Although his lifestyle was unpretentious, modesty was not a characteristic of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860). John Vespasian explains that Schopenhauer did not hide that he regarded himself as a genius. He considered other philosophers, with few exceptions, as misguided fools. Why did Schopenhauer consider himself a genius? Surely not because of his productivity. In terms of output, he was not extraordinarily prolific, especially if compared with Plato and Aristotle. Schopenhauer only wrote three sizeable books: “About the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason” (1814), “The world as will and representation” (1818), and “Parerga and Paralipomena” (1851). His claim to genius rests on the quality of his philosophical insights, not on the size of his literary output. Talented people, he said, can achieve targets that no one else can hit, but only geniuses can hit targets that no one else can conceive. Schopenhauer placed himself amongst the geniuses because of the depth of his insights. His theory of the will (“life force”) is based on widely observable facts, but nobody so far had put them together and drawn universal conclusions. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/analysis-of-schopenhauers-philosophy-of-life/

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