Editing Arthur Schopenhauer (section)

===Post-Kantian school===
The leading figures of [[German idealism|post-Kantian philosophy]]—[[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|F. W. J. Schelling]] and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]]—were not respected by Schopenhauer. He argued that they were not philosophers at all, for they lacked "the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry."<ref>''Parerga and Paralipomena,'' Vol. 1, Appendix to "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," trans. E. J. Payne (Oxford, 1974), p. 21.</ref> Rather, they were merely sophists who, excelling in the art of beguiling the public, pursued their own selfish interests (such as professional advancement within the university system). Diatribes against the alleged vacuity, dishonesty, pomposity, and self-interest of these contemporaries are to be found throughout Schopenhauer's published writings. The following passage is an example:

{{Quotation|All this explains the painful impression with which we are seized when, after studying genuine thinkers, we come to the writings of Fichte and Schelling, or even to the presumptuously scribbled nonsense of Hegel, produced as it was with a boundless, though justified, confidence in German stupidity. With those genuine thinkers one always found an ''honest'' investigation of truth and just as ''honest'' an attempt to communicate their ideas to others. Therefore whoever reads Kant, Locke, Hume, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Descartes feels elevated and agreeably impressed. This is produced through communion with a noble mind which has and awakens ideas and which thinks and sets one thinking. The reverse of all this takes place when we read the above-mentioned three German sophists. An unbiased reader, opening one of their books and then asking himself whether this is the tone of a thinker wanting to instruct or that of a charlatan wanting to impress, cannot be five minutes in any doubt; here everything breathes so much of ''dishonesty''.<ref>''Parerga and Paralipomena,'' Vol. 1, Appendix to "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," trans. E. J. Payne (Oxford, 1974), p. 23.</ref>}}

Schopenhauer deemed Schelling the most talented of the three and wrote that he would recommend his "elucidatory paraphrase of the highly important doctrine of Kant" concerning the intelligible character, if he had been honest enough to admit he was parroting Kant, instead of hiding this relation in a cunning manner.<ref>{{Cite book|title=On the Freedom of the Will|last=Schopenhauer|first=Arthur|page=82}}</ref>

Schopenhauer reserved his most unqualified damning condemnation for Hegel, whom he considered less worthy than Fichte or Schelling. Whereas Fichte was merely a windbag (''Windbeutel''), Hegel was a "commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive, and ignorant charlatan."<ref>''Parerga and Paralipomena'', Vol. I, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy", Sec. 13, trans. E. J. Payne (Oxford, 1974), p. 96.</ref> The philosophers [[Karl Popper]] and [[Mario Bunge]] agreed with this distinction.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Open Society and Her Enemies|journal=Nature|volume=157|issue=3987|last=Popper|first=Karl|year=1946|page=52|bibcode=1946Natur.157..387R|doi=10.1038/157387a0|s2cid=4074331}}</ref><ref name="Bunge1">{{cite web | author = Bunge, Mario | year = 2020 | title = Mario Bunge nos dijo: "Se puede ignorar la filosofía, pero no evitarla" | url = https://www.filco.es/mario-bunge-no-evitar-filosofia/ | publisher = Filosofía&Co | access-date = 26 May 2020 | archive-date = 15 November 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20221115013405/https://filco.es/mario-bunge-no-evitar-filosofia/ | url-status = live }}</ref> Hegel, Schopenhauer wrote in the preface to his ''Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics'', not only "performed no service to philosophy, but he has had a detrimental influence on philosophy, and thereby on German literature in general, really a downright stupefying, or we could even say a pestilential influence, which it is therefore the duty of everyone capable of thinking for himself and judging for himself to counteract in the most express terms at every opportunity."<ref>''The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics'', Preface to the First Edition, trans. Christopher Janaway (Cambridge, 2009), p. 15.</ref>