongruity: A Framework for Distributing Service Forms of FMCG Brands via a Digital Channel

This paper reports an extension of schema incongruity theory to a service form of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributed via a digital platform. According to this theory, an FMCG brand’s service form would be incongruent compared to its traditional form available via supermarkets. Based on the relevancy and expectancy dimensions, the level of incongruence for such a service was classed as moderately incongruent. The study used qualitative research to investigate whether the moderate incongruence appealed to modern-day customers. The findings revealed that a subscription to receive a regular supply of the FMCG test brand appealed to the respondents. The moderate incongruity employed in this study was of an optimal stimulation level, enabling respondents to see the added values offered. The values recognised included convenience, family bonding, health and variety. The study observed schema incongruity theory operating for the service form of the FMCG brand. As the study used a qualitative methodology, the findings are specific to the brand and context tested. However, the high interest observed suggests schema incongruity theory could serve as a framework for using a digital distribution system to market service forms of FMCG brands.

The pleasure of everything beautiful: Arthur Schopenhauer’s concept of genius and the art of the avant-garde

The pleasure of everything beautiful: Arthur Schopenhauer’s concept of genius and the art of the avant-garde

Utilizing Leader Humor to Conquer Paradoxes at Innovative Work: An Incongruity Theory Perspective

Building upon incongruity theory, we cast paradox mindset as a novel explanatory mechanism and further propose subordinate interpersonal influence as a boundary condition to explain how and when leader humor has the potential to spur subordinate innovative behavior. We conducted a multi-wave survey and tested our model with a sample of 408 members of 133 teams in the context of a Chinese information and technology (IT) company. Results of multilevel path analyses demonstrate that leader humor facilitates subordinates’ paradox mindset, which contributes to their innovative behavior. These predictions are stronger when subordinate interpersonal influence is higher. Our work enhances theoretical understanding of the incongruous nature of leader humor, and highlights its boundary condition of interpersonal influence, thereby yielding useful insights for practitioners who aim to improve subordinate innovative behavior.

Schopenhauer's Critique of Nationalism

In his own era, Arthur Schopenhauer was criticized for his conspicuous lack of patriotism. The critics were correct in the sense that Schopenhauer was a lifelong anti‐nationalist in a period of rising cultural and political nationalism. This article reconstructs Schopenhauer's critique of nationalism. First, it articulates his double ethical and intellectual case against the idea of the nation as a community supposed to give shape to the allegiances and obligations of its members. Second, it turns to his critique of teleological national history, according to which nations are collective agents with a single fate. Third, it reviews his caustic criticism of the increased importance of the vernacular in scholarly communication and the early Germanist attempt to establish an exclusively German literary canon; to Schopenhauer, nationhood was not even a useful category of cultural appreciation. Through this reconstruction, Schopenhauer emerges as a fierce anti‐nationalist who systematically questioned the importance of the nation as a supposedly cohesive community of solidarity and mutual care, a unified collective political and historical subject, or even a meaningful cultural or literary phenomenon.

HOW SOYINKA STYLISES SATIRIC HUMOUR IN ALÁPATÀ ÀPÁTA

The paper investigates how Wole Soyinka builds his satire on the foundations of extreme humour, pun and self-deprecation in Alápatà Àpáta. Using the theory of incongruity, purposively selected excerpts from the play are subjected to analysis which reveals a style that creatively weaves language together using tools that produce humour in the repudiation of societal ills. Components of incongruity like pun, zeugma, register switch, irony and ironical echo all combine at different linguistic levels to evolve a style that is at once entrenched in comedy and at the same time validates Soyinka’s celebrated status in dramatic discourse. The paper concludes that further studies should be done on the importance of humour in the expansion of the frontiers of stylistics as a branch of linguistics study.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0986/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

The Garden as Art, Hobby, and the Good Life

Gardening is a popular practice despite the abundant and affordable food at the grocery store, suggesting gardening is more than just a way to obtain food. The purpose of this article is to explore these other motivations. Evolutionary and pragmatic motivations are first explored, and then discarded, in favor of a values-driven approach. Gardening is depicted as both a form of art and a hobby. As an art form, the writings of iconic philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Martin Heidegger—as well as modern philosophers—are used to articulate the meaning of gardening as an aesthetic experience. As a hobby, gardening is a socially approved form of leisure and productive play. The conclusion is that, in addition to obvious physiological benefits such as food and exercise, gardening helps us acquire higher needs, such as self-actualization and transcendence. Why do we garden? No simple answer can suffice. Gardening, like many interests, is performed both for an end product and for the process itself. Gardeners can hardly be expected to be able to articulate their reasons, just as sports fans would have difficulty articulating why they watch football, or music lovers explaining why songs mesmerize them. When pressed, their answers will be mostly a tautology (e.g., I simply like it). However, this does not mean we cannot make progress in understanding the motivations for gardening. Gardening is a form of exercise, it is a hobby, and is performed for aesthetic pleasure, and research on motivations for all three of these exist—especially that regarding aesthetics.

Karol Frenkel and the tradition of ethics

Abstract Karol Frenkel was one of Kazimierz Twardowski’s first disciples to undertake an attempt to develop their own concept of ethics. In his case, the process of developing his own ethical concept involved questioning the tradition in which he had been educated. Accordingly, he was able to formulate an original concept of independent ethics. In his doctoral dissertation, Frenkel analyzed two ethical systems, formulated by David Hume and Arthur Schopenhauer respectively which sought ethical determinants in the affective sphere. For Frenkel, these proposals turned out to be unsatisfactory, and thus he proposed his own solution derived from the accepted concept of morality. From today’s perspective, it was the first reflection in Poland referring to scientific ethics, which – chronologically speaking – in many respects preceded the analogous solutions proposed later by British analytical philosophers.

Is Koro indeed our man? Exploring the intertextual role of humour in the Twitter age

Humour as a communicative activity is meant to evoke laughter in people, hence, the amusement of an utterance is typically judged by its response from the audience. This study examines amusing tweets on the COVID-19 pandemic and traces the intertextual origin of discourse in some of the tweets. It primarily explores the core role of humour as a cultural tool for satire. The incongruity theory of humour was employed as a theoretical framework for the study as it helps to better understand the reason Nigerians’ tweets are antithetical to prevailing circumstances in the country. This is a qualitative research design where a content analysis of 125 amusing tweets relating to the COVID-19 pandemic was sampled on Twitter. Search terms such as #May4, #3rdMainlandBridge, #KoroIsOurMan and #Obanikoro were employed to identify the pattern of humour in selected tweets as Nigerians’ tweets at the period revolved more around each of the hashtags. Open messages sent via Twitter were assessed adopting purposive sampling technique. Particular characteristics such as location of users, timeline of the lockdown and its relaxation (25 March–30 June 2020) formed the parameters for the selection of the tweets. Though the coronavirus scourge has left thousands of people dead in its wake, Nigerians’ tweets and memes during the lockdown did not in any way reflect gloom or sombreness. This will pique an average readers’ interest as there is a violation of normative expectations. The results therefore reaffirm the age-long relevance of the incongruous in humour and the satirical role of intertextuality in discourse.

Stand-up comedy and the performance of race and identity in Trevor Noah’s It Makes No Sense and Learning Accents

Stand-up comedy has thrived as a popular form of entertainment in Africa, and it has been used as a tool to question the postcolonial relationship between the West and the Other, which promotes racialized assumptions. Similarly, African stand-up comedians like Trevor Noah, a migrant from South Africa to the United States, who was born in South Africa to a Swiss father and a South African mother, have become global entertainment icons and demonstrate how migrants can use humour to confront prejudice and institutional racism. Drawing from Noah’s mixed racial backgrounds, this study examines how Noah’s identity shapes his artistry using two of his performances It Makes No Sense (2020) and Learning Accents (2021). The study engaged the Superiority, Relief and Incongruity theories of comedy, and observed that intersectional identities and marginalization are the main themes explored in the two comic acts, and Noah presents humour as a site of resistance used to subvert assumptions of stable racial and identity categories that promote the marginalization of Blacks and people of colour.

Scholastic Humor

Abstract Scholastic philosophers can be quite funny. What's more, they have good reason to be: Aristotle himself lists ready wit (eutrapelia) among the virtues, as a mean between excessive humor and its defect. Here, I assess Scholastic discussions of humor in theory, before turning to examples of it in practice. The last and finest of these is a joke, hitherto unacknowledged, which Aquinas makes in his famous Five Ways. Along the way, we'll see (i) that the history of philosophy is not so hostile to humor as is commonly supposed; and (ii) that the competing theories of humor like the Incongruity Theory and the Release Theory are not altogether incompatible. We'll also see at least one example of an apparent attempt by modern translators to excise humor from a medieval text. Our considerations will open a window into what oral discussion and debate at medieval universities was actually like, and how we should understand the relationship between the texts we have now and the exchanges that actually occurred then.

Incongruent Bodies

ABSTRACT This article explores the political humor behind Saturday Night Live’s presidential impressions and how the stakes of such humor are higher when the candidate is a woman. Drawing on theories of comic incongruity, I argue that SNL’s American presidents have “incongruent bodies”; that is, they challenge long-held assumptions about how power and leadership are to be visualized and embodied but ultimately maintain the patriarchal status quo. In the case of former candidate Hillary Clinton, however, what makes her incongruent with the role of the presidency is the simple fact of her being a woman. I argue that SNL’s Hillary Clinton characters, played by Amy Poehler and Kate McKinnon, foreground the basic contradiction of the woman candidate, offering an embodied critique on the gendering of power and leadership in America.

Analysis of Humor from the Perspective of Incongruity Theory : Focusing on a YouTube Parody Video Titled ‘Parodysite’

Framed with a perspective of incongruity theory, the aim of the study is to examine the joke mechanism to understand humor in the parody video. The data was collected from the parody video titled ‘Parodysite’ created in early 2020. The researcher analyzed humor in the parody video based on two distinct components: set-ups and punchlines, and further explored the humor process of incongruity and resolution. The results reveal that for a punchline the two comedians in the parody video use linguistic elements such as phonological and semantic puns. The findings also confirm that the basic two components (set-ups and punchlines) serve well as a theoretical construct to understand humor presented in the parody video.

Conquering the experiences of pain, boredom and despair among selected incarcerated mothers through alternative learning system activities

This paper aims to describe the life stories and experiences of mothers in prison who have overcome their pain, boredom, and despair through the learning and recreational activities, as part of the alternative learning delivery. Analysis was done using Arthur Schopenhauer’s lens. This is grounded on the idea that incarcerated mothers have experienced what Schopenhauer described as sufferings of the world which comprises the inevitable feelings of pain, boredom and despair in their entire stay at the four corners of prison cells. In this paper, face-to-face interviews, phone conversations and critical analysis in the appropriation of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic concepts were employed. As a result, three themes were drawn, namely, winning over emotional and psychological anxieties, seeing the silver lining, and determination to freedom. This paper recommends to the department of education (DepEd), commission on higher education (CHED) and technical education and skills development authority (TESDA) to further extend their community services or extension function for the continuation and enhancements of the delivery of alternative learning system (ALS) among incarcerated Filipino mothers, which the society is referred to as <em>ilaw ng tahanan </em>(light of every home).

On Lost in Translation

ABSTRACT Several elements of the philosophical pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer are used to explicate the critique of consumerism advanced by the 2003 film Lost in Translation. The negativity of fulfillment and the suffering involved in desire as primed by consumerism, as well as the ideological function of the phenomena of celebrity, are examined in the process.

Do Optimists Like Vaccines? The Effect of Perceived Vaccine Novelty and Beliefs in the World's Positivity and Orderliness on the Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccinations-The Case of European Young Adults.

The public debate over COVID-19 vaccinations tends to focus on vaccine-related arguments, such as their effectiveness and safety. However, the characteristics of a person’s worldview, such as beliefs about the world’s positivity and orderliness, may also shape attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations. These relationships were investigated using schema incongruity theory. The degree of the vaccine’s incongruence with the world’s order schema existing in people’s minds was represented by perceived vaccine novelty. Accordingly, the results of an online survey among European young adults (N = 435) indicate that perceived vaccine novelty negatively affects behavioral outcomes (vaccination intent, willingness to pay for vaccinations, and vaccination advocacy). Moreover, there occurred a negative interaction effect of positivity and orderliness beliefs on behavioral outcomes. Specifically, an effect of positivity was more positive when people perceived the world as less ordered. Furthermore, this interaction effect was more negative when perceived vaccine novelty was higher. A mediating role of perceived vaccine effectiveness was demonstrated for the above relationships. The results extend the existing literature on people’s worldviews into the domain of vaccine attitudes, and provide new insights on the role of perceived vaccine novelty. For vaccination policymakers and marketers, the paper suggests how to promote vaccinations with consideration of orderliness/positivity beliefs and vaccine novelty perception.

The Role of Gender in Government and Nonprofit Workplaces: An Experimental Analysis of Rule Compliance and Supervisor Trust

AbstractThe underrepresentation of women in leadership positions persists. Existing research examines barriers women face in climbing organizational hierarchies, but we know less about women who break past the glass ceiling. Once women obtain supervisory positions, do they face additional hurdles in managing employees? Specifically, how does gender, gender congruence, and rule formalization influence employee rule compliance and trust? Using a survey experiment across both government and nonprofit contexts, we find that both men and women are more likely to trust men managers, but this gender gap is mitigated when rules are written. Gender congruence plays a role for rule compliance, where both men and women are more compliant when the supervisor matches their gender, while gender congruence is only a significant factor for enhancing trust for men. The findings advance role incongruence theory and have implications for the challenges women leaders face in terms of trust and rule following.

THE IMAGE OF CHILDHOOD IN THE SHORT STORIES BY FYODOR SOLOGUB

The article analyzes the features of the artistic embodiment of the image of childhood in the short stories by Fedor Sologub, a Russian writer of the late XIX — early XX century. In his works, the author turned to the theme of the tragedy of human earthly existence and the image of a suffering child. The theme of childhood in Sologub’s creative quest is integrated in the context of the leading artistic and aesthetic trends, trends, styles of the turn-of-the-century period – symbolism, naturalism, decadence. In his short stories, which address children's images and destinies, Fyodor Sologub assigns a dominant role to symbols. The writer’s works about childhood contain numerous symbolic images that acquire unexpected forms and semantic content. The author delves into the world of children's consciousness, which is turned towards transcendental, supersensible knowledge. In this regard, Sologub’s short stories are saturated with images of death and motifs of a child’s altered consciousness. The essential features of Fyodor Sologub’s ideas of childhood are determined by the specifics of his philosophical beliefs. The writer’s creative path and his worldview are inextricably linked with the philosophical views of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. The author’s desire to embody the cult of beauty, death and madness in his works of fiction about children was the result of his fascination with the ideas of German philosophers. The theme of the child hero’s departure from the hardships of earthly reality into the world of dreams, art, beauty, madness, death was prioritized in the writer’s work. The saturation of texts with landscape and color images, which are often juxtaposed, contrasted, was an important setting of the artistic world of Sologub’s short stories about childhood. Color symbolism is extremely significant in the works of the writer, revealing the theme of childhood. The ambiguity and semantic saturation of color imagery endows the short stories about childhood with uniqueness and individuality. The principle of duality, the idea of the supra-world nature of the child-hero, the borderline of his inner worldview was expressed in the writer's prose devoted to the theme of childhood. The image of a child appearing in the short stories fully reflects the author’s belief in the mystery, uniqueness, and incomprehensibility of the inner world of a little person. The writer felt close to the theme of suffering and humiliation of a child, which first emerged and was fully shaped in the Russian literature of the XIX century.