Joanna and her son had a rough relationship, and both spoke their minds. From a letter she wrote to young Arthur Schopenhauer toward the end of 1807:
Source is here. More letters from his parents here.
4 thoughts on “Letters from Schopenhauer’s parents”
Arthur
Dear Mr Hicks,
I hope you are doing well.
After reading much that Schopenhauer has written, and in more than one language, I feel almost like I knew the man. Yes, the letter shows that Schopenhauer was the black sheep of the family. After his father died (it is said of suicide, and he was an intelligent man himself), Schopenhauer felt rubbed off by the type of life his mother started to lead. He detested trivial gatherings to start with, and also interpreted the mother’s ‘new life’ as a kind of disrespect to his father. To be honest, the letter tells more about the mother’s defects than his son’s. When Schopenhauer proudly completed his doctoral thesis, his mother derided it. Schopenhauer was most probably a difficult one to get along with. But so where most creative people. Most of them didn’t fit anywhere, and Schopenhauer himself defined this type of person as ‘the aliens of society’. To be honest, I cannot imagine a good mother who writes to his son that she doesn’t want to see him anymore. My own mother was completely the opposite, no matter how many disagreements we would get into.
In several sources, it is also mentioned that when Schopenhauer was small, he feared being abandoned. It is interesting to me how most people believe that Schopenhauer was some kind of harsh, mean character, when in his writings he actually writes in favour of great things such as tolerance. ‘When you are insulted, you must keep the greatest composure’. My respect for this thinker is very high. I don’t think most people understand his philosophy. For example, he was accused of being a sort of hypocrite just because he wrote that the ‘denial of the will’ consists in being like some kind of Francis Of Assisi, and he did not follow such a path himself. Those people didn’t read with enough attention: even himself wrote that people who self-flagellate, etc, he considered, after all, ‘degenerates’. I believe he defined in this way people who slavishly follow a dogma or religion. I find strange how people say: ‘well, his stuff isn’t for most people’. Definitely not, otherwise I would have probably never cared for him or his writings.
If I am not mistaken, it seems that he left behind many letters but they have not been translated, or at least, not yet.
he also detested people who wasted time playing cards, etc….he defined them as ‘brutes’, because they weren’t thinking. In other words, he saw people like these as dull people who wasted their finite time with trivial things. It’s probably unsurprising that he became very unpopular very quickly in the social gatherings held by his mother. As he wrote: ‘Brutes ask themselves how to pass the time; the rest, how to spend it’.
Philippa Beale
In many ways he was as we all are a man of his time. Women did depend on men for their care and were consider dependence in law until the middle of the the twentieth century and like all subservient groups used their ‘wiles’ to ensure their survival. However in great contradiction to their time Schopenhauer was striving for his own success, while his mother was being, extraordinarily for the time, a very successful women. Successful parents are often a blight on their children’s ambition. Also I think the mother feared that her son was homosexual, which would have made his life and hers very difficult. I think his domineering father was a factor that Schopenhauer never completely overcame. Then there was the problem of him being sued and having to pay damages to a woman for twenty years so he had a lot to overcome when he was still a young man. Perhaps he suspected his father had committed suicide because he feared his son was homosexual, we cannot know! None of this prevented him from being a great forward looking thinker and his philosophy explains perfectly the human condition in the 21st century. We are never satisfied and momentarily happy. Capitalism through advertising plays upon the human condition elucidated by Schopenhauer to keep us in thrall.
Dear Mr Hicks,
I hope you are doing well.
After reading much that Schopenhauer has written, and in more than one language, I feel almost like I knew the man. Yes, the letter shows that Schopenhauer was the black sheep of the family. After his father died (it is said of suicide, and he was an intelligent man himself), Schopenhauer felt rubbed off by the type of life his mother started to lead. He detested trivial gatherings to start with, and also interpreted the mother’s ‘new life’ as a kind of disrespect to his father. To be honest, the letter tells more about the mother’s defects than his son’s. When Schopenhauer proudly completed his doctoral thesis, his mother derided it. Schopenhauer was most probably a difficult one to get along with. But so where most creative people. Most of them didn’t fit anywhere, and Schopenhauer himself defined this type of person as ‘the aliens of society’. To be honest, I cannot imagine a good mother who writes to his son that she doesn’t want to see him anymore. My own mother was completely the opposite, no matter how many disagreements we would get into.
In several sources, it is also mentioned that when Schopenhauer was small, he feared being abandoned. It is interesting to me how most people believe that Schopenhauer was some kind of harsh, mean character, when in his writings he actually writes in favour of great things such as tolerance. ‘When you are insulted, you must keep the greatest composure’. My respect for this thinker is very high. I don’t think most people understand his philosophy. For example, he was accused of being a sort of hypocrite just because he wrote that the ‘denial of the will’ consists in being like some kind of Francis Of Assisi, and he did not follow such a path himself. Those people didn’t read with enough attention: even himself wrote that people who self-flagellate, etc, he considered, after all, ‘degenerates’. I believe he defined in this way people who slavishly follow a dogma or religion. I find strange how people say: ‘well, his stuff isn’t for most people’. Definitely not, otherwise I would have probably never cared for him or his writings.
If I am not mistaken, it seems that he left behind many letters but they have not been translated, or at least, not yet.
Nicely said, Arthur. I agree.
he also detested people who wasted time playing cards, etc….he defined them as ‘brutes’, because they weren’t thinking. In other words, he saw people like these as dull people who wasted their finite time with trivial things. It’s probably unsurprising that he became very unpopular very quickly in the social gatherings held by his mother. As he wrote: ‘Brutes ask themselves how to pass the time; the rest, how to spend it’.
In many ways he was as we all are a man of his time. Women did depend on men for their care and were consider dependence in law until the middle of the the twentieth century and like all subservient groups used their ‘wiles’ to ensure their survival. However in great contradiction to their time Schopenhauer was striving for his own success, while his mother was being, extraordinarily for the time, a very successful women. Successful parents are often a blight on their children’s ambition. Also I think the mother feared that her son was homosexual, which would have made his life and hers very difficult. I think his domineering father was a factor that Schopenhauer never completely overcame. Then there was the problem of him being sued and having to pay damages to a woman for twenty years so he had a lot to overcome when he was still a young man. Perhaps he suspected his father had committed suicide because he feared his son was homosexual, we cannot know! None of this prevented him from being a great forward looking thinker and his philosophy explains perfectly the human condition in the 21st century. We are never satisfied and momentarily happy. Capitalism through advertising plays upon the human condition elucidated by Schopenhauer to keep us in thrall.