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Psychology Of Genius In Arthur Schopenhauer
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION:
In the evolutionary system, advancement in the human world was as a result of the urge to satisfy the immediate needs of man and even more. Every organism is essentially endowed with its means of livelihood. So, nature has done so well to provide animals with their own means of attack, nutrition, defence and every means of survival.
Hitherto, with further development of the organism in higher animal, a higher means of survival is required. This higher requirement manifests itself in the form of human reason and the intelligence. The reason, then, in a gradual process develops in man as an essential tool to discover and to create new ways of satisfaction, in order to conquer its own world – the human world.
One might not relent to question the value of the human intellect and what it is all about. However, human intellect bestows its subject with the power of reason – ratio or intelligence. And this, therefore, distinguishes the man, homo sapiens, as that thinking or wise individual from other evolutionary categorization of humans as in homo erectus
[ standing man], homo habilis etc. Also, it plays an important role in every human make-up.
According to Prof Copleston, [1963] reason “ has primarily a biological function. If one may so speak, Nature intends it as an instrument for satisfying the needs of a more highly complicated and developed organism than that of animals.â€1
One would not to a greater extent question the insatiability of the human needs and desires. And could one as well question the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer that man and his world are virtually the Will, the blind desire, and representation. Every satisfaction presupposes a desire, and the latter seeks to attend the former in a logical dialectics. So, then, as man wangles in his eternal and insatiable desires, he immerses himself in it and becomes the Will as Schopenhauer opined.
Consequently, human intellect could be seen as a liberator, a key to human freedom, and emancipation. Schopenhauer [1788] espoused it well that though intellect is by its nature, the servant of the Will, it is capable in man of developing to such an extent that it can achieve its objectivity. That is to say, “that though man’s mind is in the first instance, an instrument for satisfying His bodily needs, it can develop a kind of surplus energy which sets it free at least temporarily, from the service of desireâ€
After man might have been liberated, at least temporarily from the service of desire, what would then happen, if I may ask? Schopenhauer answers that, “he becomes a disinterested spectator: he can adopt a contemplative attitude, as in aesthetic contemplation and in philosophy†This aesthetic contemplation according to Schopenhauer is the way of being a genius.
1.1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ARTHUR SCHOPENEAUR
Arthur Schopenhauer was born at Danzig on Feb. 22nd, 1788. His father, a wealthy merchant, hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps, and he allowed the boy to spend the years 1803-4 in visiting England, France and other countries on the understanding that at the conclusion of the tour, he would take up work in a business house. The young Schopenhauer fulfilled his promise, but he had no relish for a business career and on his father’s death in 1803, he obtained his mother’s consent in the continuing of his studies.
In 1809, he entered the University of Gottingen to study medicine, but he changed to philosophy in his second year at the university. As he puts it, “life is a problem and he had decided to spend his time reflecting on it"3 In the philosophy of Schopenhauer, German idealism took a new turn. While, for example, Hegel identifies the ultimate reality, the absolute, with Reason, Schopenhauer identifies it with the WILL. For Hegel, the absolute is Reason, but for Schopenhauer, the Absolute is the Will. In Schopenhauer’s idealism, the absolute is not an intelligent being developing consciously towards its goal but rather a blind irrational impulse for life, the will-to-live. His idealism is more directly derived from Kant than those of the three idealists before him, for in his own idealism the absolute is precisely the thing-in-itself (the noumenon) of Kant.4
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 1 of 4
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