The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy

Thirty-eight tricks for winning an argument whether or not you are right — a sardonic manual Schopenhauer left unfinished in his papers, printed only after his death.

by Arthur Schopenhauer161 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: Parerga und Paralipomena / Nachgelassene Schriften
First published: 1851(aged 63)
Original language: German

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Overview

Found nearly complete among the papers he left at his death, this short treatise sets out thirty-eight stratagems for winning a dispute regardless of whether you are in the right. Schopenhauer's premise is deliberately cynical: logic governs truth, but controversy is a contest of wills in which vanity makes people defend a position long after they have seen it fall, so a separate art — he calls it eristic dialectic — is needed to describe how they actually fight. He catalogues the moves without endorsing them: widen your opponent's claim until it overreaches, provoke him into anger so he argues badly, declare victory over a point he never conceded, and, when all else fails, turn personal. He drafted it around 1830 and never published it; unlike the essays gathered under his name in English, it was no part of Parerga and Paralipomena, the 1851 collection that made him famous, but surfaced from his literary remains in 1864, four years after he died. Read one way it is a wickedly practical guide to debate; read as he intended, it is a piece of moral anatomy, a demonstration that human reasoning bends to the will exactly as the rest of his philosophy says it must. It has outlived much of his system as a favourite of anyone who has ever lost an argument they should have won.

Key concepts

What is eristic dialectic?

The art of disputing so as to come off right regardless of the truth — the art of being right. Schopenhauer sets it apart from logic, which concerns what is true, and presents it as a neutral anatomy of how people actually fight, driven by vanity, not as a set of moves he approves.

What is a stratagem in this book?

One of the thirty-eight named tricks for gaining the upper hand in dispute — devices such as overstating an opponent's claim, provoking his anger, or declaring a victory never won. Each is catalogued as a tactic usable whether or not you happen to be in the right.

What does the extension stratagem do?

It widens an opponent's assertion beyond what he meant, stretching it to some extreme he cannot defend, then refutes the exaggeration as though it were his real position. Schopenhauer lists it first because it is the commonest of all the tricks: win against a claim your opponent never actually made.

What is the final stratagem, argumentum ad personam?

The last resort when losing on the merits: abandon the subject altogether and attack the man — insult him, provoke him, make him personally offensive. Schopenhauer places it at the end as the naked act of a will that would rather wound than be beaten by the truth.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Winning the Argument, Right or Wrong

When people dispute, are they defending the truth — or their own vanity, long after they have privately seen the position fall?

Logic governs truth, but controversy is a contest of wills, so a separate art is needed to describe how people actually fight. The treatise catalogues thirty-eight stratagems without endorsing them: widen your opponent's claim until it overreaches, provoke him into anger so he argues badly, declare victory over a point he never conceded, and, failing all else, turn personal. Read as Schopenhauer intended, it is moral anatomy — a demonstration that reasoning bends to the will exactly as the rest of his philosophy insists it must.

will
human nature
egoism
self-interest
motivation
reason
envy
rhetoric

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Within this work

passages held: 161
distinct concepts: 246
by passages held, corpus-wide: #147

What this book thinks together

Every arc around the wheel is one concept in this book. A ribbon joins two the text reaches for together, and its width is how many of its passages hold both. Strongest: compassion with ethics.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 22 pairings. 128 shared passages in all. 76 weaker pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
compassion	ethics	17
ethics	justice	10
compassion	justice	9
ethics	morality	9
egoism	motivation	8
compassion	egoism	7
egoism	ethics	7
justice	morality	7
altruism	ethics	6
egoism	morality	6
ethics	motivation	6
altruism	motivation	5
compassion	loving-kindness	5
compassion	morality	5
justice	loving-kindness	4
altruism	morality	3
egoism	justice	3
morality	motivation	3
altruism	egoism	2
compassion	motivation	2
egoism	loving-kindness	2
loving-kindness	morality	2

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1813 On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature (Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde; und, Ueber den Willen in der Natur)
Schopenhauer's 1813 doctoral dissertation, and the book he told readers to finish before opening his masterwork; the 1836 essay bound with it hunts for the same metaphysics in natural science.
DEEN
1841 The Basis of Morality (Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik)
Two ethics essays written for academic prize contests — one crowned in Norway, one famously denied the Danish medal though it stood alone — issued together in 1841 as The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.
DEEN
1851 Essay on Spirit Seeing and Everything Connected Therewith (Über das Geistersehn und was damit zusammenhängt)
An excursion into the paranormal — ghosts, second sight, animal magnetism — explained through his own metaphysics of will; the fifth of the six long essays in the 1851 Parerga.
DE
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims (Parerga und Paralipomena)
Half of Schopenhauer's Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, the companion to The Wisdom of Life; Saunders split the two for English readers. Practical maxims for living, drawn from the 1851 collection.
DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; On Human Nature
Essays on ethics and politics that Saunders gathered — some from the 1851 Parerga, some from manuscripts unpublished at his death — under a title Schopenhauer never gave them.
DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, a Dialogue, Etc.
A dialogue on whether a useful faith can also be a false one, heading a cluster of essays on religion and art that Saunders drew from the 1851 Parerga.
DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism
The pessimism most readers know him by, stated without the metaphysics — Saunders' selection of the shortest, bluntest essays from the 1851 Parerga.
DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy (Parerga und Paralipomena / Nachgelassene Schriften) you are here DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Literature
One of the topical selections Saunders carved from the Parerga for English readers, this one on writing, reading, and style; published in 1891.
DEEN
1851 The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life (Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit)
His most cheerful book, a guide to happiness that opens the Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life; the pages John Oxenford's 1853 essay singled out when he introduced Schopenhauer to English readers.
DEEN
1851 Über die Weiber
Notorious far beyond its length: a few hostile pages on women from the second volume of the 1851 Parerga, an embarrassment to his admirers and a standing charge against him.
DE
Anmerkungen zu Locke und Kant sowie zu nachkantischen Philosophen (Anmerkungen Zu Locke Und Kant Sowie Zu Nachkantischen Philosophen)
Undated notes from his literary remains, engaging Locke, Kant, and the post-Kantian idealists; manuscript material sorted by his editors after his death, never a book he wrote.
DE
The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt Als Wille Und Vorstellung)
The masterwork, and the whole of his philosophy: one argument he refused to recast, only enlarge, across three editions between 1819 and 1859. Every other title on this shelf leads toward it or away from it.
DE

— or open another of their works