The Art of Controversy and Other Posthumous Papers

by Arthur Schopenhauer

 

THE ART OF CONTROVERSY

 

 

The Philosophy at Home Series.

Crown 8vo, each 2s. 6d.

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1.	The Wisdom of Life	A. Schopenhauer.
2.	Counsels and Maxims	A. Schopenhauer.
3.	Religion, a Dialogue, etc.	A. Schopenhauer.
4.	The Art of Literature	A. Schopenhauer.
5.	Studies in Pessimism	A. Schopenhauer.
6.	Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion	H. Lotze.
7.	The Problem of Reality	E. B. Bax.
8.	First Steps in Philosophy	W. M. Salter.
9.	The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity	A. Lillie.
10.	Religion	G. de Molinari.
11.	The Sexes Compared	E. von Hartmann.
12.	The Gospel of Buddha	Paul Carus

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LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co. Limited.

 

THE ART OF CONTROVERSY

And Other Posthumous Papers

 

BY

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Si quis, toto die currens, pervenit ad vesperam, satis est

Petrarch: De Vera Sapientia

 

SELECTED AND TRANSLATED

BY

T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.

 

 

LONDON

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim.

NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO., Lim.

1896

 

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

 

Translator's Preface.

The volume now before the reader is a tardy addition to a series in which I have endeavoured to present Schopenhauer's minor writings in an adequate form.

Its contents are drawn entirely from his posthumous papers. A selection of them was given to the world some three or four years after his death by his friend and literary executor, Julius Frauenstädt, who, for this and other offices of piety, has received less recognition than he deserves. The papers then published have recently been issued afresh, with considerable additions and corrections, by Dr. Eduard Grisebach, who is also entitled to gratitude for the care with which he has followed the text of the manuscripts, now in the Royal Library at Berlin, and for having drawn attention—although in terms that are unnecessarily severe—to a number of faults and failings on the part of the previous editor.

The fact that all Schopenhauer's works, together with a volume of his correspondence, may now be obtained in a certain cheap collection of the best national and foreign literature displayed in almost every bookshop in Germany, is sufficient evidence that in his own country the writer's popularity is still very great; nor does the demand for translations indicate that his fame has at all diminished abroad. The favour with which the new edition of his posthumous papers has been received induces me, therefore, to resume a task which I thought, five years ago, that I had finally completed; and it is my intention to bring out one more volume, selected partly from these papers and partly from his Parerga.

A small part of the essay on The Art of Controversy was published in Schopenhauer's lifetime, in the chapter of the Parerga headed Zur Logik und Dialektik. The intelligent reader will discover that a good deal of its contents is of an ironical character. As regards the last three essays I must observe that I have omitted such passages as appear to be no longer of any general interest or otherwise unsuitable. I must also confess to having taken one or two liberties with the titles, in order that they may the more effectively fulfil the purpose for which titles exist. In other respects I have adhered to the original with the kind of fidelity which aims at producing an impression as nearly as possible similar to that produced by the original.

T. B. S.

February, 1896.

CONTENTS.

	Page
The Art of Controversy—
1. Preliminary: Logic and Dialectic	1
2. The Basis of all Dialectic	13
3. Strategems	15
On the Comparative Place of Interest and Beauty in Works of Art	49
Psychological Observations	63
On the Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms	75
Genius and Virtue	99
Advertisements	117