Soren Kierkegaard

countryside surrounding Frankfurt, where he had lived since 1833; he took
cold baths; and he led a life as regular and punctual as though he were some
sort of Immanuel Kant—or Søren Kierkegaard.
The Schopenhauer whom Kierkegaard studied in the last year of his life
still had six years left to live, and unlike his Danish colleague, in his final
years, Schopenhauer’s view of life grew brighter than it had ever been
(though this may not be immediately obvious when we look at the grim
and dogged-looking man who sulkily peers out at us from the daguerreo-
types taken toward the end of his life). But after the revolutions of 1848
and the disillusionment that followed, the times were ripe for the reception
of his bitter message, and Schopenhauer the pessimist experienced the
strange sensation of success to such an extent as almost to turn him into an
optimist. Thus the longest part of his final work consisted of a series of
aphorisms concerning life wisdom, presenting themselves to the reader as
little exercises in the “art of getting through life as pleasantly and happily as
possible.” This was something that appealed directly to the taste of the easy-
going bourgeoisie, and it so infuriated Kierkegaard that his journal entry
practically flew to pieces: “There cannot be any doubt that as matters now
stand in Germany—this can be easily seen from the literary ruffians and
roustabouts and journalists and small-time writers who have been so preoc-
cupied with Schopenhauer—he will now be dragged onto the stage and
proclaimed. And I wager one hundred to one that he—that he will be
pleased as punch, that it would absolutely not occur to him to cut that
garbage down; no, he’ll be happy.” So Schopenhauer had only been a pessi-
mist foras long asexternal circumstances madeit necessary, butthe moment
the times were on his side, his pessimism became a style, his philosophy was
made presentable, and his hostility to systems became systematized: “So he
takes it upon himself to assign asceticism a place in the system....Hesays,
not without great self-satisfaction, that he is the first person to have assigned
asceticism a place in the system. Alas, this is nothing but professor-speak: ‘I
amthe firstto have assigned it a place in the system.’”
It is symptomatic of the late Kierkegaard that he interprets Schopen-
hauer’s philosophy biographically—he had done something similar with
Martensen and Mynster, for example—and he had no doubts about how
Schopenhauer could free himself from the falsity in which he was mired:
“No. Approach the matter differently. Go to Berlin. Move these scoundrels
out into the theater of the streets. Endure being the most notorious person
of all, recognized by everyone.... That iswhat I have practiced—of
course, on a smaller scale—here in Copenhagen....Andthen I have even
dared to do one more thing—precisely because I have been placed under
religious command—I have voluntarily dared to expose myself to being