The wisdom of life

Author: Schopenhauer
Translator: Shuqichang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Schopenhauer was a famous German philosopher and the founder of voluntarism and modern pessimism. The Wisdom of Life is Schopenhauer's late work written in 1850, and it was this book that made Schopenhauer a renowned philosopher worldwide. In this book, he temporarily set aside the pessimistic philosophy of life based on voluntarism and explored the principles that life should follow from a secular perspective with an "elegant style." This translation is the first complete translation of the German edition in China. If he, he,. In a sense, compared to honor, the nature of honor is negative, while reputation has a positive nature. Because honor does not mean that others believe: a certain person possesses a special quality that is unique to their subject; honor merely indicates: a certain person does not lack the qualities that everyone must possess according to the rules as prerequisites. Therefore, honor merely indicates that this person is not an exception. But reputation indicates that this person is an exception. Reputation is something to be pursued, whereas, in comparison, honor only needs to be preserved. Based on this, the lack of reputation is anonymity, which is negative; but the lack of honor is shame, which is positive. We cannot confuse the negative and passive nature of honor. On the contrary, honor has a completely active characteristic; it purely originates from the subject of a person and is based on the subject's actions, rather than being determined by the actions of others or external circumstances, which is what the Stoics called "things dependent on us." This is precisely the distinguishing mark between true honor and knightly honor or false honor, and we will see this quickly in the following text. Only through slander and insults can honor be attacked from the outside. The only countermeasure against such attacks is to expose the slander publicly and make the slanderer known to the public. The respect that the elderly receive from others seems to be based on the fact that the young enjoy a hypothetical but untested honor, which is therefore given in advance, but this honor still needs to be tested; therefore, their honor is a credit loan. However, for the elderly, throughout their lives, they have proven through their own actions that they still retain honor. In terms of age and experience alone, neither of these is sufficient to justify demanding that the young show respect to the elderly.