By Jason Kiss

Arthur Schopenhauer’s espousal of Vedic concepts in The World as Will and Representation emphasizes his deep dissatisfaction with philosophy in the West; he regarded his contemporaries not with solidarity but with open disdain.[1] As a result, he turned his attention toward India. As Steven Cross discusses in Schopenhauer’s Encounter with Indian Thought, Schopenhauer’s first encounter with the Upaniṣads occurred in 1814, one year after he had laid the foundation for his metaphysics in his dissertation The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, when he borrowed a copy of the Oupnek’hat from the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.[2]

At that time, Vedic philosophy was only beginning to enter Germany, and the version of the Upaniṣads which Schopenhauer studied, the Oupnek’hat, itself was a double translation which was rendered from Sanskrit into Persian and then into Latin. Therefore, the Oupnek’hat, as a philologically faulty translation, did not provide Schopenhauer with the most solid foundation for his studies. Nevertheless, some scholars, such as Dorothea W. Dauer, have described him as one of the first German thinkers to have genuinely understood Hindu thought.[3]

The challenge here is that Schopenhauer appropriates elements of Vedic philosophy only insofar as they confirm his own metaphysical stances. In this context, Vedic assertions serve as his own affirmations.[4] Thus, what we have in Schopenhauer’s references to Hindu thought is his own philosophy at the fore, with Vedic concepts serving complementary to his own thought.

Being there is not a straightforward implementation of Hindu thought in The World as Will and Representation but a prioritization of Schopenhauer’s own philosophy under the veneer of Hindu wisdom, several problems arise, not least of which is his tendency to refer to the Upaniṣads broadly rather than speaking about specific ones. The task becomes one of determining how, and to what extent, Schopenhauer’s philosophy can be accurately situated within the domain Vedic philosophy. On a superficial level, there appears to be points of convergence; his marshalling of Hindu concepts such as tat tvam asi and māyā would indicate an affinity with the nondualism of Advaita Vedānta or Brahmanism. However, this apparent alignment is made difficult by other elements of his system. His insistence that representation is governed by the law of causality, for example, bears a closer resemblance to the dualistic philosophy of Sāṃkhya. As such, it is through Schopenhauer’s unsystematic appropriation of Hindu thought to reinforce his own metaphysical ideas that concepts from these incompatible Vedic philosophies can be descriptively synthesized, and through his metaphysical principle of Eternal Justice, an emulsion of these opposing concepts emerges which grants further articulation.

Brahmanism as a Parallel to Will

Schopenhauer’s conception of the will as the noumenon bears a striking resemblance to the nondualism of Advaita Vedānta as both posit an ultimate reality that transcends the distinction between subject and object. For Schopenhauer, the will is not an object of representation and therefore lies outside the conditions that structure empirical knowledge. A similar claim is made within Advaita Vedānta, where ultimate reality is identified with Brahman. As Eliot Deutsch put it: “Brahman is the state which is when all subject/object distinctions are obliterated.”[5] In the absence of any distinction between the knower (subject) and what is known (object), there can be no relation of causality, since causality presupposes a spatiotemporal province of differentiated phenomena.

This becomes clearer when considered alongside Schopenhauer’s account of the principle of sufficient reason. For Schopenhauer, this principle governs the world as representation and structures experience through time, space, and causality. However, this principle is not governed by the will itself. The inner nature of reality lies beyond causality and, as Schopenhauer noted, “is the will itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason has no application, and which is therefore groundless.”[6] In this regard, both Schopenhauer’s will and the Advaitin conception of Brahman function as ultimate principles that are not subject to causal explanation. Each is described as groundless in the sense that it exists beyond the conditions that make empirical knowledge possible.

Within Advaitin thought, nondualism assumes an explicitly spiritual or mystical dimension, to the extent that the true self, atman, is understood to be identical with, or rather, “not-different” from ultimate reality, Brahman.[7] The realization of this identity is not merely metaphysical but also redemptive and therapeutic because it culminates in a state often described as mokṣa (liberation) which brings bliss. In contrast, no comparable affirmation is present in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The will does not yield a state of fulfillment; rather, it reveals existence as fundamentally characterized by suffering. Recognition of the will as the inner nature of reality does not liberate the individual into bliss but instead discloses the mundane horrors of reality.

This divergence becomes especially evident in Schopenhauer’s appropriation of the concept of māyā. In Advaita Vedānta, māyā denotes the illusory character of the phenomenal world, which obscures the underlying unity of Brahman and gives rise to the appearance of multiplicity, and it is something to be liberated from. As Deutsch observed: “Māyā is all experience that is constituted by, and follows from, the distinction between subject and object, between the self and non-self.”[8] Moreover, māyā is synonymous with avidyā (ignorance) for the practitioners of Advaita Vedānta.[9] Schopenhauer adopts this term but reframes it within his own system. As Sai Bhatawadekar maintains, for Schopenhauer, māyā is not an illusion but rather “a synonym for the [principle of individuation].”[10]

In the context of the principle of individuation, māyā delegates the way in which the world is constituted through representation. The phenomenal world is not independent of perception but arises in relation to the cognitive structures of the subject not unlike in Kant’s notion of the transcendental unity of apperception, which synergizes with Schopenhauer’s infamous opening line in The World as Will and Representation: “The world is my representation.”[11] As such, as Bhatawadekar noted, “māyā is analogous to Plato’s world of becoming, Kant’s notion of [appearance], and Schopenhauer’s own concept of [representation].”[12] It functions as an a priori “veil” which produces a world of differentiated objects while obscuring their underlying unity and oneness.

From this perspective, māyā functions as the principle of individuation by dividing reality into separate objects and thereby enabling the relations of time, space, and causality, what Schopenhauer frames as the principle of sufficient reason. Without this differentiation in Schopenhauer’s system, causal connections could not be established at all. In this sense, māyā grounds the structure of empirical experience. Like Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception, it is best understood as an epistemological concept rather than a purely metaphysical concept. It “individuates the world by dividing it into particular things and then establishing temporal, spatial, and causal connections among them”[13] Thus, māyā is the necessary condition under which the empirical world appears to us, not something to be liberated from, as in Advaita Vedānta or Brahmanism.

Another aspect of Advaita Vedānta which Schopenhauer appropriates is the concept of tat tvam asi (“you are that”), one of the central mahāvākyas (great sentences) of the Upaniṣads. In its original Advaitin context, the phrase expresses the non-duality of atman (the true self) and Brahman (ultimate reality), which means that the true essence of the individual is “not-different” from ultimate reality. Schopenhauer modifies the tat tvam asi formula and reinterprets it within his own metaphysics of the will. For him, tat tvam asi does not primarily signify the identity of the self with a blissful communion with ultimate reality, but rather the identity of all individuals as manifestations of the very same underlying will. Under Schopenhauer’s influence, tat tvam asi means that “the inner essence of everyone is one, namely will.”[14] The proclamation “you are that” thus becomes an expression of metaphysical unity wherein the same will objectifies itself in all phenomena.

Schopenhauer further extends the meaning of “you are that” beyond its traditional Advaitin boundary to imply a non-duality between particular beings themselves. He reframes the statement to mean “‘you are that (whom you harm),’ or ‘you are the same as the one you harm.’”[15] The ethical implications of this means that if the same inner essence is present in all beings, then the suffering of another is not truly different from one’s own. This is the foundation of Schopenhauer’s Eternal Justice, which will be examined later.

Sāṃkhya as a Parallel to Representation

Schopenhauer does not view representation as an illusion; it is very much real. As he put it: “[…] the perceived world in space and time, proclaiming itself as nothing but causality, is perfectly real, and is absolutely what it appears to be; it appears wholly and without reserve as representation, hanging together according to the law of causality.”[16] Although he employs the term māyā to describe this domain, his usage greatly departs from its traditional Advaitin origins. It would be more accurate to align his notion of representation with prakṛti as expressed in the dualistic Vedic philosophy of Sāṃkhya, since what he describes is not a trickster to be rejected as unreal or illusion, but the principle-driven domain of empirical manifestation.

Prakṛti in Sāṃkhya denotes, like Schopenhauer’s notion of representation, the phenomenal world. As Leah Kalmanson put it: “According to the [Bhagavad] Gītā, Kṛṣṇa’s lower nature, or prakṛti, refers to the entire material cosmos, which includes both objective and subjective aspects that are intertwined via various interfaces, such as physical sensations or mental conceptualizations.”[17] It, like representation, is a domain bound by the law of causality. “Law” is an important word that Schopenhauer uses in describing causality, because it infers that it is more than mere cause-effect relations but a principle that embodies both cause and effect, which is an element also apparent in Sāṃkhya,[18] “Sāṃkhya’s notion of causality entails that causes cannot give rise to effects not already latent in the causes.”[19] This very much harmonizes with Schopenhauer’s usage of the “law of causality.”

Sāṃkhya is dualistic because prakṛti, the materialized cosmos, exists in its own distinct domain. Puruṣa, the other side of this metaphysical pairing, represents the eternal and timeless principle. It somewhat resembles Brahman in Advaita Vedānta in that it is not subject to the phenomenal world, which in Sāṃkhya is identified with prakṛti. As Leah Kalmanson further elucidates: “In contrast to the birthless, deathless, changeless Puruṣa, prakṛti’s very nature is to be in flux, which is to say, to transition from the unmanifest to the manifest and back again.”[20]

What is truly at odds with Puruṣa being Brahman-like is that there can be a plethora of Puruṣas instead of just one singular universal principle.”[21] Opposed to this, there is no pluralistic character in Brahman nor Schopenhauer’s notion of the will; everything is of the same metaphysical principle, and it is here that will cannot be sufficiently paralleled with Puruṣa; will is monistic while Puruṣa can be pluralistic. What remains here in this discussion is Sāṃkhya’s notion of prakṛti resembling Schopenhauer’s account of representation.

Much like how Schopenhauer views nature itself as irrational like the will itself, the same is found in Sāṃkhya’s notion of prakṛti where, as B. D. Basu clarifies, the “… objective world is non-intelligent, because its material cause, Prakṛti, is non-intelligent.”[22] This lack of intelligence can easily be considered irrational. Another important aspect of prakṛti is that it is a threefold composite; it is an umbrella term that refers to the three guṇas. As Kalmanson explains: “Sāṃkhya’s cosmogony begins at the moment when the initial manifestation of prakṛti is stoked into being via a primal vibration marking the emergence of three qualities, or guṇas: harmony or balance (sattva), activity or unrest (rajas), and inertia or resistance (tamas).”[23]

There is a great parallel here in the three guṇas with Schopenhauer’s notion of representation, especially if we view the will as being the “primal vibration” as the cause of the phenomenal world as we experience it. As Bhatawadekar states: “The three guṇas, which the Sāṃkhya’s philosophy discusses as the three qualities of nature, denote, for Schopenhauer, the extremes of human activity, within the span of which human life oscillates. Rajas signifies, for Schopenhauer passion, which is extreme willing, sattva is pure will-less knowing, and tamas is lethargy and boredom.”[24]

The Synthesis of the Two Parallels: The World as Brahman and Prakṛti

The tension between Advaita Vedānta and Sāṃkhya within Schopenhauer’s descriptive fabric dissolves once we recognize that elements from each system correspond to a separate substructure of his philosophy. What exists is a descriptive synthesis in which nondualism and dualistic cosmology are assigned explanatory roles. Schopenhauer’s concept of the will aligns structurally with the notion of Brahman in Advaita Vedānta. Both function as the noumenon: undifferentiated and outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason. Neither is an object of knowledge. However, by itself, this non-dual foundation does not explain the world of experience in Schopenhauer’s thought. This is where Sāṃkhya becomes necessary. Schopenhauer’s notion of representation finds a more precise parallel in prakṛti than in māyā. Unlike the Advaitin conception of the empirical world as illusion, prakṛti denotes a materially real causal manifestation and resonates with Schopenhauer’s notion of representation as the world that we experience being bound by the law of causality.

Furthermore, sattva, the Sāṃkhya guṇa associated with harmony and balance with its equivalence in Schopenhauer’s account of pure will-less knowing means a state in which the individual is no longer subordinated to the forces of the will but instead apprehends the world with detached clarity. It is this mental disposition that makes possible the insight encapsulated in the Advaitin formula tat tvam asi. Within Schopenhauer’s framework, however, this insight does not amount to a mystical identification with any blissful absolute; rather, it indicates the recognition that the will, as the noumenon, constitutes the inner essence of all beings. Furthermore, tat tvam asi is reinterpreted here as the knowledge that the same metaphysical principle objectifies itself in every phenomenon. This knowledge thus leads to Eternal Justice, where the “tormentor and tormented are in themselves one”[25] because they both share the same inner nature, the same metaphysical principle, as expressed by the tat tvam asi formula.

Grounding the Synthesis: Eternal Justice and its Negative Duty Component

Schopenhauer devotes little attention to the concept of Eternal Justice. It does not exist in his work as a fully systematized doctrine but rather as a guiding metaphysical principle. What he does articulate, however, places significant emphasis on its affinity with Hindu thought. He asserts that “the wise ancestors of the Indian people have directly expressed it in the Vedas,” albeit in the “form of myth.”[26] This perceived mythological form is manifested in the doctrines of transmigration and reincarnation in which an individual’s condition is determined by karmic consequences. Regardless of its mythological form, Schopenhauer holds this Vedic teaching in very high regard and claims that “never has a myth been, and never will one be, more closely associated with the philosophical truth accessible to so few, than this very ancient teaching of the noblest and oldest of peoples.”[27]

When stripped of its perceived mythological connotations, Eternal Justice can be understood as an insight that flows directly from Schopenhauer’s metaphysics; namely, that all beings are, in their inner essence, identical as objectifications of the will. To harm another is, in a fundamental sense, to harm oneself. This fundamental unity places Eternal Justice in the Advaitin nondualist camp. However, because harm and suffering are materially real for Schopenhauer, Eternal Justice also compliments Sāṁkhya’s dualist perspective.

Eternal Justice stands in contrast to Temporal Justice, which is the empirical domain of courts, laws, and political institutions; what Schopenhauer characterizes as the “common egoism of all.”[28] Within this domain, justice takes the form of legal punishment; however, it must be stated that such punishment constitutes “a second evil to that which had happened,”[29] insofar as it introduces further suffering into the world.

Yet this does not mean that criminals should not be punished. On the contrary, punishment can certainly be justified as a necessary means of deterring future harm. Schopenhauer thus maintains a distinction between the metaphysical basis of Eternal Justice and the pragmatic function of Temporal Justice; while the former grounds the recognition of an underlying unity of all beings, the latter functions as a necessary evil within the constraints of empirical reality to regulate human conduct and behavior, even though the punishment it administers inevitably produces further suffering.

It must be emphasized that Temporal Justice bears no relation to sattva’s characteristic of harmony or balance in Sāṃkhya nor the Schopenhauerian notion of it in pure will-less knowing. Rather, it exists as a pragmatic structure for sustaining social order. Nor does it reflect the recognition of metaphysical unity expressed in tat tvam asi; instead, it operates within the domain of avidyā (ignorance).

As such, Schopenhauer’s ideal conception of justice lies on the side of Eternal Justice rather than Temporal Justice. Derived from this metaphysical foundation, it can be reduced to the simple principle “injure no one.” As Richard Reilly notes: “‘injure no one’ is identified as the fundamental principle of justice, and since its meaning is wholly negative it can be practiced simultaneously by all.”[30] Moreover, given that we all “share all the sufferings of the world,”[31] this principle acquires imperative weight not to harm others.

In Hindu thought, the negative duty of nonviolence is conveyed through the concept of ahiṃsā. Although this principle is expressed in its most rigorous form in Jainism where followers strive to avoid harm even to microorganic forms of life, it brings about a more practical expression in Sāṃkhya philosophy and, to a lesser extent, in Advaita Vedānta.[32] The early Sāṃkhya authority Pañcaśikha[33] explicitly affirms ahiṃsā as a necessary purifying virtue for adherents of Sāṃkhya philosophy.[34] In this regard, while Schopenhauer never explicitly mentions the word ahiṃsā in his references to Hindu thought, it is nevertheless inferred and affirms the negative duty of not harming others.

This negative duty of not harming others, as exemplified by ahiṃsā, clarifies the limits of true justice in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. For him, true justice is not the active rectification of injustices, since that would presuppose a positive duty. Rather, justice is narrowly negative in character; it consists in refraining from causing harm to others within the orbit of one’s own sphere. Attempts to remedy injustice, such as in social justice movements, may belong to the domains of compassion and virtue, but they exceed the bounds of justice narrowly understood as a negative duty. Here Schopenhauer stands in fundamental contrast to Kant, who, while also espousing some negative duties which he called perfect duties, grounded his ultimate moral obligation in the categorical imperative, which Schopenhauer perceived as theological.[35] For Schopenhauer, justice cannot be externally imposed beyond its negative quality; it refrains from an “act” whereas for Kant, the categorical imperative starts with an “act.”[36] Thus, while Schopenhauer dismisses Kant’s ethics as theologically Christian in orientation,[37] as even turning the other cheek is a positive duty, he himself aligns more closely with a Jewish Ten Commandments, as most of them are negative duties.

The general perception of Schopenhauer being reduced to a caricature of philosophical pessimism makes it seem like he did not always practice what he preached where it comes to not harming others, as it is falsely rumored he once threw a lady down a flight of stairs,[38] which is quite antithetical to ahiṃsā. Contrary to this, he was quite vocal where he saw systemic injustice, and one such example can be found regarding his views on slavery in the United States of America. Although he would regard the injustices of slavery in the United States as beyond the negative duty scope of true justice, as it was outside the province of his personal intervention, which may be the reason he refrained from direct action, he did not hesitate to communicate his outrage about the injustices inflicted by slaveholders after he read the book Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States of North America published in 1841.

No one can read it without horror, for whatever the reader of it may have heard or imagined or dreamed of the condition of slaves, indeed of human harshness and cruelty in general, will fade into insignificance when reading how these devils in human form, these bigoted, church-going, sabbath-keeping scoundrels, especially the Anglican parsons among them, treat their innocent black brothers whom force and injustice have delivered into their devilish clutches. This book, which consists of dry but authentic and documented reports, rouses one’s human feelings to such a degree of indignation that one could preach a crusade for the subjugation and punishment of the slave-owning states North America. They are a blot on mankind.[39]

Thus we see the practical application of Eternal Justice. For justice to fully manifest within Schopenhauer’s system, it would require the slaveholders themselves to recognize the harm they were inflicting on the slaves and, in turn, on themselves, according to the tat tvam asi formula. The injury (effect) is also latent in the injurer (cause). One could argue that Temporal Justice did play an important role in ending slavery in the United States; however, for Schopenhauer, this outcome did not arise from true justice. Had the Southern states embodied the pure will-less knowing of sattva that naturally leads to ahiṃsā, they would never have become slaveholders in the first place. They would have known that we owe each other justice through ahiṃsā.[40]

Closing

While it may seem perplexing to situate Schopenhauer’s philosophy accurately within Hindu thought, which is something he himself did not accomplish, his metaphysical ideas nevertheless resonate with aspects of both Brahmanism and Sāṃkhya, and a synthesis of these seemingly incompatible philosophies emerges through his notion of Eternal Justice. Through Eternal Justice, elements of both traditions are given descriptive life; the nondualism of Brahmanism manifests as will and the dualism of Sāṃkhya manifests as representation.

Such an emulsion of nondualist and dualist positions is not unique to Schopenhauer. Analogous syntheses appear within the Vedic tradition, most notably the Bhagavad Gītā, as well as Rāmānuja’s Śrī Bhāṣya which espoused viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified nondualism); a tradition which dissolves the friction between dualism and nondualism by positioning Brahman as a personal deity rather than an impersonal ultimate reality.[41] In this regard, although Schopenhauer was not under the influence of Hindu thought when he developed his metaphysics, his notion of Eternal Justice as a metaphysical principle can be situated within the debates between nondualist and dualist systems in Vedic philosophy.

[1] Norman and Welchman, “Schopenhauer’s Understanding of Schelling”, The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer, p. 49. Schopenhauer panned the German Idealists with labels such as “sophists, windbags, charlatans, frauds, dishonest peddlers of nonsense, delirium, and crazy twaddle,” and he considered them as “careerists using philosophy as simply a means of advancing professional status, using obscurantist, mystifying language.“

[2] Cross, Schopenhauer’s Encounter with Indian Thought, p. 25.

[3] Ibid., p. 36.

[4] Bhatawadekar, Symptoms of Withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy, p. 295, “the individual and disconnected Upanishadic utterances can serve as his own conclusions.”

[5] Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, p. 9.

[6] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, p. 138.

[7] Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, p. 48.

[8] Ibid., p. 28.

[9] Ibid., p. 33.

[10] Bhatawadekar, Symptoms of Withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy, pp. 234-235.

[11] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, p. 3.

[12] Bhatawadekar, Symptoms of Withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy, p. 234.

[13] Ibid., pp. 237-238.

[14] Ibid., p. 282.

[15] Ibid., p. 284.

[16] Ibid., pp. 14-15.

[17] Kalmanson, Local Gods, p. 13 of Chapter 2.

[18] Deutch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, p. 35. Satkāryavāda (effect pre-exists in the cause) is also in Advaita Vedānta, but it is the “mere appearance” and does not hold a “transformational” effect as it does in Sāṃkhya; thus, for this project, we will not consider the Advaitin meaning of satkāryavāda. The Advaitin meaning does not apply to Schopenhauer’s thought.

[19] Kalmanson, Local Gods, p. 32 of Chapter 2.

[20] Ibid., p. 14 of Chapter 2.

[21] Basu, The Sacred Book of the Hindus, p. xi. “The Sāṃkhyas also teach a plurality of Puruṣas.”

[22] Ibid., p. viii.

[23] Kalmanson, Local Gods, p. 14 of Chapter 2.

[24] Bhatawadekar, Symptoms of Withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel’s and Schopenhauer’s Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy, p. 248.

[25] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, p. 358.

[26] Ibid, p. 355.

[27] Ibid., p. 356.

[28] Ibid., p. 345.

[29] Ibid., p. 350.

[30] Reilly, “Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Compassion”, The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer, p. 335.

[31] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, p. 353.

[32] Deutch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, p. 102. “Moral virtues, such as compassion, charity, self-control, and non-injury, may be supports for the attainment of the spiritual end, although they are not the ends themselves.”

[33] Basu, The Sacred Books of the Hindus, Appendix VII, p. 1. “Pañcaśikha is one of the few earliest writers on the Sāṃkhya. He is an authority on the subject, and is mentioned as an Acharya or Professor of the School.”

[34] Ibid., p. 17, “As a Brahmana undertakes many a vow, one after another, he turns away successively from acts of injury due to inadvertence, and thereby makes the virtue of non-injury (ahiṃsā) gradually purer and purer.”

[35] Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, p. 52. “[Kant’s] concepts of the call of duty and the law that obviously have a meaning only in theological morals.”

[36] Kant’s categorical imperative as it is most widely cited, though he restated it in different ways: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” This brings to light how deep Schopenhauer diverges from Kant’s ethics. Schopenhauer does not require you to act.

[37] Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, p. 102. “Even in [Kant’s] own hands, theological morals is unmasked toward the end, as for instance of a doctrine of the highest good, the postulates of practical reason, and finally in moral theology. Yet this all did not undeceive either Kant or the public as to the true state of affairs. On the contrary, both he and they were glad to see all these articles of faith now established by ethics.”

[38] Stangroom, Jeremy. 2025. “The Genesis of a Philosophical Myth.” Heristical.com. Heristical. 2025. https://www.heristical.com/p/the-genesis-of-a-philosophical-myth. Bertrand Russell perpetuated the myth of Schopenhauer throwing a lady down a flight of stairs. This event did not happen; however, he did get into a brief scuffle with a lady and was sued over it.

[39] Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, p. 138.

[40] Reilly, “Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Compassion”, The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer, p. 356. “Acts of loving-kindness primarily aim to relieve need, suffering, and distress that have occurred, and, we might presume, they also include preventing injuries from occurring in situations where one does not have a duty of care to do so. The odd result, in any case, is that compassionate acts of loving-kindness have moral value but are not morally “right” because they do not constitute ‘justice,’ and, nonmalicious failures to perform such acts are not morally “wrong” or “unjust.” Schopenhauer’s position, then is that we “owe” others justice but not loving-kindness.”

[41] Outis, Vishishtadvaita Interpretation. “Ramanuja’s Sri Bhashya, a commentary on the Brahma Sutras, articulates Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism), a theistic Vedantic philosophy that posits Brahman as a personal God with attributes, organically united with souls and the world.”