Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Notes on the Basics of Schopenhauer         Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimistic philosophy which is exemplified in his work, “The World as Will and Representation”. Schopenhauer’s metaphysics drew from Kant whom I have several blog posts on but in short, Kant believed in the Noumena-Phenomena distinction or Transcendental Idealism. Phenomena are the things we perceive through our senses which are shaped by our mind’s faculties and subject to the categories of understanding. Noumena, on the other hand, are things as they are in themselves that are beyond human perception and conceptualization. Kant argues that while we can understand phenomena through empirical investigation, we can never truly know noumena because they lie beyond the limits of human cognition. Thus, noumena represent the realm of things as they exist independently of our perception that are ultimately unknowable. Since we can never know the t...

Exploring Monism in Kantian Philosophy and Schopenhauer’s Will Through Advaita Vedanta     This blog post explores monism within Kantian philosophy and Schopenhauer’s concept of the “Will” through drawing parallels with Advaita Vedanta, a school of thought in Hinduism, as the title suggests. In Kant's philosophy, the noumena, or the “thing-in-itself” represents the ultimate reality of objects independent of our perceptions. Kant argued that we can never have direct knowledge of the noumenal realm because our knowledge is necessarily mediated by the structure of our minds and senses. This is explored much more in-depth in my other blog posts on the basics of Kant. While we can perceive and understand phenomena—how things appear to us—the nature of the noumena remains inaccessible. Kant posited that our experiences are shaped by the 12 categories of the understanding and the forms of intuition, and these mental structures impose limitations on what we can know about the underl...

The Dialectical History of Religion Welcome to the intriguing world of the Dialectical History of Religion! To know what a dialectic is, refer to my blog post on Hegel. This unique framework traces the evolution of the major world religious thought through a series of dialectical relationships, unveiling the interplay between opposing ideas and their harmonious synthesis. Divided into three branches, this historical journey invites us to explore the dynamic nature of human spirituality. This is only a draft and much work is needed to be done! Let me know where I can improve in the comments below.   1. First Branch: Thesis: Eclectic Spirituality Antithesis: Nihilism Synthesis: Animism Thesis: Animism Antithesis: Materialism Synthesis: Shamanism Thesis: Shamanism Antithesis: General Atheism Synthesis: General Deism Thesis: General Deism Antithesis: General Polytheism Synthesis: Monotheism* Thesis: Monotheism Antithesis: Ancient Paganism Synthesis: Judaism Thesis: Judaism Antithesis: ...

      Buddhism and Platonism      While Buddhism and Platonism are two philosophies that emerged around the same period, they fundamentally disagree on the concepts of the self, human nature, and the reality of existence. Buddhism posits that everything, including humans, is impermanent and constantly changing. Whilst the Platonic view is the opposite as it asserts that there is an eternal and unchanging self beyond the physical world.       Due to everything being in a state of flux, this would entail that there is no atman or greater permanent soul or self either. In Hinduism, the atman is associated with the Brahman or God and since Buddhism does not affirm the atman, there would be no God either. Included in this belief is that the self is composed of five aggregates: form, sense, perception, consciousness, and mental formations. The form refers to one’s body, sense refers to one’s ability to feel sensations, perception is the abilit...