Name: Parerga and Paralipomena
ISBN: 9780198246350

What Hacker News says

DyslexicAtheistFeb 2022

Strange I can see reader view works in Firefox.

I didn't notice strange fonts and was wondering what people were complaining about. Remembered I set my own fonts, and "not allow pages to choose their own fonts". And the DarkReader theme ensures I got the same colors on any webpage. It's almost as consistent as browsing gemini://

All the webfonts are truly a thing I can live without, right after ads.

____

The article was great. I thought it was one of the few things about Kant, including all the things *from* Kant, my tiny brain is able to comprehend. Sometimes it feels like learning about each philosopher is like starting from scratch. Almost like starting a new programming language. To really understand everything I have not only read all their material but also read everything they have read. And by the time I get good at it I am almost ready to come up with my own model of how the world works. I still can't say I totally understand Kant. But the best introduction to Kant I had was by Schopenhauer's "Parerga and Paralipomena"[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parerga_and_Paralipomena

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DyslexicAtheistJan 2021

> Nevertheless, [Quietism] was embraced by a thinker who had a significant influence on Beckett’s personal outlook and literary vision: the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

anyone who wants to read more about Schopenhauer, it took me a while to start as a non-philosopher so maybe this is useful to some.

Schopenhauer assumes one is familiar with not just all his previous work, but also all the thinkers influencing him, as well as Greek, Latin and several European languages (who wouldn't!!?). Despite, this his "Parerga and Paralipomena"[0] provides a very accessible glimpse into his ideas and the person (it has been translated into other languages too).

Reading him (oddly) has also made Kant more accessible to me (something I thought I had given up trying to understand). While I don't agree with every single thing Schopenhauer said (he is a raging critic of Hegel & Fichte - probably anyone that he didn't agree with lol) his ideas remain worth looking at. A shame he doesn't get more recognition in the non German speaking world. (maybe some people here into philosophy know why he hasn't gained more traction (especially for Parerga and Paralipomena)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parerga_and_Paralipomena [1] https://archive.org/search.php?query=Parerga%20und%20Paralip...

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DyslexicAtheistFeb 2019

  - Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society"
  - N.N.Taleb "The Black Swan"
  - Danny Kahneman "Thinking Fast & Slow" (also his papers with Amos Tversky)
  - Thomas Ligotti "The Conspiracy against the Human Race"
  - Peter Wessel Zapffe "On the Tragic" & "The Last Messiah"
  - Sokal, Alan D "Intellectual Impostures"
  - Simon Herbert "A The Sciences of the Artificial"
  - Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man"
  - Schopenhauer "Parerga and Paralipomena"
  - Lewis Mumford "The Story of Utopias"
  - Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish"
  - Edward S. Herman "Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media"
  - Franklin Foer "World Without Mind The Existential Threat of Big Tech"
  - Ben Goldacre "Bad science"
  - Emil Cioran "The Book of Delusions"
  - Gracian "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"
  - Heidegger Martin "The Question Concerning Technology"
  - Jacques Ellul "Propaganda The Formation of Mens Attitudes"
  - Mumford Lewis "The Culture of Cities"
  - Orwell "1984", "Down and Out in Paris and London", "Animal Farm"
  - Huxley "Brave New World", "The Doors Of Perception"
  - Michael Pollan "How to change your mind"
  - Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence"
  - Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "Notes from the Underground", "The Brothers Kasamarov", "The Gambler", "The Idiot", "Crime & Punishment"
  - Peter Smith "Teach Yourself Logic"
  - Thomas More "Utopia"
  - Emil Cioran "The Trouble With Being Born"
  - Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago"
  - Nietzsche "Complete works"
  - Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"
  - Gerald M. Weinberg "The Secrets of Consulting"

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rnjailambaMar 2025

This essay and "On Thinking for Oneself" are part of his book Parerga and Paralipomena.

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threads2May 2022

"The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races" - Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, "On Philosophy and Natural Science," §92, trans. Payne (p. 158-159).

"[Judaism] is, therefore, the crudest and poorest of all religions and consists merely in an absurd and revolting theism." - Schopenhauer, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy", Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume I, trans. Payne (p. 126).

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yesenadamJul 2021

From many of the comments here, people don't realize it's ironic—a dark, scathing joke. It's not advising people to argue like this, it's trying to open their eyes to the fact that the world already does argue like this.

The linked version is too abridged! Compare

> 32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.

with the original

If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say, for instance, "That is Manichaeism" or "It is Arianism," or "Pelagianism," or "Idealism," or "Spinozism," or "Pantheism," or "Brownianism," or "Naturalism," or "Atheism," or "Rationalism," "Spiritualism," "Mysticism," and so on. In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited - that is to say, you cry out, "Oh, I have heard that before"; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.

Two versions with the complete text:

Hyperlinked sections, with parallel German http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/

English text without headings https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10731/10731-h/10731-h.htm#li...

Schopenhauer (in a nutshell) was I believe the first (major western) atheist philosopher, who looked the world in the face, describing its infinite killing, death and suffering with vivid horror.[0] He sounds at times like a Freudian and Darwinist, many decades before either. He came across Buddhism later in life and found he agreed with it in many points. He thought only through music could we escape the misery of the blind will, aka life-force/selfish gene. (He played flute)

The two huge volumes of Parerga & Paralipomena[1], from which these Strategems come, is full of literary and philosophical essays and odds and ends. I found it cheap in a second hand bookshop as a teenager, and really loved it, but never really felt the need for his company after discovering Nietzsche. Very roughly speaking, Nietzsche = Schopenhauer + Emerson. These stratagems are classic though!

[0] See The World as Will and Representation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parerga_and_Paralipomena

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