From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

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Nick_A
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From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Nick_A »

These are excerpts from Arthur Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women." They should attract some healthy growls from local feminists.


One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is not intended for great mental or for great physical labour. She expiates the guilt of life not through activity but through suffering, through the pains of childbirth, caring for the child and subjection to the man, to whom she should be a patient and cheering companion. Great suffering, joy, exertion, is not for her: her life should flow by more quietly, trivially, gently than the man’s without being essentially happier.

[...] Thus nature has equipped women, as it has all its creatures, with the tools and weapons she needs for securing her existence, and at just the time she needs them; in doing which nature has acted with its usual economy. For just as the female ant loses it’s wings after mating, since they are then superfluous, indeed harmful to the business of raising the family, so the woman usually loses her beauty after one or two childbeds, and probably for the same reason.

As a consequence of her weaker reasoning powers, woman has a smaller share of the advantages and disadvantages these bring with them. She is, rather, a mental myopic …

One must say that the fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies … Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one … A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them.


Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex … More fittingly than the fair sex, women could be called the unaesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor poetry, nor the plastic arts do they possess any real feeling of receptivity: if they affect to do so, it is merely mimicry in service of their effort to please.
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Kayla
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Kayla »

is there a point here
Nick_A
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Nick_A »

Kayla wrote:is there a point here
Of course. This is a philosophy forum and Arthur Schopenhauer is a known philosopher. We must consider his ideas with an open mind so as to further our education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
reasonvemotion
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by reasonvemotion »

Schopenhauer had a notably strained relationship with his mother Johanna Schopenhauer.

Ha, there is your answer.
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Kayla
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Kayla »

Nick_A wrote:Of course. This is a philosophy forum and Arthur Schopenhauer is a known philosopher. We must consider his ideas with an open mind so as to further our education.
the term you are looking for is pseudo philosopher

you know like ayn rand and L ron hubbard

philosophers present ideas and arguments in favour of them

pseudo philosophers use what looks like language of philosophy but are actually making wild assertions that they do not bother to support

there is nothing worth considering in the extract from schopenhauer you posted





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer[/quote]
duszek
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by duszek »

Schopenhauer was embittered because Hegel´s lectures were crowded and his own not at all.

Many women can be like he says, yes. But not all.
And we could write an even worse "Essay on Men" if we wanted to. But is it worth the trouble ?
tbieter
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by tbieter »

Kayla wrote:
Nick_A wrote:Of course. This is a philosophy forum and Arthur Schopenhauer is a known philosopher. We must consider his ideas with an open mind so as to further our education.
the term you are looking for is pseudo philosopher

you know like ayn rand and L ron hubbard

philosophers present ideas and arguments in favour of them

pseudo philosophers use what looks like language of philosophy but are actually making wild assertions that they do not bother to support

there is nothing worth considering in the extract from schopenhauer you posted





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
Some high school students are ignorant of basic grammar and of intellectual humility.
Nick_A
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Nick_A »

Kayla wrote:
Nick_A wrote:Of course. This is a philosophy forum and Arthur Schopenhauer is a known philosopher. We must consider his ideas with an open mind so as to further our education.
the term you are looking for is pseudo philosopher

you know like ayn rand and L ron hubbard

philosophers present ideas and arguments in favour of them

pseudo philosophers use what looks like language of philosophy but are actually making wild assertions that they do not bother to support

there is nothing worth considering in the extract from schopenhauer you posted





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
[/quote]

A lot of puffed up egoism becomes acceptable as "philosophy in the same way a lot of puffed up expression becomes "art"

The words Philosophy and art have a favorable connotation that expression and egoism lack. it is meaningless but it makes money. After all, who would spend a million dollars on someones expression but they will when it is called art.

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. I would agree that Rand, Hubbard, and Schopenhauer love "prestige" rather than wisdom. But since modern philosophy is the love of self justifying argument rather than wisdom, how many philosophers are there?
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Kayla
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Kayla »

tbieter wrote: Some high school students are ignorant of basic grammar and of intellectual humility.
these flaws are hardly limited to high school students
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fiveredapples
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by fiveredapples »

First and foremost, thank God for Schopenhauer. You almost see the disdain dripping from his words. It's beautiful prose and, let's be fair, mainly accurate condemnation of the women of his time. Nietzsche made similar remarks. I find it amusing that you're poo-pooing Schopenhauer as 'not a real philosopher.' Is that because then you don't have to take his opinions seriously? Ayn Rand, even though I wouldn't call her an analytic philosopher myself, is clearly insightful, especially with regard to politics and the mind of the Liberal Left.
Schopenhauer had a notably strained relationship with his mother Johanna Schopenhauer.

Ha, there is your answer.
Schopenhauer 1 vs. Women on this site 0.
reasonvemotion
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by reasonvemotion »

I, must admit, I like Schopenhauer. I like a man who is discerning in his choice of women, as I am in my choice of men. Despite his seemingly condeming words of "us", I tend to look past these and see an intellligent, kind man. His love and protection towards animals was admirable. I think he may have had some bad experiences with women, which made him wary and cynical, but he was a man who considered and recognised "love" between a man and woman as vital. My kind of man.
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Kayla
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Kayla »

reasonvemotion wrote:His love and protection towards animals was admirable.
his treatment of his landlady, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired
reasonvemotion
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by reasonvemotion »

I agree. I dont think another incident was ever repeated like that in his lifetime.
Nick_A
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by Nick_A »

"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." ~ Socrates
It does seem like philosophy as the love of wisdom requires contrary women or else there is no use for philosophy.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. - Friedrich Nietzsche


It could be that the contrast between the highs and lows, danger and play, inspire philosophy to reconcile them.
A real man wants two things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything. Man shall be educated for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly. - Friedrich Nietzsche


Well as the French say:"Vive la Difference." Why destroy it? Appreciate it instead
reasonvemotion
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Re: From Schopenhauer's "Essay on Women."

Post by reasonvemotion »

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.
Carl Jung

Is Jung's view shared by the philosophers above?

Beautiful women are not accepted into the "inner circle" of women generally and are looked upon as a threat and as Jung states they are a source of terror to a man. I think men generally feel "comfortable" with a woman, similar to the women described by the philsophers. A beautiful woman can have difficulty in finding a partner who appreciates her intellectual abilities rather than her obvious charms.
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