Philosophy Series Sketch No. 05: Arthur Schopenhauer

This work is done in HB and pencil on A5 paper.

This is the final sketch of my Philosophy Series. He is my favorite philosopher and one of the very few western thinkers who understood and weaved Eastern philosophy into his works. He was an exponent of Vedas and Upanishads. Also, I think his aphorisms are really good. He was a pure vegetarian and an animal lover. The name of pet poodle was ‘Atma’ a Sanskrit word for ‘Soul’.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 –1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.

His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer has had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Schopenhauer saw his philosophy as a continuation of that of Kant, and used the results of his epistemological investigations, that is, transcendental idealism, as starting point for his own. As a consequence of his monistic philosophy, Schopenhauer was very concerned about the welfare of animals. For him, all individual animals, including humans, are essentially the same, being phenomenal manifestations of the one underlying Will. The word "will" designated, for him, force, power, impulse, energy, and desire; it is the closest word we have that can signify both the real essence of all external things and also our own direct, inner experience. For this reason, he claimed that a good person would have sympathy for animals, who are our fellow sufferers.

Schopenhauer died peacefully on September 21, 1860, in his apartment in Frankfurt at Schöne Aussicht 16. He was 72.

Philosophy Series Sketch No. 04 : Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe. He came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. He was born a Jew but at 23, was expelled from his community and shunned by his family for his philosophy and revolutionary ideas. He was a trained lens maker and polisher and earned his income from this craft.Spinoza's magnum opus, 'The Ethics' was published posthumously in the year of his death. The work opposed Descartes' philosophy of mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. Spinoza argues that the way to 'blessedness' or 'salvation' for each person involves an expansion of the mind towards an intuitive understanding of God, of the whole of nature and its laws. In other words, philosophy for Spinoza is like a spiritual practice, whose goal is happiness and liberation.

Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and scholar of Latin and Greek whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history.

In the Western philosophy tradition, Nietzsche's writings have been described as the unique case of free revolutionary thought, that is,revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.

This work is done in HB, 3B and 10B pencils on 75 gsm A4 paper.

मेरा ग़म तो सिर्फ मेरा है...

 एक रोज़, ग़मज़दा चाँद ने एक टिमटिमाते तारे से पूछा -

यूं अंदर ही अंदर मरते भी क्यों ख़ुशी जताते हो?

तो तारा बोला- ये राज़ तो सिर्फ मुझे पता है

उन्हें नहीं जो रोज़ मुझसे उम्मीद लेते हैं;

जो रोज़ किसी अपने को मुझ में देख कर जीते हैं

मेरा ग़म तो सिर्फ मेरा है...

Translation-

One night, a sullen moon asked a twinkling star

"Even when you are gradually dying from within,

Why do you keep this facade of cheerfulness?"

The star replied- "This is a secret no one knows

I shine for those who take hope from me every night

And for those who see their late beloveds in me every night

This pain is mine and mine alone."