Weisheit bei Schopenhauer und die Frage ihrer Aktualität
Wisdom in Schopenhauer’s grasp and the question of its timeliness

Summary/Abstract: The notion of wisdom in Schopenhauer’s grasp is analyzed in two different perspectives. First, in the context of early philosophy with the supreme term “better consciousness” (das bessere Bewußtsein). The crowning achievement of this period was The World as Will and Representation and radically formulated cognitive elitism. Second, in the context of Parerga and Paralipomena essays, in particular the Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life essay, when Schopenhauer transforms himself from a metaphysician and a Buddhist into a moralist and teacher of life’s wisdom, who teaches what to do to minimize the suffering of our lives. This shift of accents was connected with the thorough reading of B. Gracian’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom. A Pocket Oracle. Gracian did not teach how to free oneself from the world, but how to live in a world full of evil, adversity, intrigues and wickedness.

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