Editing Arthur Schopenhauer (section)

===Intellectual interests and affinities===

====Indology====
[[File:Schopenhauer 1852.jpg|thumb|Schopenhauer, 1852]]

Schopenhauer read the Latin translation of the [[Hindu texts|ancient Hindu texts]], the ''[[Upanishads]]'', translated by French writer [[Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron|Anquetil du Perron]]{{sfn|Clarke|1997|page=68}} from the Persian translation of Prince [[Dara Shukoh]] entitled ''Sirre-Akbar'' ("The Great Secret"). He was so impressed by its [[Indian philosophy|philosophy]] that he called it "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed it contained superhuman concepts. Schopenhauer considered India as "the land of the most ancient and most pristine wisdom, the place from which [[Europeans]] could trace their descent and the tradition by which they had been influenced in so many decisive ways",{{sfn|Clarke|1997|page=68}} and regarded the ''Upanishads'' as "the most profitable and elevating reading which [...] is possible in the world. It has been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death."{{sfn|Clarke|1997|page=68}}

Schopenhauer was first introduced to Anquetil du Perron's translation by Friedrich Majer in 1814.{{sfn|Clarke|1997|page=68}} They met during the winter of 1813–1814 in [[Weimar]] at the home of Schopenhauer's mother, according to the biographer Safranski. Majer was a follower of [[Johann Gottfried Herder|Herder]], and an early [[Indologist]]. Schopenhauer did not begin serious study of the Indic texts until the summer of 1814. Safranski maintains that, between 1815 and 1817, Schopenhauer had another important cross-pollination with Indian thought in [[Dresden]]. This was through his neighbor of two years, [[Karl Christian Friedrich Krause]]. Krause was then a minor and rather unorthodox philosopher who attempted to mix his own ideas with ancient Indian wisdom. Krause had also mastered [[Sanskrit]], unlike Schopenhauer, and they developed a professional relationship. It was from Krause that Schopenhauer learned [[meditation]] and received the closest thing to expert advice concerning Indian thought.<ref>Christopher McCoy, 3–4</ref>

{{blockquote|The view of things [...] that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike;—this theory, I say, was of course known long before Kant; indeed, it may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred [[Vedas]], whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated.|''On the Basis of Morality'', chapter 4<ref>{{cite book |last=Schopenhauer |first=Arthur |year=1840 |publication-date=1908 |title=[[On the Basis of Morality]] |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/269/mode/2up |chapter=Part IV |translator-last=Bullock |translator-first=Arthur Brodrick |location=London |publisher=[[Swan Sonnenschein]] |pages=269–271 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>}}

For Schopenhauer, will had [[ontology|ontological]] primacy over the [[intellect]]; desire is prior to thought. Schopenhauer felt this was similar to notions of [[puruṣārtha]] or goals of life in [[Vedānta]] [[Hinduism]].

In Schopenhauer's philosophy, denial of the will is attained by:
* personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to loss of the [[will to live]]; or
* knowledge of the essential nature of life in the world through observation of the suffering of other people.

The book ''Oupnekhat'' (Upanishad) always lay open on his table, and he invariably studied it before going to bed. He called the opening up of [[Sanskrit literature]] "the greatest gift of our century", and predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanishads would become the cherished faith of the West.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.philosophy.ru/library/asiatica/indica/authors/motives.html|title=Western Indologists: A Study in Motives|last=Dutt|first=Purohit Bhagavan|access-date=9 May 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100802010348/http://www.philosophy.ru/library/asiatica/indica/authors/motives.html|archive-date=2 August 2010}}</ref> Most noticeable, in the case of Schopenhauer's work, was the significance of the ''[[Chandogya Upanishad]]'', whose [[Mahāvākyas|Mahāvākya]], [[Tat Tvam Asi]], is mentioned throughout ''The World as Will and Representation''.<ref>Christopher McCoy, 54–56</ref>

==== Buddhism ====
Schopenhauer noted a correspondence between his doctrines and the [[Four Noble Truths]] of [[Buddhism]].<ref>Abelson, Peter (April 1993).
[http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm Schopenhauer and Buddhism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628204330/http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm |date=28 June 2011 }}. ''Philosophy East and West'' Volume 43, Number 2, pp. 255–278. University of Hawaii Press. Retrieved on: 12 April 2008.</ref> Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire ([[taṇhā]]), and that the extinction of desire leads to liberation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will.<ref>[[Christopher Janaway|Janaway]], Christopher, ''Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy'', pp. 28&nbsp;ff.</ref> In Buddhism, while greed and lust are always unskillful, desire is ethically variable – it can be skillful, unskillful, or neutral.<ref name="David Burton 2004, page 22">David Burton, "Buddhism, Knowledge and Liberation: A Philosophical Study." Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, p. 22.</ref>

Buddhist [[nirvāṇa]] is not equivalent to the condition that Schopenhauer described as denial of the will. Nirvāṇa is not the extinguishing of the ''person'' as some Western scholars have thought, but only the "extinguishing" (the literal meaning of nirvana) of the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion that assail a person's character.<ref>John J. Holder, ''Early Buddhist Discourses.'' Hackett Publishing Company, 2006, p. xx.</ref> Schopenhauer made the following statement in his discussion of religions:<ref>
"Schopenhauer is often said to be the first modern Western philosopher to attempt integration of his work with Eastern ways of thinking. That he was the first is true, but the claim that he was ''influenced'' by Indian thought needs qualification. There is a remarkable correspondence in broad terms between some central Schopenhauerian doctrines and Buddhism: notably in the views that empirical existence is suffering, that suffering originates in desires, and that salvation can be attained by the extinction of desires. These three 'truths of the Buddha' are mirrored closely in the essential structure of the doctrine of the will." (On this, see Dorothea W. Dauer, ''Schopenhauer as Transmitter of Buddhist Ideas''. Note also the discussion by Bryan Magee, ''The Philosophy of Schopenhauer'', pp. 14–15, 316–321). Janaway, Christopher, ''Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy'', p. 28&nbsp;f.
</ref>

<blockquote>If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism pre-eminence over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, inasmuch as ''in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its influence'' [emphasis added]. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there was to be found in Europe only a very few accounts of Buddhism.<ref>''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'', Vol. 2, Ch. 17</ref></blockquote>

Buddhist philosopher [[Keiji Nishitani]] sought to distance Buddhism from Schopenhauer.<ref>''Artistic detachment in Japan and the West: psychic distance in comparative aesthetics'' by S. Odin – 2001 – University of Hawaii Press.</ref> While Schopenhauer's philosophy may sound rather mystical in such a summary, his [[methodology]] was resolutely [[empirical]], rather than speculative or transcendental:

<blockquote>Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.<ref>''Parerga & Paralipomena'', vol. I, p. 106., trans. E.F.J. Payne.</ref></blockquote>

Also note:

<blockquote>This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.<ref>''World as Will and Representation'', vol. I, p. 273, trans. E.F.J. Payne.</ref></blockquote>

The argument that Buddhism affected Schopenhauer's philosophy more than any other [[Dharma|Dharmic]] faith loses credence since he did not begin a serious study of Buddhism until after the publication of ''The World as Will and Representation'' in 1818.<ref>Christopher McCoy, 3</ref> Scholars have started to revise earlier views about Schopenhauer's discovery of Buddhism. Proof of early interest and influence appears in Schopenhauer's 1815–16 notes (transcribed and translated by Urs App) about Buddhism. They are included in a recent case study that traces Schopenhauer's interest in Buddhism and documents its influence.<ref>App, Urs [http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp200_schopenhauer.pdf Arthur Schopenhauer and China. ''Sino-Platonic Papers'' Nr. 200 (April 2010)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100704192558/http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp200_schopenhauer.pdf |date=4 July 2010 }} (PDF, 8.7&nbsp;Mb PDF, 164 p.; Schopenhauer's early notes on Buddhism reproduced in Appendix). This study provides an overview of the actual discovery of Buddhism by Schopenhauer.</ref> Other scholarly work questions how similar Schopenhauer's philosophy actually is to Buddhism.<ref>Hutton, Kenneth [http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2014/12/Hutton-Schopenhauer.pdf Compassion in Schopenhauer and Śāntideva. ''Journal of Buddhist Ethics'' Vol. 21 (2014)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150414055301/http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2014/12/Hutton-Schopenhauer.pdf |date=14 April 2015 }}</ref>

====Magic and occultism====
Some traditions in [[Western esotericism]] and [[parapsychology]] interested Schopenhauer and influenced his philosophical theories. He praised [[animal magnetism]] as evidence for the reality of magic in his ''On the Will in Nature'', and went so far as to accept the division of magic into [[Left-hand path and right-hand path|left-hand and right-hand magic]], although he doubted the existence of demons.<ref name="Myth of Disenchantment">{{Cite book | last = Josephson-Storm | first = Jason | title = The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences | location = Chicago | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = 2017 |pages = 187–188 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5yDgAAQBAJ |isbn=978-0-226-40336-6 }}</ref>

Schopenhauer grounded magic in the Will and claimed all forms of magical transformation depended on the human Will, not on ritual. This theory notably parallels [[Aleister Crowley]]'s system of magic and its emphasis on human will.<ref name="Myth of Disenchantment" /> Given the importance of the Will to Schopenhauer's overarching system, this amounts to "suggesting his whole philosophical system had magical powers."<ref>Quote from Josephson-Storm (2017), p. 188.</ref> Schopenhauer rejected the theory of [[disenchantment]] and claimed philosophy should synthesize itself with magic, which he believed amount to "practical metaphysics".<ref>Josephson-Storm (2017), pp. 188–189.</ref>

[[Neoplatonism]], including the traditions of [[Plotinus]] and to a lesser extent [[Marsilio Ficino]], has also been cited as an influence on Schopenhauer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anderson |first=Mark |title=Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One |chapter=Experimental Subversions of Modernity |date=2009 |publisher=Sophia Perennis |isbn=978-1-59731-094-9}}</ref>