• Introduction
• The Original German Version
• An English Translation
• A French Translation
• A Quick Note on the English and French Translations
• A Greek Translation
• Epilogue: Peter van Inwagen on Convincing Other People to Change their Mind

This article is about a guy named Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was primarily a philosopher and in his most famous work, he included an Appendix with a critique on Kant, another German philosopher. But Schopenhauer’s interests are unimportant for the topic of this article (and so are Kant’s). What interests us here is his introduction to that critique. More specifically, the immense power of that introduction rests, at least in some significant part, on the fact that it is relevant to anyone who wants to critique the work of anyone else. What, then, makes this introduction so powerful? In my opinion, it is the poetic prose characterized by linguistic diversity, the vivid images, and the bold statements; but most importantly, I think it is the unapologetic and intrepid praise for the “other” party—for another human being which a naive mind would consider one of Schopenhauer’s enemies since, after all, Schopenhauer sets off to criticize him. Schopenhauer is unhesitatingly generous and bountifully creative when it comes to commenting on the work and genius of Kant, regardless of the overarching goal of his treatise, which is to criticize him.

By many accounts, Schopenhauer was a misanthrope, a bigot, and generally not a fun guy to hang out with (and in any case, he wouldn’t want to hang out with you). Yet, putting this introduction on paper and then publishing it is, I believe, one of the most deeply human and humble acts anyone has ever committed. In this article, I present the German version first—which is the original, then two published translations in English and French, and finally a Greek translation by me. The article ends with an important insight I gained by a modern philosopher with regard to arguments. Before getting into the actual text, let me provide a minimal context.

The work I am referring to is Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (usually translated as The World as Will and Representation). In Volume 1, Schopenhauer included an Appendix titled Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie (usually translated as Critique of the Kantian Philosophy). As the name implies, Schopenhauer in a way “attacks” Kant in this critique, but if only all intellectual attacks began like this.

There are three editions of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung authorized by Schopenhauer. Here I’m using the text from the third and final authorized edition. However, for this excerpt it should not matter, because as far as I know there are no differences between the editions. But you should note that I’m using Schopenhauer’s original spelling (e.g., “Stämpel” instead of “Stempel”).

This translation comes from the The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer.

It is much easier to indicate errors and mistakes in the work of a great mind than to give a clear and complete account of its value. This is because the mistakes are specific and finite and we can review each one, whereas it is a mark of genius that the excellence of its works is unfathomable and inexhaustible; they will not become obsolete, but will continue to be instructive for centuries on end. The perfected masterpiece of a truly great mind will always have so profound and far-reaching an effect on the entire human race that we cannot calculate how far geographically and temporally its illuminating influence will extend. This will always be the case, because however rich and accomplished the age might be in which the masterpiece appeared, genius will always rise up like a palm tree above the ground in which it is rooted.

But such profound and far-reaching effects cannot appear very quickly, because there is such a vast distance between the genius and the usual run of humanity. The knowledge that this one person derives directly from life and the world in the course of a single lifetime, knowledge that he acquires and presents to others as a finished product, cannot become the immediate property of humanity: humanity’s capacity to receive this knowledge does not equal his capacity to provide it. Rather, having endured struggles with unworthy opponents who would contest the immortal one’s very right to 492 live from the moment he is born, and would like to nip in the bud the salvation of humanity (like the snake in Hercules’ cradle) – even after all that, each piece of knowledge must first meander through the detours of innumerable false interpretations and distorted applications, has to survive attempts to amalgamate it with old errors, and so struggle on until a new and unprejudiced generation comes its way. Even in its youth this generation will gradually receive the content from that source through a thousand diverted streams, assimilate it little by little, and so come to share in the blessing that should flow to humanity from this great spirit. Thus, the education of the human race plods slowly on, the education of the weak and unruly pupil of genius.

This translation comes from the Pleiade edition.

Il est beaucoup plus facile de relever les défauts et les erreurs dans l’œuvre d’un grand esprit que de donner une explication claire et complète de sa valeur. Car les défauts sont des choses singulières et limitées qu’on peut par conséquent parfaitement circonscrire. Au contraire, la marque que le génie imprime à ses œuvres consiste justement en ce que leur excellence demeure insondable et inépuisable. C’est aussi pourquoi elles seront, pour une longue suite de siècles, un maître qui ne prendra jamais une ride. Le chef-d’œuvre accompli d’un esprit vraiment grand agit si profondément et avec une telle énergie sur tout le genre humain qu’il est impossible de calculer jusqu’où, à travers les siècles et les pays, pourra atteindre son influence éclairante. Il en sera toujours ainsi, car si cultivée et riche que soit l’époque dans laquelle il est né, le chef-d’œuvre, semblable à un palmier, s’élève toujours au-dessus du sol où il plonge ses racines.

Mais une action de ce genre, qui opère en profondeur et s’étend au loin, ne peut produire son effet immédiatement à cause de la grande distance qui sépare le génie de l’humanité commune. La connaissance qu’en l’espace d’UNE vie cet homme a conçue, acquise et puisée directement aux sources de la vie et du monde et qu’il a présentée aux autres déjà acquise et disponible ne peut cependant pas devenir tout de suite la propriété de l’humanité. Car cette dernière ne possède pas même assez de force pour recevoir tout ce que le génie peut lui donner. Cette connaissance doit combattre des ennemis indignes qui contestent à ce qui est immortel, dès sa naissance, le droit de vivre et qui voudraient étouffer dans l’œuf ce qui doit faire le salut de l’humanité (comparables en cela aux serpents autour du berceau d’Hercule). Mais, même après les avoir vaincus, elle doit ensuite commencer par se frayer une voie dans un lacis d’innombrables interprétations fausses et d’applications biaisées ; elle doit triompher des tentatives de synthèse avec de vieilles erreurs ; elle doit vivre dans la lutte jusqu’à ce qu’une nouvelle génération, libre de préjugés, vienne à sa rencontre. Cette génération, petit à petit, par mille canaux détournés, draine depuis sa jeunesse un peu du contenu de cette source ; elle se l’assimile progressivement et ainsi en vient à participer à l’influence bénéfique qui, depuis ce grand esprit, devait irriguer l’humanité. C’est avec une pareille lenteur que se fait l’éducation du genre humain, ce disciple faible et même indocile du génie.

To the best of my knowledge, both translations are considered the best in their respective languages. They are also both fairly recent. In my opinion, the French translation is superior, somehow both in terms of accuracy and power. The power and vibe are highly subjective but the accuracy is not so much. For instance, in the first paragraph there is the phrase: “daher sie auch die nicht alternden Lehrmeister vieler Jahrhunderte nacheinander werden.” An accurate translation would be something like: “and thus they also become the ageless mentors of many successive centuries.” The English translation says: “they will not become obsolete, but will continue to be instructive for centuries on end.” It introduces a word that doesn’t exist, “obsolete”, and replaces the poetic “ageless mentors” with “instructive.” The French version says: “C’est aussi pourquoi elles seront, pour une longue suite de siècles, un maître qui ne prendra jamais une ride,” which could be translated as “This is why they1 will be, for a long succession of centuries, a mentor which will never have a wrinkle.” In my opinion, this preserves the original meaning, while making the prose even more powerful with the use of the idiomatic “ne jamais prendre une ride.” Nevertheless, the French translation is far from perfect. For instance, the sentence starting with “Cette connaissance doit combattre des ennemis” in the second paragraph is quite inaccurate.

I should clarify here that I don’t aim for perfect accuracy, although I think the translation fares well in that dimension. But I also wanted to preserve the poetic vibe and power of the original.

Εἶναι πολὺ πιὸ εὔκολο νὰ ἐπισημάνουμε τὰ ἐλαττώματα καὶ τὰ σφάλματα ἑνὸς ἔργου κάποιου μεγάλου πνεύματος ἀπὸ τὸ νὰ προσφέρουμε μία διαυγῆ καὶ πλήρη παρουσίασιν τῆς ἀξίας του, ἐπειδὴ τὰ ἐλαττώματα εἶναι περιορισμένες μονάδες, καὶ συνεπῶς, μποροῦμε νὰ τὶς ὁριοθετήσουμε. Ἀντιθέτως, τὸ σῆμα κατατεθέν ποὺ ἡ ἰδιοφυία ἀποτυπώνει στὰ ἔργα της συνίσταται ἀκριβῶς στὸ ὅτι ἡ σπουδαιότητά τους παραμένει ἀπύθμενη καὶ ἀνεξάντλητη. Αὐτὸς εἶναι καὶ ὁ λόγος ποὺ θὰ λειτουργοῦν ὡς ἕνα ἀγέραστο πρότυπο ἐπὶ σειρὰ αἰώνων. Τὸ ἐπιτυχημένο ἀριστούργημα ἑνὸς πραγματικὰ μεγάλου πνεύματος δρᾶ τόσο βαθιὰ καὶ μὲ τέτοια ἐνέργεια σὲ ὁλόκληρο τὸ ἀνθρώπινο εἶδος, ποὺ εἶναι ἀδύνατο νὰ προβλέψῃ κανεὶς μέχρι ποῦ θὰ φτάσῃ ἡ διαφωτιστική του ἐπιρροὴ ἀνὰ τοὺς αἰῶνες καὶ τοὺς τόπους. Ἔτσι, ὅσο καλλιεργημένη καὶ πλούσια νὰ εἶναι ἡ ἐποχὴ στὴν ὁποία γεννήθηκε, τὸ ἀριστούργημα θὰ εἶναι πάντα ὅμοιο μὲ ἕναν φοίνικα ποὺ ὀρθώνεται ψηλότερα ἀπὸ τὸ χῶμα στὸ ὁποῖο θέτει τὶς ρίζες του.

Ἀλλὰ μία πρᾶξις τέτοιου εἴδους, ποὺ ἐπιδρᾶ βαθιὰ καὶ ἐκτείνεται σὲ μεγάλο πλάτος, δὲ μπορεῖ νὰ παράξῃ τὸ ἀντίκτυπό της ἀμέσως, ἐξαιτίας τῆς μεγάλης ἀπόστασης ποὺ διαχωρίζει τὴν ἰδιοφυία ἀπὸ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα ὡς σύνολο. Ἡ γνῶσι ποὺ αὐτὸς ὁ ἕνας ἄνθρωπος ἤντλησε ἀπὸ τὴ ζωὴ καὶ τὸν κόσμο, καὶ τὴν ὁποία παρουσίασε στοὺς ἄλλους ὡς ἤδη ἀποκτηθεῖσα καὶ διαθέσιμη, δὲ μπορεῖ νὰ γίνῃ κτῆμα τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ἐν μία νυκτί. Κι αὐτὸ ἐπειδὴ ἡ ἀνθρωπότητα δὲν διαθέτει ἀρκετὴ ἰσχὺ γιὰ νὰ λάβῃ ὅλα αὐτὰ ποὺ ἡ ἰδιοφυία μπορεῖ νὰ τῆς παράσχῃ. Ἀντιθέτως, ἀκόμα καὶ ἂν αὐτὸ τὸ μεγαλοφυὲς πνεῦμα ἐπιζήσῃ ἀπὸ τὴν μάχη κατὰ ἀναξίων ἀντιπάλων – οἱ ὁποῖοι πολεμοῦν κατὰ τῆς ζωῆς μιᾶς ἀθάνατης ἰδέας ἀπὸ τὴν στιγμὴ τῆς γέννησής της καὶ ἐπιδιώκουν νὰ καταπνίξουν τὸν ὁποιονδήποτε χαιρετισμὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ἀπὸ τὰ σπάργανά του (ἂς τοὺς συγκρίνουμε μὲ τὸ φίδι στὸ λίκνο τοῦ Ἡρακλῆ) – πρέπει στὴ συνέχεια νὰ διανοίξῃ μονοπάτι γιὰ νὰ ξεφύγῃ ἀπὸ τὸ πλέγμα τῶν ἀμετρήτων λανθασμένων ἑρμηνειῶν καὶ τῶν μεροληπτικῶν ἐφαρμογῶν· πρέπει νὰ ἐπιβιώσῃ στὸν ἀγώνα μέχρι νὰ ἔρθῃ μιὰ καινούργια γενιά, ἀπελευθερωμένη ἀπὸ προκαταλήψεις, γιὰ νὰ τὴν συναντήσῃ. Αὐτὴ ἡ γενιά, λίγο-λίγο καὶ μέσῳ χιλίων δαιδαλωδῶν καναλιῶν, ξεκινῶντας ἤδη ἀπὸ τὰ πρῶτα της χρόνια, στραγγίζει λίγο ἀπὸ τὸ περιεχόμενο αὐτῆς τῆς πηγῆς· τὴν ἀφομοιώνει προοδευτικὰ καὶ ἔτσι προχωρᾶ πρὸς τὴν συμμετοχή της στὴν ἐπωφελῆ ἐπιρροὴ τῆς πηγῆς τὴν ὁποία πρέπει νὰ ἀρδεύσῃ ἡ ἀνθρωπότητα. Μὲ παρόμοια βραδύτητα κινεῖται καὶ ἡ ἐκπαίδευσι τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου εἴδους, αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἀδυνάμου καὶ ἀκόμα ἀπειθάρχου μαθητοῦ τῆς ἰδιοφυίας.

Several years ago, I was listening to an interview of Peter van Inwagen, one of the leading philosohpers on Free Will. Unfortunately, I cannot find the interview anymore (which means that the quotes below are probably inaccurate), but in it Inwagen said something that had an immense impact on how I approach arguments.

In 1975, Inwagen published a paper in which he presented what is known as the “Consequence Argument”. The content of the argument does not concern us here; what concerns us is that it changed the field forever (and is still relevant). Essentially, the Consequence Argument made the whole field take a 180-degree turn by undermining completely the status quo.

In this interview, the interviewer asked Inwagen a very reasonable question, and one in which I am sure most academics are interested if they are planning to advance their careers through disruptive changes. The question was this: “How did you convince others to change their opinion, and in particular, the established opinion?” Inwagen replied promptly and with no hesitation at all:

Oh, I don’t think I convinced anybody to change their opinion! The field did not change because the then senior academics—the authorities in the field—were convinced and changed their mind. People have prejudices and they have invested a whole career in some beliefs, so it is next to impossible to convince them out of them. As far as I can tell, the field changed simply because the newer generations—those that had not made up their minds yet—saw the available arguments and decided that the Consequence Argument made the most sense. With every new generation, more and more people subscribed to this argument, and more of the people who had subscribed to the old arguments left the field. That is, I think, how the field changed.

Basically, Inwagen presented a version of Paul Samuelson’s famous maxim that “science progresses one funeral at a time,” which is often attributed to Max Planck, but Max Planck did not write this catchy line. This is important because what Max Planck wrote is deeper and it gives us a chance to make an insightful comparison with what Inwagen said. So, here is what Max Planck actually wrote:

EineA neuenew wissenschaftlichescientific Wahrheittruth pflegttypically sichitself nichtnot in der Weisein such a way durchzusetzen,prevails daßthat ihreits Gegneropponents überzeugt werdenmaking convinced undand sichthemselves alsas belehrtdeclare erklären,englightened sondernbut vielmehrrather dadurch,through the fact daßthat ihreits Gegneropponents allmählichprogressively aussterbendie undand daßthat diethe heranwachsendeyoung Generationgeneration von vornhereinfrom the beginning mitwith derthe Wahrheittruth vertrautfamiliar gemachtbecoming istis

With a more English-like word order, this could be translated as:

A new scientific truth does not typically prevail by convincing its opponents and making them declare themselves englightened, but rather through the fact that its opponents progressively die and a new generation is becoming familiar with the truth from the beginning.

This sounds almost the same as what Inwagen said (or at least, what I remember Inwagen saying), but if we look closely, there is a core difference between the two passages. Max Planck is talking about a truth, which is (supposedly) simply true, irrespective of whether it has opponents. Thus, the new generation needs to only grow familiar with it. This is a much weaker demand than what Inwagen described. More specifically, Inwagen talked about a philosophical argument, and a philosophical argument is neither true nor false. We may say it is valid, but really we can never talk about soundness (i.e., that it is valid and its premises are true, therefore its conclusion is true) because if we start analyzing the premises of any “true” philosophical argument, we always realize that—potentially through a long trasitive chain—we eventually reach premises whose truth we simply cannot assess. In other words, we basically reach some kind of axiom, which in some important sense is different than a scientific axiom because a philosophical axiom is closer to what we commonly refer to as a “belief”. The point is that Inwagen is dealing with something much subtler and more arduous. This is why in his case, for a change to happen, the new generation does not need to simply “grow familiar” with an argument, but rather needs to critically think and decide that the argument is convincing.

More practically, I believe that Inwagen’s experience calls us to fundamentally reevaluate what is the point of any argument we make. For many people—and especially academics or entrepreneurs—arguments are their hope-loaded means to victory in the dick-measuring contest in which their environments require them to participate. But for anyone who is trying to bring about a change not for any personal gain—or any gain of their employer—what is really the best target audience for our arguments? After I heard Inwagen’s point, I completely changed the way I approach the topic. For better or worse, as I am writing this, I am still in a professional environment that requires me to use arguments to try to convince other people to change their mind. But empirically, I’ve observed that this process is hopeless, inefficient, and frankly not fun at all. So, at least this in this blog, where I have the freedom to do what matters, I have decided to present arguments not as if I am trying to convince anyone to change their opinion, but as if I am trying to present simply a view to a smart person who is in the process of forming an opinion.

1. I.e., the works (œuvres) mentioned in the previous phrase; this where the gendered French pronouns shine in helping us keep track of references↩