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Sea of the Hebrides 47,000 km2
Irish Sea 46,000 km2
Sea of Azov 39,000 km2
Bothnian Bay 36,800 km2
Gulf of Venezuela 17,840 km2
Bay of Campeche 16,000 km2
Gulf of Lion 15,000 km2
Sea of Marmara 11,350 km2
Wadden Sea 10,000 km2
Archipelago Sea 8,300 km2
Bathymetry
The bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the MidAtlantic Ridge MAR. It runs from 87N or south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 54S.
MidAtlantic Ridge
The MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above along most of its length, but is interrupted by larger transform faults at two places the Romanche Trench near the Equator and the Gibbs Fracture Zone at 53N. The MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other.
The MAR rises above the surrounding ocean floor and its r |
ift valley is the divergent boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates in the North Atlantic and the South American and African plates in the South Atlantic. The MAR produces basaltic volcanoes in Eyjafjallajkull, Iceland, and pillow lava on the ocean floor. The depth of water at the apex of the ridge is less than in most places, while the bottom of the ridge is three times as deep.
The MAR is intersected by two perpendicular ridges the AzoresGibraltar Transform Fault, the boundary between the Nubian and Eurasian plates, intersects the MAR at the Azores Triple Junction, on either side of the Azores microplate, near the 40N. A much vaguer, nameless boundary, between the North American and South American plates, intersects the MAR near or just north of the FifteenTwenty Fracture Zone, approximately at 16N.
In the 1870s, the Challenger expedition discovered parts of what is now known as the MidAtlantic Ridge, or
The remainder of the ridge was discovered in the 1920s by the German Meteor expediti |
on using echosounding equipment. The exploration of the MAR in the 1950s led to the general acceptance of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.
Most of the MAR runs under water but where it reaches the surfaces it has produced volcanic islands. While nine of these have collectively been nominated a World Heritage Site for their geological value, four of them are considered of "Outstanding Universal Value" based on their cultural and natural criteria ingvellir, Iceland; Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture, Portugal; Gough and Inaccessible Islands, United Kingdom; and Brazilian Atlantic Islands Fernando de Noronha and Atol das Rocas Reserves, Brazil.
Ocean floor
Continental shelves in the Atlantic are wide off Newfoundland, southernmost South America, and northeastern Europe.
In the western Atlantic carbonate platforms dominate large areas, for example, the Blake Plateau and Bermuda Rise.
The Atlantic is surrounded by passive margins except at a few locations where active margins form deep trenc |
hes the Puerto Rico Trench maximum depth in the western Atlantic and South Sandwich Trench in the South Atlantic. There are numerous submarine canyons off northeastern North America, western Europe, and northwestern Africa. Some of these canyons extend along the continental rises and farther into the abyssal plains as deepsea channels.
In 1922, a historic moment in cartography and oceanography occurred. The USS Stewart used a Navy Sonic Depth Finder to draw a continuous map across the bed of the Atlantic. This involved little guesswork because the idea of sonar is straightforward with pulses being sent from the vessel, which bounce off the ocean floor, then return to the vessel. The deep ocean floor is thought to be fairly flat with occasional deeps, abyssal plains, trenches, seamounts, basins, plateaus, canyons, and some guyots. Various shelves along the margins of the continents constitute about 11 of the bottom topography with few deep channels cut across the continental rise.
The mean depth between 60 |
N and 60S is , or close to the average for the global ocean, with a modal depth between .
In the South Atlantic the Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise form barriers to ocean currents.
The Laurentian Abyss is found off the eastern coast of Canada.
Water characteristics
Surface water temperatures, which vary with latitude, current systems, and season and reflect the latitudinal distribution of solar energy, range from below to over . Maximum temperatures occur north of the equator, and minimum values are found in the polar regions. In the middle latitudes, the area of maximum temperature variations, values may vary by .
From October to June the surface is usually covered with sea ice in the Labrador Sea, Denmark Strait, and Baltic Sea.
The Coriolis effect circulates North Atlantic water in a clockwise direction, whereas South Atlantic water circulates counterclockwise. The south tides in the Atlantic Ocean are semidiurnal; that is, two high tides occur every 24 lunar hours. In latitudes above 40 North some |
eastwest oscillation, known as the North Atlantic oscillation, occurs.
Salinity
On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean; surface water salinity in the open ocean ranges from 33 to 37 parts per thousand 3.33.7 by mass and varies with latitude and season. Evaporation, precipitation, river inflow and sea ice melting influence surface salinity values. Although the lowest salinity values are just north of the equator because of heavy tropical rainfall, in general, the lowest values are in the high latitudes and along coasts where large rivers enter. Maximum salinity values occur at about 25 north and south, in subtropical regions with low rainfall and high evaporation.
The high surface salinity in the Atlantic, on which the Atlantic thermohaline circulation is dependent, is maintained by two processes the Agulhas LeakageRings, which brings salty Indian Ocean waters into the South Atlantic, and the "Atmospheric Bridge", which evaporates subtropical Atlantic waters and exports it to the Pacific.
Wa |
ter masses
The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major, upper water masses with distinct temperature and salinity. The Atlantic Subarctic Upper Water in the northernmost North Atlantic is the source for Subarctic Intermediate Water and North Atlantic Intermediate Water. North Atlantic Central Water can be divided into the Eastern and Western North Atlantic central Water since the western part is strongly affected by the Gulf Stream and therefore the upper layer is closer to underlying fresher subpolar intermediate water. The eastern water is saltier because of its proximity to Mediterranean Water. North Atlantic Central Water flows into South Atlantic Central Water at 15N.
There are five intermediate waters four lowsalinity waters formed at subpolar latitudes and one highsalinity formed through evaporation. Arctic Intermediate Water, flows from north to become the source for North Atlantic Deep Water south of the GreenlandScotland sill. These two intermediate waters have different salinity in the western and |
eastern basins. The wide range of salinities in the North Atlantic is caused by the asymmetry of the northern subtropical gyre and the large number of contributions from a wide range of sources Labrador Sea, NorwegianGreenland Sea, Mediterranean, and South Atlantic Intermediate Water.
The North Atlantic Deep Water NADW is a complex of four water masses, two that form by deep convection in the open ocean Classical and Upper Labrador Sea Water and two that form from the inflow of dense water across the GreenlandIcelandScotland sill Denmark Strait and IcelandScotland Overflow Water. Along its path across Earth the composition of the NADW is affected by other water masses, especially Antarctic Bottom Water and Mediterranean Overflow Water.
The NADW is fed by a flow of warm shallow water into the northern North Atlantic which is responsible for the anomalous warm climate in Europe. Changes in the formation of NADW have been linked to global climate changes in the past. Since manmade substances were introduced |
into the environment, the path of the NADW can be traced throughout its course by measuring tritium and radiocarbon from nuclear weapon tests in the 1960s and CFCs.
Gyres
The clockwise warmwater North Atlantic Gyre occupies the northern Atlantic, and the counterclockwise warmwater South Atlantic Gyre appears in the southern Atlantic.
In the North Atlantic, surface circulation is dominated by three interconnected currents the Gulf Stream which flows northeast from the North American coast at Cape Hatteras; the North Atlantic Current, a branch of the Gulf Stream which flows northward from the Grand Banks; and the Subpolar Front, an extension of the North Atlantic Current, a wide, vaguely defined region separating the subtropical gyre from the subpolar gyre. This system of currents transport warm water into the North Atlantic, without which temperatures in the North Atlantic and Europe would plunge dramatically.
North of the North Atlantic Gyre, the cyclonic North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre plays a key role in |
climate variability. It is governed by ocean currents from marginal seas and regional topography, rather than being steered by wind, both in the deep ocean and at sea level.
The subpolar gyre forms an important part of the global thermohaline circulation. Its eastern portion includes eddying branches of the North Atlantic Current which transport warm, saline waters from the subtropics to the northeastern Atlantic. There this water is cooled during winter and forms return currents that merge along the eastern continental slope of Greenland where they form an intense 4050 Sv current which flows around the continental margins of the Labrador Sea. A third of this water becomes part of the deep portion of the North Atlantic Deep Water NADW. The NADW, in its turn, feeds the meridional overturning circulation MOC, the northward heat transport of which is threatened by anthropogenic climate change. Large variations in the subpolar gyre on a decadecentury scale, associated with the North Atlantic oscillation, are esp |
ecially pronounced in Labrador Sea Water, the upper layers of the MOC.
The South Atlantic is dominated by the anticyclonic southern subtropical gyre. The South Atlantic Central Water originates in this gyre, while Antarctic Intermediate Water originates in the upper layers of the circumpolar region, near the Drake Passage and the Falkland Islands. Both these currents receive some contribution from the Indian Ocean. On the African east coast, the small cyclonic Angola Gyre lies embedded in the large subtropical gyre.
The southern subtropical gyre is partly masked by a windinduced Ekman layer. The residence time of the gyre is 4.48.5 years. North Atlantic Deep Water flows southward below the thermocline of the subtropical gyre.
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea in the western North Atlantic can be defined as the area where two species of Sargassum S. fluitans and natans float, an area wide and encircled by the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Drift, and North Equatorial Current. This population of seaweed probably |
originated from Tertiary ancestors on the European shores of the former Tethys Ocean and has, if so, maintained itself by vegetative growth, floating in the ocean for millions of years.
Other species endemic to the Sargasso Sea include the sargassum fish, a predator with algaelike appendages which hovers motionless among the Sargassum. Fossils of similar fishes have been found in fossil bays of the former Tethys Ocean, in what is now the Carpathian region, that were similar to the Sargasso Sea. It is possible that the population in the Sargasso Sea migrated to the Atlantic as the Tethys closed at the end of the Miocene around 17 Ma. The origin of the Sargasso fauna and flora remained enigmatic for centuries. The fossils found in the Carpathians in the mid20th century often called the "quasiSargasso assemblage", finally showed that this assemblage originated in the Carpathian Basin from where it migrated over Sicily to the Central Atlantic where it evolved into modern species of the Sargasso Sea.
The locatio |
n of the spawning ground for European eels remained unknown for decades. In the early 19th century it was discovered that the southern Sargasso Sea is the spawning ground for both the European and American eel and that the former migrate more than and the latter . Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream transport eel larvae from the Sargasso Sea to foraging areas in North America, Europe, and Northern Africa. Recent but disputed research suggests that eels possibly use Earth's magnetic field to navigate through the ocean both as larvae and as adults.
Climate
Climate is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as winds. Because of the ocean's great capacity to store and release heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from water temperatures.
The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through |
evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents influence the climate by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. The winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents influence adjacent land areas.
The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift is thought to have at least some influence on climate. For example, the Gulf Stream helps moderate winter temperatures along the coastline of southeastern North America, keeping it warmer in winter along the coast than inland areas. The Gulf Stream also keeps extreme temperatures from occurring on the Florida Peninsula. In the higher latitudes, the North Atlantic Drift, warms the atmosphere over the oceans, keeping the British Isles and northwestern Europe mild and cloudy, and not severely cold in winter like ot |
her locations at the same high latitude. The cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada the Grand Banks of Newfoundland area and Africa's northwestern coast. In general, winds transport moisture and air over land areas.
Natural hazards
Every winter, the Icelandic Low produces frequent storms. Icebergs are common from early February to the end of July across the shipping lanes near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The ice season is longer in the polar regions, but there is little shipping in those areas.
Hurricanes are a hazard in the western parts of the North Atlantic during the summer and autumn. Due to a consistently strong wind shear and a weak Intertropical Convergence Zone, South Atlantic tropical cyclones are rare.
Geology and plate tectonics
The Atlantic Ocean is underlain mostly by dense mafic oceanic crust made up of basalt and gabbro and overlain by fine clay, silt and siliceous ooze on the abyssal plain. The continental margins and continental shelf mark lowe |
r density, but greater thickness felsic continental rock that is often much older than that of the seafloor. The oldest oceanic crust in the Atlantic is up to 145 million years and situated off the west coast of Africa and east coast of North America, or on either side of the South Atlantic.
In many places, the continental shelf and continental slope are covered in thick sedimentary layers. For instance, on the North American side of the ocean, large carbonate deposits formed in warm shallow waters such as Florida and the Bahamas, while coarse river outwash sands and silt are common in shallow shelf areas like the Georges Bank. Coarse sand, boulders, and rocks were transported into some areas, such as off the coast of Nova Scotia or the Gulf of Maine during the Pleistocene ice ages.
Central Atlantic
The breakup of Pangaea began in the Central Atlantic, between North America and Northwest Africa, where rift basins opened during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. This period also saw the first stages of |
the uplift of the Atlas Mountains. The exact timing is controversial with estimates ranging from 200 to 170 Ma.
The opening of the Atlantic Ocean coincided with the initial breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea, both of which were initiated by the eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province CAMP, one of the most extensive and voluminous large igneous provinces in Earth's history associated with the TriassicJurassic extinction event, one of Earth's major extinction events.
Theoliitic dikes, sills, and lava flows from the CAMP eruption at 200 Ma have been found in West Africa, eastern North America, and northern South America. The extent of the volcanism has been estimated to of which covered what is now northern and central Brazil.
The formation of the Central American Isthmus closed the Central American Seaway at the end of the Pliocene 2.8 Ma ago. The formation of the isthmus resulted in the migration and extinction of many landliving animals, known as the Great American Interchange, but the closu |
re of the seaway resulted in a "Great American Schism" as it affected ocean currents, salinity, and temperatures in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Marine organisms on both sides of the isthmus became isolated and either diverged or went extinct.
Geologically, the Northern Atlantic is the area delimited to the south by two conjugate margins, Newfoundland and Iberia, and to the north by the Arctic Eurasian Basin. The opening of the Northern Atlantic closely followed the margins of its predecessor, the Iapetus Ocean, and spread from the Central Atlantic in six stages IberiaNewfoundland, PorcupineNorth America, EurasiaGreenland, EurasiaNorth America. Active and inactive spreading systems in this area are marked by the interaction with the Iceland hotspot.
Seafloor spreading led to the extension of the crust and formations of troughs and sedimentary basins. The Rockall Trough opened between 105 and 84 million years ago although along the rift failed along with one leading into the Bay of Biscay.
Spreading bega |
n opening the Labrador Sea around 61 million years ago, continuing until 36 million years ago. Geologists distinguish two magmatic phases. One from 62 to 58 million years ago predates the separation of Greenland from northern Europe while the second from 56 to 52 million years ago happened as the separation occurred.
Iceland began to form 62 million years ago due to a particularly concentrated mantle plume. Large quantities of basalt erupted at this time period are found on Baffin Island, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland, with ash falls in Western Europe acting as a stratigraphic marker. The opening of the North Atlantic caused significant uplift of continental crust along the coast. For instance, in spite of 7 km thick basalt, Gunnbjorn Field in East Greenland is the highest point on the island, elevated enough that it exposes older Mesozoic sedimentary rocks at its base, similar to old lava fields above sedimentary rocks in the uplifted Hebrides of western Scotland.
The North Atlantic Ocean co |
ntains about 810 seamounts, most of them situated along the MidAtlantic Ridge. The OSPAR database Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the NorthEast Atlantic mentions 104 seamounts 74 within the national Exclusive economic zone. Of these seamounts, 46 are located close to the Iberian Peninsula.
South Atlantic
West Gondwana South America and Africa broke up in the Early Cretaceous to form the South Atlantic. The apparent fit between the coastlines of the two continents was noted on the first maps that included the South Atlantic and it was also the subject of the first computerassisted plate tectonic reconstructions in 1965. This magnificent fit, however, has since then proven problematic and later reconstructions have introduced various deformation zones along the shorelines to accommodate the northwardpropagating breakup. Intracontinental rifts and deformations have also been introduced to subdivide both continental plates into subplates.
Geologically the South Atlantic can be divi |
ded into four segments Equatorial segment, from 10N to the Romanche Fracture Zone RFZ; Central segment, from RFZ to Florianopolis Fracture Zone FFZ, north of Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise; Southern segment, from FFZ to the AgulhasFalkland Fracture Zone AFFZ; and Falkland segment, south of AFFZ.
In the southern segment the Early Cretaceous 133130 Ma intensive magmatism of the ParanEtendeka Large Igneous Province produced by the Tristan hotspot resulted in an estimated volume of . It covered an area of in Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay and in Africa. Dyke swarms in Brazil, Angola, eastern Paraguay, and Namibia, however, suggest the LIP originally covered a much larger area and also indicate failed rifts in all these areas. Associated offshore basaltic flows reach as far south as the Falkland Islands and South Africa. Traces of magmatism in both offshore and onshore basins in the central and southern segments have been dated to 14749 Ma with two peaks between 143 and 121 Ma and 9060 Ma.
In the Falkland seg |
ment rifting began with dextral movements between the Patagonia and Colorado subplates between the Early Jurassic 190 Ma and the Early Cretaceous 126.7 Ma. Around 150 Ma seafloor spreading propagated northward into the southern segment. No later than 130 Ma rifting had reached the Walvis RidgeRio Grande Rise.
In the central segment rifting started to break Africa in two by opening the Benue Trough around 118 Ma. Rifting in the central segment, however, coincided with the Cretaceous Normal Superchron also known as the Cretaceous quiet period, a 40 Ma period without magnetic reversals, which makes it difficult to date seafloor spreading in this segment.
The equatorial segment is the last phase of the breakup, but, because it is located on the Equator, magnetic anomalies cannot be used for dating. Various estimates date the propagation of seafloor spreading in this segment to the period 12096 Ma. This final stage, nevertheless, coincided with or resulted in the end of continental extension in Africa.
About 50 |
Ma the opening of the Drake Passage resulted from a change in the motions and separation rate of the South American and Antarctic plates. First small ocean basins opened and a shallow gateway appeared during the Middle Eocene. 3430 Ma a deeper seaway developed, followed by an EoceneOligocene climatic deterioration and the growth of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Closure of the Atlantic
An embryonic subduction margin is potentially developing west of Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Arc in the western Mediterranean is migrating westward into the Central Atlantic where it joins the converging African and Eurasian plates. Together these three tectonic forces are slowly developing into a new subduction system in the eastern Atlantic Basin. Meanwhile, the Scotia Arc and Caribbean Plate in the western Atlantic Basin are eastwardpropagating subduction systems that might, together with the Gibraltar system, represent the beginning of the closure of the Atlantic Ocean and the final stage of the Atlantic Wilson cycle.
History
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Human origin
Humans evolved in Africa; first by diverging from other apes around 7 mya; then developing stone tools around 2.6 mya; to finally evolve as modern humans around 200 kya. The earliest evidence for the complex behavior associated with this behavioral modernity has been found in the Greater Cape Floristic Region GCFR along the coast of South Africa. During the latest glacial stages, the nowsubmerged plains of the Agulhas Bank were exposed above sea level, extending the South African coastline farther south by hundreds of kilometers. A small population of modern humans probably fewer than a thousand reproducing individuals survived glacial maxima by exploring the high diversity offered by these PalaeoAgulhas plains. The GCFR is delimited to the north by the Cape Fold Belt and the limited space south of it resulted in the development of social networks out of which complex Stone Age technologies emerged. Human history thus begins on the coasts of South Africa where the Atlantic Benguela Upwelling a |
nd Indian Ocean Agulhas Current meet to produce an intertidal zone on which shellfish, fur seal, fish and sea birds provided the necessary protein sources.
The African origin of this modern behaviour is evidenced by 70,000 yearsold engravings from Blombos Cave, South Africa.
Old World
Mitochondrial DNA mtDNA studies indicate that 8060,000 years ago a major demographic expansion within Africa, derived from a single, small population, coincided with the emergence of behavioral complexity and the rapid MIS 54 environmental changes. This group of people not only expanded over the whole of Africa, but also started to disperse out of Africa into Asia, Europe, and Australasia around 65,000 years ago and quickly replaced the archaic humans in these regions. During the Last Glacial Maximum LGM 20,000 years ago humans had to abandon their initial settlements along the European North Atlantic coast and retreat to the Mediterranean. Following rapid climate changes at the end of the LGM this region was repopulated by Ma |
gdalenian culture. Other huntergatherers followed in waves interrupted by largescale hazards such as the Laacher See volcanic eruption, the inundation of Doggerland now the North Sea, and the formation of the Baltic Sea. The European coasts of the North Atlantic were permanently populated about 98.5 thousand years ago.
This human dispersal left abundant traces along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. 50 kyaold, deeply stratified shell middens found in Ysterfontein on the western coast of South Africa are associated with the Middle Stone Age MSA. The MSA population was small and dispersed and the rate of their reproduction and exploitation was less intense than those of later generations. While their middens resemble 1211 kyaold Late Stone Age LSA middens found on every inhabited continent, the 5045 kyaold Enkapune Ya Muto in Kenya probably represents the oldest traces of the first modern humans to disperse out of Africa.
The same development can be seen in Europe. In La Riera Cave 2313 kya in Asturias, Spain |
, only some 26,600 molluscs were deposited over 10 kya. In contrast, 87 kyaold shell middens in Portugal, Denmark, and Brazil generated thousands of tons of debris and artefacts. The Erteblle middens in Denmark, for example, accumulated of shell deposits representing some 50 million molluscs over only a thousand years. This intensification in the exploitation of marine resources has been described as accompanied by new technologies such as boats, harpoons, and fishhooks because many caves found in the Mediterranean and on the European Atlantic coast have increased quantities of marine shells in their upper levels and reduced quantities in their lower. The earliest exploitation, however, took place on the now submerged shelves, and most settlements now excavated were then located several kilometers from these shelves. The reduced quantities of shells in the lower levels can represent the few shells that were exported inland.
New World
During the LGM the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of northern North |
America while Beringia connected Siberia to Alaska. In 1973, late American geoscientist Paul S. Martin proposed a "blitzkrieg" colonization of the Americas by which Clovis hunters migrated into North America around 13,000 years ago in a single wave through an icefree corridor in the ice sheet and "spread southward explosively, briefly attaining a density sufficiently large to overkill much of their prey." Others later proposed a "threewave" migration over the Bering Land Bridge. These hypotheses remained the longheld view regarding the settlement of the Americas, a view challenged by more recent archaeological discoveries the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas have been found in South America; sites in northeast Siberia report virtually no human presence there during the LGM; and most Clovis artefacts have been found in eastern North America along the Atlantic coast. Furthermore, colonisation models based on mtDNA, yDNA, and atDNA data respectively support neither the "blitzkrieg" nor the "threewave" |
hypotheses but they also deliver mutually ambiguous results. Contradictory data from archaeology and genetics will most likely deliver future hypotheses that will, eventually, confirm each other. A proposed route across the Pacific to South America could explain early South American finds and another hypothesis proposes a northern path, through the Canadian Arctic and down the North American Atlantic coast.
Early settlements across the Atlantic have been suggested by alternative theories, ranging from purely hypothetical to mostly disputed, including the Solutrean hypothesis and some of the PreColumbian transoceanic contact theories.
The Norse settlement of the Faroe Islands and Iceland began during the 9th and 10th centuries. A settlement on Greenland was established before 1000 CE, but contact with it was lost in 1409 and it was finally abandoned during the early Little Ice Age. This setback was caused by a range of factors an unsustainable economy resulted in erosion and denudation, while conflicts with |
the local Inuit resulted in the failure to adapt their Arctic technologies; a colder climate resulted in starvation, and the colony got economically marginalized as the Great Plague and Barbary pirates harvested its victims on Iceland in the 15th century.
Iceland was initially settled 865930 CE following a warm period when winter temperatures hovered around which made farming favorable at high latitudes. This did not last, however, and temperatures quickly dropped; at 1080 CE summer temperatures had reached a maximum of . The Landnmabk Book of Settlement records disastrous famines during the first century of settlement "men ate foxes and ravens" and "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs" and by the early 1200s hay had to be abandoned for shortseason crops such as barley.
Atlantic World
Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492 under Spanish flag. Six years later Vasco da Gama reached India under the Portuguese flag, by navigating south around the Cape of Good Hope, thus prov |
ing that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are connected. In 1500, in his voyage to India following Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral reached Brazil, taken by the currents of the South Atlantic Gyre. Following these explorations, Spain and Portugal quickly conquered and colonized large territories in the New World and forced the Amerindian population into slavery in order to explore the vast quantities of silver and gold they found. Spain and Portugal monopolized this trade in order to keep other European nations out, but conflicting interests nevertheless led to a series of SpanishPortuguese wars. A peace treaty mediated by the Pope divided the conquered territories into Spanish and Portuguese sectors while keeping other colonial powers away. England, France, and the Dutch Republic enviously watched the Spanish and Portuguese wealth grow and allied themselves with pirates such as Henry Mainwaring and Alexandre Exquemelin. They could explore the convoys leaving the Americas because prevailing winds and current |
s made the transport of heavy metals slow and predictable.
In the colonies of the Americas, depredation, smallpox and others diseases, and slavery quickly reduced the indigenous population of the Americas to the extent that the Atlantic slave trade had to be introduced to replace them a trade that became the norm and an integral part of the colonization. Between the 15th century and 1888, when Brazil became the last part of the Americas to end the slave trade, an estimated ten million Africans were exported as slaves, most of them destined for agricultural labour. The slave trade was officially abolished in the British Empire and the United States in 1808, and slavery itself was abolished in the British Empire in 1838 and in the United States in 1865 after the Civil War.
From Columbus to the Industrial Revolution TransAtlantic trade, including colonialism and slavery, became crucial for Western Europe. For European countries with direct access to the Atlantic including Britain, France, the Netherlands, Por |
tugal, and Spain 15001800 was a period of sustained growth during which these countries grew richer than those in Eastern Europe and Asia. Colonialism evolved as part of the TransAtlantic trade, but this trade also strengthened the position of merchant groups at the expense of monarchs. Growth was more rapid in nonabsolutist countries, such as Britain and the Netherlands, and more limited in absolutist monarchies, such as Portugal, Spain, and France, where profit mostly or exclusively benefited the monarchy and its allies.
TransAtlantic trade also resulted in increasing urbanization in European countries facing the Atlantic, urbanization grew from 8 in 1300, 10.1 in 1500, to 24.5 in 1850; in other European countries from 10 in 1300, 11.4 in 1500, to 17 in 1850. Likewise, GDP doubled in Atlantic countries but rose by only 30 in the rest of Europe. By end of the 17th century, the volume of the TransAtlantic trade had surpassed that of the Mediterranean trade.
The Atlantic Ocean became the scene of one of the |
longest continuous naval military camapaigns throughout World War II, from 1939 to 1945.
Economy
The Atlantic has contributed significantly to the development and economy of surrounding countries. Besides major transatlantic transportation and communication routes, the Atlantic offers abundant petroleum deposits in the sedimentary rocks of the continental shelves.
The Atlantic harbors petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals seals and whales, sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, and precious stones.
Gold deposits are a mile or two under water on the ocean floor, however, the deposits are also encased in rock that must be mined through. Currently, there is no costeffective way to mine or extract gold from the ocean to make a profit.
Various international treaties attempt to reduce pollution caused by environmental threats such as oil spills, marine debris, and the incineration of toxic wastes at sea.
Fisheries
The shelves of the Atlantic hosts one of the world's riche |
st fishing resources. The most productive areas include the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the Scotian Shelf, Georges Bank off Cape Cod, the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland, the Irish Sea, the Bay of Fundy, the Dogger Bank of the North Sea, and the Falkland Banks.
Fisheries have, however, undergone significant changes since the 1950s and global catches can now be divided into three groups of which only two are observed in the Atlantic fisheries in the Eastern Central and SouthWest Atlantic oscillate around a globally stable value, the rest of the Atlantic is in overall decline following historical peaks. The third group, "continuously increasing trend since 1950", is only found in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific.
In the NorthEast Atlantic total catches decreased between the mid1970s and the 1990s and reached 8.7 million tons in 2013. Blue whiting reached a 2.4 million tons peak in 2004 but was down to 628,000 tons in 2013. Recovery plans for cod, sole, and plaice have reduced mortality in these sp |
ecies. Arctic cod reached its lowest levels in the 1960s1980s but is now recovered. Arctic saithe and haddock are considered fully fished; Sand eel is overfished as was capelin which has now recovered to fully fished. Limited data makes the state of redfishes and deepwater species difficult to assess but most likely they remain vulnerable to overfishing. Stocks of northern shrimp and Norwegian lobster are in good condition. In the NorthEast Atlantic 21 of stocks are considered overfished.
In the NorthWest Atlantic landings have decreased from 4.2 million tons in the early 1970s to 1.9 million tons in 2013. During the 21st century some species have shown weak signs of recovery, including Greenland halibut, yellowtail flounder, Atlantic halibut, haddock, spiny dogfish, while other stocks shown no such signs, including cod, witch flounder, and redfish. Stocks of invertebrates, in contrast, remain at record levels of abundance. 31 of stocks are overfished in the Northwest Atlantic.
In 1497, John Cabot became th |
e first Western European since the Vikings to explore mainland North America and one of his major discoveries was the abundant resources of Atlantic cod off Newfoundland. Referred to as "Newfoundland Currency" this discovery yielded some 200 million tons of fish over five centuries. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries new fisheries started to exploit haddock, mackerel, and lobster. From the 1950s to the 1970s the introduction of European and Asian distantwater fleets in the area dramatically increased the fishing capacity and the number of exploited species. It also expanded the exploited areas from nearshore to the open sea and to great depths to include deepwater species such as redfish, Greenland halibut, witch flounder, and grenadiers. Overfishing in the area was recognised as early as the 1960s but, because this was occurring on international waters, it took until the late 1970s before any attempts to regulate was made. In the early 1990s, this finally resulted in the collapse of the Atlantic north |
west cod fishery. The population of a number of deepsea fishes also collapsed in the process, including American plaice, redfish, and Greenland halibut, together with flounder and grenadier.
In the Eastern Central Atlantic small pelagic fishes constitute about 50 of landings with sardine reaching 0.61.0 million tons per year. Pelagic fish stocks are considered fully fished or overfished, with sardines south of Cape Bojador the notable exception. Almost half of the stocks are fished at biologically unsustainable levels. Total catches have been fluctuating since the 1970s; reaching 3.9 million tons in 2013 or slightly less than the peak production in 2010.
In the Western Central Atlantic, catches have been decreasing since 2000 and reached 1.3 million tons in 2013. The most important species in the area, Gulf menhaden, reached a million tons in the mid1980s but only half a million tons in 2013 and is now considered fully fished. Round sardinella was an important species in the 1990s but is now considered over |
fished. Groupers and snappers are overfished and northern brown shrimp and American cupped oyster are considered fully fished approaching overfished. 44 of stocks are being fished at unsustainable levels.
In the SouthEast Atlantic catches have decreased from 3.3 million tons in the early 1970s to 1.3 million tons in 2013. Horse mackerel and hake are the most important species, together representing almost half of the landings. Off South Africa and Namibia deepwater hake and shallowwater Cape hake have recovered to sustainable levels since regulations were introduced in 2006 and the states of Southern African pilchard and anchovy have improved to fully fished in 2013.
In the SouthWest Atlantic, a peak was reached in the mid1980s and catches now fluctuate between 1.7 and 2.6 million tons. The most important species, the Argentine shortfin squid, which reached half a million tons in 2013 or half the peak value, is considered fully fished to overfished. Another important species was the Brazilian sardinella, wi |
th a production of 100,000 tons in 2013 it is now considered overfished. Half the stocks in this area are being fished at unsustainable levels Whitehead's round herring has not yet reached fully fished but Cunene horse mackerel is overfished. The sea snail perlemoen abalone is targeted by illegal fishing and remain overfished.
Environmental issues
Endangered species
Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds petrels, auks, hastening the fish stock decline and contributing to international disputes.
Waste and pollution
Marine pollution is a generic term for the entry into the ocean of potentially hazardous chemicals or particles. The biggest culprits are rivers and with them many agriculture fertilizer chemicals as well as livestock and human waste. The excess of oxygendepleting chemicals leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.
Marine debris, which is also known as marine litter, desc |
ribes humancreated waste floating in a body of water. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter. The North Atlantic garbage patch is estimated to be hundreds of kilometers across in size.
Other pollution concerns include agricultural and municipal waste. Municipal pollution comes from the eastern United States, southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.
A USAF C124 aircraft from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware was carrying three nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean when it experienced a loss of power. For their own safety, the crew jettisoned two nuclear bombs, which were never recovered.
Climate change
North Atlantic hurricane activity has increased over past decades because of increased sea surface temperature |
SST at tropical latitudes, changes that can be attributed to either the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO or to anthropogenic climate change.
A 2005 report indicated that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation AMOC slowed down by 30 between 1957 and 2004. If the AMO were responsible for SST variability, the AMOC would have increased in strength, which is apparently not the case. Furthermore, it is clear from statistical analyses of annual tropical cyclones that these changes do not display multidecadal cyclicity. Therefore, these changes in SST must be caused by human activities.
The ocean mixed layer plays an important role in heat storage over seasonal and decadal timescales, whereas deeper layers are affected over millennia and have a heat capacity about 50 times that of the mixed layer. This heat uptake provides a timelag for climate change but it also results in thermal expansion of the oceans which contributes to sea level rise. 21stcentury global warming will probably result in an |
equilibrium sealevel rise five times greater than today, whilst melting of glaciers, including that of the Greenland icesheet, expected to have virtually no effect during the 21st century, will probably result in a sealevel rise of 36 m over a millennium.
See also
List of countries and territories bordering the Atlantic Ocean
List of rivers of the Americas by coastlineAtlantic Ocean coast
Seven Seas
Gulf Stream shutdown
Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic hurricanes
Atlantic history
Piracy in the Atlantic World
Transatlantic crossing
Atlantic Revolutions
Natural delimitation between the Pacific and South Atlantic oceans by the Scotia Arc
References
Sources
map
Further reading
External links
Atlantic Ocean. Cartage.org.lb.
"Map of Atlantic Coast of North America from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida" from 1639 via the Library of Congress
Oceans
Articles containing video clips
Oceans surrounding Antarctica |
Arthur Schopenhauer , ; 22 February 1788 21 September 1860 was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation expanded in 1844, which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the worldasappearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.
Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Those who hav |
e cited his influence include philosophers Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein, scientists Erwin Schrdinger and Albert Einstein, psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, writers Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett, and composers Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler.
Life
Early life
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on February 22, 1788, in Danzig then part of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth; presentday Gdask, Poland on Heiligegeistgasse present day w. Ducha 47, the son of Johanna Schopenhauer ne Trosiener; 17661838 and Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer 17471805, both descendants of wealthy GermanDutch patrician families. Neither of them was very religious; both supported the French Revolution, and were republicans, cosmopolitans and Anglophiles. When Danzig became part of Prussia in 1793, Heinrich moved to Hamburga free city with a republican constitution. His firm co |
ntinued trading in Danzig where most of their extended families remained. Adele, Arthur's only sibling, was born on July 12, 1797.
In 1797, Arthur was sent to Le Havre to live with the family of his father's business associate, Grgoire de Blsimaire. He seemed to enjoy his twoyear stay there, learning to speak French and fostering a lifelong friendship with Jean Anthime Grgoire de Blsimaire. As early as 1799, Arthur started playing the flute. In 1803, he accompanied his parents on a European tour of Holland, Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria and Prussia. Viewed as primarily a pleasure tour, Heinrich used the opportunity to visit some of his business associates abroad.
Heinrich offered Arthur a choice he could stay at home and start preparations for university, or he could travel with them and continue his merchant education. Arthur chose to travel with them. He deeply regretted his choice later because the merchant training was very tedious. He spent twelve weeks of the tour attending school in Wimbled |
on, where he was disillusioned by strict and intellectually shallow Anglican religiosity. He continued to sharply criticize Anglican religiosity later in life despite his general Anglophilia. He was also under pressure from his father, who became very critical of his educational results.
In 1805, Heinrich drowned in a canal near their home in Hamburg. Although it was possible that his death was accidental, his wife and son believed that it was suicide. He was prone to anxiety and depression; each becoming more pronounced later in his life. Heinrich had become so fussy, even his wife started to doubt his mental health. "There was, in the father's life, some dark and vague source of fear which later made him hurl himself to his death from the attic of his house in Hamburg."
Arthur showed similar moodiness during his youth and often acknowledged that he inherited it from his father. There were other instances of serious mental health history on his father's side of the family. Despite his hardship, Schopenhau |
er liked his father and later referred to him in a positive light. Heinrich Schopenhauer left the family with a significant inheritance that was split in three among Johanna and the children. Arthur Schopenhauer was entitled to control of his part when he reached the age of majority. He invested it conservatively in government bonds and earned annual interest that was more than double the salary of a university professor. After quitting his merchant apprenticeship, with some encouragement from his mother, he dedicated himself to studies at the Ernestine Gymnasium, Gotha, in SaxeGothaAltenburg. While there, he also enjoyed social life among the local nobility, spending large amounts of money, which deeply concerned his frugal mother. He left the Gymnasium after writing a satirical poem about one of the schoolmasters. Although Arthur claimed that he left voluntarily, his mother's letter indicates that he may have been expelled.
Arthur spent two years as a merchant in honor of his dead father. During this time |
, he had doubts about being able to start a new life as a scholar. Most of his prior education was as a practical merchant and he had trouble learning Latin; a prerequisite for an academic career.
His mother moved away, with her daughter Adele, to Weimarthe then centre of German literatureto enjoy social life among writers and artists. Arthur and his mother did not part on good terms. In one letter, she wrote "You are unbearable and burdensome, and very hard to live with; all your good qualities are overshadowed by your conceit, and made useless to the world simply because you cannot restrain your propensity to pick holes in other people." His mother, Johanna, was generally described as vivacious and sociable. After they split, they did not meet again. She died 24 years later. Some of Arthur's negative opinions about women may be rooted in his troubled relationship with his mother.
Arthur moved to Hamburg to live with his friend Jean Anthime, who was also studying to become a merchant.
Education
He moved |
to Weimar but did not live with his mother, who even tried to discourage him from coming by explaining that they would not get along very well. Their relationship deteriorated even further due to their temperamental differences. He accused his mother of being financially irresponsible, flirtatious and seeking to remarry, which he considered an insult to his father's memory. His mother, while professing her love to him, criticized him sharply for being moody, tactless, and argumentative, and urged him to improve his behavior so that he would not alienate people. Arthur concentrated on his studies, which were now going very well, and he also enjoyed the usual social life such as balls, parties and theater. By that time Johanna's famous salon was well established among local intellectuals and dignitaries, the most celebrated of them being Goethe. Arthur attended her parties, usually when he knew that Goethe would be therealthough the famous writer and statesman seemed not even to notice the young and unknown st |
udent. It is possible that Goethe kept a distance because Johanna warned him about her son's depressive and combative nature, or because Goethe was then on bad terms with Arthur's language instructor and roommate, Franz Passow. Schopenhauer was also captivated by the beautiful Karoline Jagemann, mistress of Karl August, Grand Duke of SaxeWeimarEisenach, and he wrote to her his only known love poem. Despite his later celebration of asceticism and negative views of sexuality, Schopenhauer occasionally had sexual affairsusually with women of lower social status, such as servants, actresses, and sometimes even paid prostitutes. In a letter to his friend Anthime he claims that such affairs continued even in his mature age and admits that he had two outofwedlock daughters born in 1819 and 1836, both of whom died in infancy. In their youthful correspondence Arthur and Anthime were somewhat boastful and competitive about their sexual exploitsbut Schopenhauer seemed aware that women usually did not find him very charm |
ing or physically attractive, and his desires often remained unfulfilled.
He left Weimar to become a student at the University of Gttingen in 1809. There are no written reasons about why Schopenhauer chose that university instead of the then more famous University of Jena, but Gttingen was known as more modern and scientifically oriented, with less attention given to theology. Law or medicine were usual choices for young men of Schopenhauer's status who also needed career and income; he chose medicine due to his scientific interests. Among his notable professors were Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut, Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Friedrich Stromeyer, Heinrich Adolf Schrader, Johann Tobias Mayer and Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck. He studied metaphysics, psychology and logic under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of Aenesidemus, who made a strong impression and advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel Kant. He decided to switch from medicine to philosophy around 181011 and he |
left Gttingen, which did not have a strong philosophy program besides Schulze, the only other philosophy professor was Friedrich Bouterwek, whom Schopenhauer disliked. He did not regret his medicinal and scientific studies; he claimed that they were necessary for a philosopher, and even in Berlin he attended more lectures in sciences than in philosophy. During his days at Gttingen, he spent considerable time studying, but also continued his flute playing and social life. His friends included Friedrich Gotthilf Osann, Karl Witte, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen, and William Backhouse Astor Sr.
He arrived at the newly founded University of Berlin for the winter semester of 181112. At the same time, his mother had just begun her literary career; she published her first book in 1810, a biography of her friend Karl Ludwig Fernow, which was a critical success. Arthur attended lectures by the prominent postKantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, but quickly found many points of disagreement with his ; he |
also found Fichte's lectures tedious and hard to understand. He later mentioned Fichte only in critical, negative termsseeing his philosophy as a lowerquality version of Kant's and considering it useful only because Fichte's poor arguments unintentionally highlighted some failings of Kantianism. He also attended the lectures of the famous Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, whom he also quickly came to dislike. His notes and comments on Schleiermacher's lectures show that Schopenhauer was becoming very critical of religion and moving towards atheism. He learned by selfdirected reading; besides Plato, Kant and Fichte he also read the works of Schelling, Fries, Jacobi, Bacon, Locke, and much current scientific literature. He attended philological courses by August Bckh and Friedrich August Wolf and continued his naturalistic interests with courses by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Paul Erman, Johann Elert Bode, Ernst Gottfried Fischer, Johann Horkel, Friedrich Christian Rosenthal and Hinrich Lichtenstein |
Lichtenstein was also a friend whom he met at one of his mother's parties in Weimar.
Early work
Schopenhauer left Berlin in a rush in 1813, fearing that the city could be attacked and that he could be pressed into military service as Prussia had just joined the war against France. He returned to Weimar but left after less than a month, disgusted by the fact that his mother was now living with her supposed lover, Georg Friedrich Konrad Ludwig Mller von Gerstenbergk 17781838, a civil servant twelve years younger than her; he considered the relationship an act of infidelity to his father's memory. He settled for a while in Rudolstadt, hoping that no army would pass through the small town. He spent his time in solitude, hiking in the mountains and the Thuringian forest and writing his dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He completed his dissertation at about the same time as the French army was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. He became irritated by the arrival of soldi |
ers in the town and accepted his mother's invitation to visit her in Weimar. She tried to convince him that her relationship with Gerstenbergk was platonic and that she had no intention of remarrying. But Schopenhauer remained suspicious and often came in conflict with Gerstenbergk because he considered him untalented, pretentious, and nationalistic. His mother had just published her second book, Reminiscences of a Journey in the Years 1803, 1804, and 1805, a description of their family tour of Europe, which quickly became a hit. She found his dissertation incomprehensible and said it was unlikely that anyone would ever buy a copy. In a fit of temper Arthur told her that people would read his work long after the "rubbish" she wrote was totally forgotten. In fact, although they considered her novels of dubious quality, the Brockhaus publishing firm held her in high esteem because they consistently sold well. Hans Brockhaus 18881965 later claimed that his predecessors "saw nothing in this manuscript, but wanted |
to please one of our bestselling authors by publishing her son's work. We published more and more of her son Arthur's work and today nobody remembers Johanna, but her son's works are in steady demand and contribute to Brockhaus's reputation." He kept large portraits of the pair in his office in Leipzig for the edification of his new editors.
Also contrary to his mother's prediction, Schopenhauer's dissertation made an impression on Goethe, to whom he sent it as a gift. Although it is doubtful that Goethe agreed with Schopenhauer's philosophical positions, he was impressed by his intellect and extensive scientific education. Their subsequent meetings and correspondence were a great honor to a young philosopher, who was finally acknowledged by his intellectual hero. They mostly discussed Goethe's newly published and somewhat lukewarmly received work on color theory. Schopenhauer soon started writing his own treatise on the subject, On Vision and Colors, which in many points differed from his teacher's. Althou |
gh they remained polite towards each other, their growing theoretical disagreementsand especially Schopenhauer's extreme selfconfidence and tactless criticismssoon made Goethe become distant again and after 1816 their correspondence became less frequent. Schopenhauer later admitted that he was greatly hurt by this rejection, but he continued to praise Goethe, and considered his color theory a great introduction to his own.
Another important experience during his stay in Weimar was his acquaintance with Friedrich Majera historian of religion, orientalist and disciple of Herderwho introduced him to Eastern philosophy see also Indology. Schopenhauer was immediately impressed by the Upanishads he called them "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed that they contained superhuman concepts and the Buddha, and put them on a par with Plato and Kant. He continued his studies by reading the Bhagavad Gita, an amateurish German journal Asiatisches Magazin and Asiatick Researches by the Asiatic Society. |
Schopenhauer held a profound respect for Indian philosophy; although he loved Hindu texts, he was more interested in Buddhism, which he came to regard as the best religion. His studies on Hindu and Buddhist texts were constrained by the lack of adequate literature, and the latter were mostly restricted to Early Buddhism. He also claimed that he formulated most of his ideas independently, and only later realized the similarities with Buddhism.
Schopenhauer read the Latin translation and praised the Upanishads in his main work, The World as Will and Representation 1819, as well as in his Parerga and Paralipomena 1851, and commented,In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.
As the relationship with his mother fell to a new low, in May 1814 he left Weimar and moved to Dresden. He continued his philosophical studies, enjoyed the cultural life, socialized with intellectuals and engaged in se |
xual affairs. His friends in Dresden were Johann Gottlob von Quandt, Friedrich Laun, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl, a young painter who made a romanticized portrait of him in which he improved some of Schopenhauer's unattractive physical features. His criticisms of local artists occasionally caused public quarrels when he ran into them in public. Schopenhauer's main occupation during his stay in Dresden was his seminal philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation, which he started writing in 1814 and finished in 1818. He was recommended to the publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus by Baron Ferdinand von Biedenfeld, an acquaintance of his mother. Although Brockhaus accepted his manuscript, Schopenhauer made a poor impression because of his quarrelsome and fussy attitude, as well as very poor sales of the book after it was published in December 1818.
In September 1818, while waiting for his book to be published and conveniently escaping an affair with a maid that caused a |
n unwanted pregnancy, Schopenhauer left Dresden for a yearlong vacation in Italy. He visited Venice, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Milan, travelling alone or accompanied by mostly English tourists he met. He spent the winter months in Rome, where he accidentally met his acquaintance Karl Witte and engaged in numerous quarrels with German tourists in the Caff Greco, among them Johann Friedrich Bhmer, who also mentioned his insulting remarks and unpleasant character. He enjoyed art, architecture, and ancient ruins, attended plays and operas, and continued his philosophical contemplation and love affairs. One of his affairs supposedly became serious, and for a while he contemplated marriage to a rich Italian noblewomanbut, despite his mentioning this several times, no details are known and it may have been Schopenhauer exaggerating. He corresponded regularly with his sister Adele and became close to her as her relationship with Johanna and Gerstenbergk also deteriorated. She informed him about their financial tr |
oubles as the banking house of A. L. Muhl in Danzigin which her mother invested their whole savings and Arthur a third of hiswas near bankruptcy. Arthur offered to share his assets, but his mother refused and became further enraged by his insulting comments. The women managed to receive only thirty percent of their savings while Arthur, using his business knowledge, took a suspicious and aggressive stance towards the banker and eventually received his part in full. The affair additionally worsened the relationships among all three members of the Schopenhauer family.
He shortened his stay in Italy because of the trouble with Muhl and returned to Dresden. Disturbed by the financial risk and the lack of responses to his book he decided to take an academic position since it provided him with both income and an opportunity to promote his views. He contacted his friends at universities in Heidelberg, Gttingen and Berlin and found Berlin most attractive. He scheduled his lectures to coincide with those of the famou |
s philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer described as a "clumsy charlatan". He was especially appalled by Hegel's supposedly poor knowledge of natural sciences and tried to engage him in a quarrel about it already at his test lecture in March 1820. Hegel was also facing political suspicions at the time, when many progressive professors were fired, while Schopenhauer carefully mentioned in his application that he had no interest in politics. Despite their differences and the arrogant request to schedule lectures at the same time as his own, Hegel still voted to accept Schopenhauer to the university. Only five students turned up to Schopenhauer's lectures, and he dropped out of academia. A late essay, "On University Philosophy", expressed his resentment towards the work conducted in academies.
Later life
After his tenure in academia, he continued to travel extensively, visiting Leipzig, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Schaffhausen, Vevey, Milan and spending eight months in Florence. Before he left for his thre |
eyear travel, Schopenhauer had an incident with his Berlin neighbor, 47yearold seamstress Caroline Louise Marquet. The details of the August 1821 incident are unknown. He claimed that he had just pushed her from his entrance after she had rudely refused to leave, and that she had purposely fallen to the ground so that she could sue him. She claimed that he had attacked her so violently that she had become paralyzed on her right side and unable to work. She immediately sued him, and the process lasted until May 1827, when a court found Schopenhauer guilty and forced him to pay her an annual pension until her death in 1842.
Schopenhauer enjoyed Italy, where he studied art and socialized with Italian and English nobles. It was his last visit to the country. He left for Munich and stayed there for a year, mostly recuperating from various health issues, some of them possibly caused by venereal diseases the treatment his doctor used suggests syphilis. He contacted publishers, offering to translate Hume into |
German and Kant into English, but his proposals were declined. Returning to Berlin, he began to study Spanish so he could read some of his favorite authors in their original language. He liked Pedro Caldern de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, and especially Baltasar Gracin. He also made failed attempts to publish his translations of their works. Few attempts to revive his lecturesagain scheduled at the same time as Hegel'salso failed, as did his inquiries about relocating to other universities.
During his Berlin years, Schopenhauer occasionally mentioned his desire to marry and have a family. For a while he was unsuccessfully courting 17yearold Flora Weiss, who was 22 years younger than himself. His unpublished writings from that time show that he was already very critical of monogamy but still not advocating polygynyinstead musing about a polyamorous relationship that he called "tetragamy". He had an onandoff relationship with a young dancer, Caroline Richter she also used the surname Med |
on after one of her exlovers. They met when he was 33 and she was 19 and working at the Berlin Opera. She had already had numerous lovers and a son out of wedlock, and later gave birth to another son, this time to an unnamed foreign diplomat she soon had another pregnancy but the child was stillborn. As Schopenhauer was preparing to escape from Berlin in 1831, due to a cholera epidemic, he offered to take her with him on the condition that she left her young son behind. She refused and he went alone; in his will he left her a significant sum of money, but insisted that it should not be spent in any way on her second son.
Schopenhauer claimed that, in his last year in Berlin, he had a prophetic dream that urged him to escape from the city. As he arrived in his new home in Frankfurt, he supposedly had another supernatural experience, an apparition of his dead father and his mother, who was still alive. This experience led him to spend some time investigating paranormal phenomena and magic. He was quite critica |
l of the available studies and claimed that they were mostly ignorant or fraudulent, but he did believe that there are authentic cases of such phenomena and tried to explain them through his metaphysics as manifestations of the will.
Upon his arrival in Frankfurt, he experienced a period of depression and declining health. He renewed his correspondence with his mother, and she seemed concerned that he might commit suicide like his father. By now Johanna and Adele were living very modestly. Johanna's writing did not bring her much income, and her popularity was waning. Their correspondence remained reserved, and Arthur seemed undisturbed by her death in 1838. His relationship with his sister grew closer and he corresponded with her until she died in 1849.
In July 1832 Schopenhauer left Frankfurt for Mannheim but returned in July 1833 to remain there for the rest of his life, except for a few short journeys. He lived alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atman and Butz. In 1836, he published On t |
he Will in Nature. In 1836, he sent his essay "On the Freedom of the Will" to the contest of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and won the prize for the following year. He sent another essay, "On the Basis of Morality", to the Royal Danish Society for Scientific Studies, but did not win the prize despite being the only contestant. The Society was appalled that several distinguished contemporary philosophers were mentioned in a very offensive manner, and claimed that the essay missed the point of the set topic and that the arguments were inadequate. Schopenhauer, who had been very confident that he would win, was enraged by this rejection. He published both essays as The Two Basic Problems of Ethics. The first edition, published in 1841, again failed to draw attention to his philosophy. In the preface to the second edition, in 1860, he was still pouring insults on the Royal Danish Society. Two years later, after some negotiations, he managed to convince his publisher, Brockhaus, to print the second, |
updated edition of The World as Will and Representation. That book was again mostly ignored and the few reviews were mixed or negative.
Schopenhauer began to attract some followers, mostly outside academia, among practical professionals several of them were lawyers who pursued private philosophical studies. He jokingly referred to them as "evangelists" and "apostles". One of the most active early followers was Julius Frauenstdt, who wrote numerous articles promoting Schopenhauer's philosophy. He was also instrumental in finding another publisher after Brockhaus declined to publish Parerga and Paralipomena, believing that it would be another failure. Though Schopenhauer later stopped corresponding with him, claiming that he did not adhere closely enough to his ideas, Frauenstdt continued to promote Schopenhauer's work. They renewed their communication in 1859 and Schopenhauer named him heir for his literary estate. Frauenstdt also became the editor of the first collected works of Schopenhauer.
In 1848, S |
chopenhauer witnessed violent upheaval in Frankfurt after General Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald and Prince Felix Lichnowsky were murdered. He became worried for his own safety and property. Even earlier in life he had had such worries and kept a sword and loaded pistols near his bed to defend himself from thieves. He gave a friendly welcome to Austrian soldiers who wanted to shoot revolutionaries from his window and as they were leaving he gave one of the officers his opera glasses to help him monitor rebels. The rebellion passed without any loss to Schopenhauer and he later praised Alfred I, Prince of WindischGrtz for restoring order. He even modified his will, leaving a large part of his property to a Prussian fund that helped soldiers who became invalids while fighting rebellion in 1848 or the families of soldiers who died in battle. As Young Hegelians were advocating change and progress, Schopenhauer claimed that misery is natural for humans and that, even if some utopian society were established, peo |
ple would still fight each other out of boredom, or would starve due to overpopulation.
In 1851, Schopenhauer published Parerga and Paralipomena, which, as the title says, contains essays that are supplementary to his main work. It was his first successful, widely read book, partly due to the work of his disciples who wrote praising reviews. The essays that proved most popular were the ones that actually did not contain the basic philosophical ideas of his system. Many academic philosophers considered him a great stylist and cultural critic but did not take his philosophy seriously. His early critics liked to point out similarities of his ideas to those Fichte and Schelling, or to claim that there were numerous contradictions in his philosophy. Both criticisms enraged Schopenhauer. He was becoming less interested in intellectual fights, but encouraged his disciples to do so. His private notes and correspondence show that he acknowledged some of the criticisms regarding contradictions, inconsistencies, and v |
agueness in his philosophy, but claimed that he was not concerned about harmony and agreement in his propositions and that some of his ideas should not be taken literally but instead as metaphors.
Academic philosophers were also starting to notice his work. In 1856, the University of Leipzig sponsored an essay contest about Schopenhauer's philosophy, which was won by Rudolf Seydel's very critical essay. Schopenhauer's friend Jules Lunteschtz made the first of his four portraits of himwhich Schopenhauer did not particularly likewhich was soon sold to a wealthy landowner, Carl Ferdinand Wiesike, who built a house to display it. Schopenhauer seemed flattered and amused by this, and would claim that it was his first chapel. As his fame increased, copies of paintings and photographs of him were being sold and admirers were visiting the places where he had lived and written his works. People visited Frankfurt's Englischer Hof to observe him dining. Admirers gave him gifts and asked for autographs. He complained |
that he still felt isolated due to his not very social nature and the fact that many of his good friends had already died from old age.
He remained healthy in his own old age, which he attributed to regular walks no matter the weather and always getting enough sleep. He had a great appetite and could read without glasses, but his hearing had been declining since his youth and he developed problems with rheumatism. He remained active and lucid, continued his reading, writing and correspondence until his death. The numerous notes that he made during these years, amongst others on aging, were published posthumously under the title Senilia. In the spring of 1860 his health began to decline, and he experienced shortness of breath and heart palpitations; in September he suffered inflammation of the lungs and, although he was starting to recover, he remained very weak. The last friend to visit him was Wilhelm Gwinner; according to him, Schopenhauer was concerned that he would not be able to finish his planned add |
itions to Parerga and Paralipomena but was at peace with dying. He died of pulmonaryrespiratory failure on 21 September 1860 while sitting at home on his couch. He died at the age of 72 and had a funeral conducted by a Lutheran minister.
Philosophy
The world as representation
Schopenhauer saw his philosophy as an extension of Kant's, and used the results of Kantian epistemological investigation transcendental idealism as starting point for his own. Kant had argued that the empirical world is merely a complex of appearances whose existence and connection occur only in our mental representations. Schopenhauer did not deny that the external world existed empirically but followed Kant in claiming that our knowledge and experience of the world is always indirect. Schopenhauer reiterates this in the first sentence of his main work "The world is my representation Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung". Everything that there is for cognition the entire world exists simply as an object in relation to a subjecta 'represent |
ation' to a subject. Everything that belongs to the world is, therefore, 'subjectdependent'. In Book One of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer considers the world from this anglethat is, insofar as it is representation.
Theory of perception
In November 1813 Goethe invited Schopenhauer to help him on his Theory of Colours. Although Schopenhauer considered colour theory a minor matter, he accepted the invitation out of admiration for Goethe. Nevertheless, these investigations led him to his most important discovery in epistemology finding a demonstration for the a priori nature of causality.
Kant openly admitted that it was Hume's skeptical assault on causality that motivated the critical investigations in his Critique of Pure Reason and gave an elaborate proof to show that causality is a priori. After G. E. Schulze had made it plausible that Kant had not disproven Hume's skepticism, it was up to those loyal to Kant's project to prove this important matter.
The difference between the approac |
hes of Kant and Schopenhauer was this Kant simply declared that the empirical content of perception is "given" to us from outside, an expression with which Schopenhauer often expressed his dissatisfaction. He, on the other hand, was occupied with the questions how do we get this empirical content of perception; how is it possible to comprehend subjective sensations "limited to my skin" as the objective perception of things that lie "outside" of me?
Causality is therefore not an empirical concept drawn from objective perceptions, as Hume had maintained; instead, as Kant had said, objective perception presupposes knowledge of causality.
By this intellectual operation, comprehending every effect in our sensory organs as having an external cause, the external world arises. With vision, finding the cause is essentially simplified due to light acting in straight lines. We are seldom conscious of the process that interprets the double sensation in both eyes as coming from one object, that inverts the impressions |
on the retinas, and that uses the change in the apparent position of an object relative to more distant objects provided by binocular vision to perceive depth and distance.
Schopenhauer stresses the importance of the intellectual nature of perception; the senses furnish the raw material by which the intellect produces the world as representation. He set out his theory of perception for the first time in On Vision and Colors, and, in the subsequent editions of Fourfold Root, an extensive exposition is given in 21.
The world as will
In Book Two of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer considers what the world is beyond the aspect of it that appears to usthat is, the aspect of the world beyond representation, the world considered "initself" or "noumena", its inner essence. The very being initself of all things, Schopenhauer argues, is will Wille. The empirical world that appears to us as representation has plurality and is ordered in a spatiotemporal framework. The world as thing initself must |
exist outside the subjective forms of space and time. Although the world manifests itself to our experience as a multiplicity of objects the "objectivation" of the will, each element of this multiplicity has the same blind essence striving towards existence and life. Human rationality is merely a secondary phenomenon that does not distinguish humanity from the rest of nature at the fundamental, essential level. The advanced cognitive abilities of human beings, Schopenhauer argues, serve the ends of willingan illogical, directionless, ceaseless striving that condemns the human individual to a life of suffering unredeemed by any final purpose. Schopenhauer's philosophy of the will as the essential reality behind the world as representation is often called metaphysical voluntarism.
For Schopenhauer, understanding the world as will leads to ethical concerns see the ethics section below for further detail, which he explores in the Fourth Book of The World as Will and Representation and again in his two prize essa |
ys on ethics, On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morality. No individual human actions are free, Schopenhauer argues, because they are events in the world of appearance and thus are subject to the principle of sufficient reason a person's actions are a necessary consequence of motives and the given character of the individual human. Necessity extends to the actions of human beings just as it does to every other appearance, and thus we cannot speak of freedom of individual willing. Albert Einstein quoted the Schopenhauerian idea that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will." Yet the will as thing initself is free, as it exists beyond the realm of representation and thus is not constrained by any of the forms of necessity that are part of the principle of sufficient reason.
According to Schopenhauer, salvation from our miserable existence can come through the will's being "tranquillized" by the metaphysical insight that reveals individuality to be merely an illusion. The saint or 'great s |
oul' intuitively "recognizes the whole, comprehends its essence, and finds that it is constantly passing away, caught up in vain strivings, inner conflict, and perpetual suffering". The negation of the will, in other words, stems from the insight that the world initself free from the forms of space and time is one. Ascetic practices, Schopenhauer remarks, are used to aid the will's "selfabolition", which brings about a blissful, redemptive "willless" state of emptiness that is free from striving or suffering.
Art and aesthetics
For Schopenhauer, human "willing"desiring, craving, etc.is at the root of suffering. A temporary way to escape this pain is through aesthetic contemplation. Here one moves away from ordinary cognizance of individual things to cognizance of eternal Platonic Ideasin other words, cognizance that is free from the service of will. In aesthetic contemplation, one no longer perceives an object of perception as something from which one is separated; rather "it is as if the object alone exis |
ted without anyone perceiving it, and one can thus no longer separate the perceiver from the perception, but the two have become one, the entirety of consciousness entirely filled and occupied by a single perceptual image". Subject and object are no longer distinguishable, and the Idea comes to the fore.
From this aesthetic immersion, one is no longer an individual who suffers as a result of servitude to one's individual will but, rather, becomes a "pure, willless, painless, timeless, subject of cognition". The pure, willless subject of cognition is cognizant only of Ideas, not individual things this is a kind of cognition that is unconcerned with relations between objects according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason time, space, cause and effect and instead involves complete absorption in the object.
Art is the practical consequence of this brief aesthetic contemplation, since it attempts to depict the essencepure Ideas of the world. Music, for Schopenhauer, is the purest form of art because it is the o |
ne that depicts the will itself without it appearing as subject to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, therefore as an individual object. According to Daniel Albright, "Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself". He deemed music a timeless, universal language comprehended everywhere, that can imbue global enthusiasm, if in possession of a significant melody.
Mathematics
Schopenhauer's realist views on mathematics are evident in his criticism of contemporaneous attempts to prove the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry. Writing shortly before the discovery of hyperbolic geometry demonstrated the logical independence of the axiomand long before the general theory of relativity revealed that it does not necessarily express a property of physical spaceSchopenhauer criticized mathematicians for trying to use indirect concepts to prove what he held was directly evident from intuitive perception.
Throughout his writings, Schopenhauer |
criticized the logical derivation of philosophies and mathematics from mere concepts, instead of from intuitive perceptions.
Although Schopenhauer could see no justification for trying to prove Euclid's parallel postulate, he did see a reason for examining another of Euclid's axioms.
This follows Kant's reasoning.
Ethics
Schopenhauer asserts that the task of ethics is not to prescribe moral actions that ought to be done, but to investigate moral actions. As such, he states that philosophy is always theoretical its task to explain what is given.
According to Kant's transcendental idealism, space and time are forms of our sensibility in which phenomena appear in multiplicity. Reality in itself is free from multiplicity, not in the sense that an object is one, but that it is outside the possibility of multiplicity. Two individuals, though they appear distinct, are inthemselves not distinct.
Appearances are entirely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. The egoistic individual who focuses hi |
s aims on his own interests has to deal with empirical laws as well as he can.
What is relevant for ethics are individuals who can act against their own selfinterest. If we take a man who suffers when he sees his fellow men living in poverty and consequently uses a significant part of his income to support their needs instead of his own pleasures, then the simplest way to describe this is that he makes less distinction between himself and others than is usually made.
Regarding how things appear to us, the egoist asserts a gap between two individuals, but the altruist experiences the sufferings of others as his own. In the same way a compassionate man cannot hurt animals, though they appear as distinct from himself.
What motivates the altruist is compassion. The suffering of others is for him not a cold matter to which he is indifferent, but he feels connectiveness to all beings. Compassion is thus the basis of morality.
Eternal justice
Schopenhauer calls the principle through which multiplicity appears t |
he principium individuationis. When we behold nature we see that it is a cruel battle for existence. Individual manifestations of the will can maintain themselves only at the expense of othersthe will, as the only thing that exists, has no other option but to devour itself to experience pleasure. This is a fundamental characteristic of the will, and cannot be circumvented.
Unlike temporal or human justice, which requires time to repay an evil deed and "has its seat in the state, as requiting and punishing", eternal justice "rules not the state but the world, is not dependent upon human institutions, is not subject to chance and deception, is not uncertain, wavering, and erring, but infallible, fixed, and sure". Eternal justice is not retributive, because retribution requires time. There are no delays or reprieves. Instead, punishment is tied to the offence, "to the point where the two become one. ... Tormenter and tormented are one. The Tormenter errs in that he believes he is not a partaker in the suffering |
; the tormented, in that he believes he is not a partaker in the guilt."
Suffering is the moral outcome of our attachment to pleasure. Schopenhauer deemed that this truth was expressed by the Christian dogma of original sin and, in Eastern religions, by the dogma of rebirth.
Quietism
He who sees through the principium individuationis and comprehends suffering in general as his own will see suffering everywhere and, instead of fighting for the happiness of his individual manifestation, will abhor life itself since he knows that it is inseparably connected with suffering. For him, a happy individual life in a world of suffering is like a beggar who dreams one night that he is a king.
Those who have experienced this intuitive knowledge cannot affirm life, but exhibit asceticism and quietism, meaning that they are no longer sensitive to motives, are not concerned about their individual welfare, and accept without resistance the evil that others inflict on them. They welcome poverty and neither seek nor flee d |
eath. Schopenhauer referred to asceticism as the denial of the will to live.
Human life is a ceaseless struggle for satisfaction and, instead of continuing their struggle, ascetics break it. It does not matter if these ascetics adhere to the dogmata of Christianity or to Dharmic religions, since their way of living is the result of intuitive knowledge.
Psychology
Philosophers have not traditionally been impressed by the necessity of sex, but Schopenhauer addressed sex and related concepts forthrightly
He named a force within man that he felt took invariable precedence over reason the Will to Live or Will to Life Wille zum Leben, defined as an inherent drive within human beings, and all creatures, to stay alive; a force that inveigles us into reproducing.
Schopenhauer refused to conceive of love as either trifling or accidental, but rather understood it as an immensely powerful force that lay unseen within man's psyche, guaranteeing the quality of the human race
It has often been argued that Schopenhauer |
's thoughts on sexuality foreshadowed the theory of evolution, a claim met with satisfaction by Darwin as he included a quotation from Schopenhauer in his Descent of Man. This has also been noted about Freud's concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind, and evolutionary psychology in general.
Political and social thought
Politics
Schopenhauer's politics were an echo of his system of ethics, which he elucidated in detail in his Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik the two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morality.
In occasional political comments in his Parerga and Paralipomena and Manuscript Remains, Schopenhauer described himself as a proponent of limited government. Schopenhauer shared the view of Thomas Hobbes on the necessity of the state and state action to check the innate destructive tendencies of our species. He also defended the independence of the legislative, judicial and executive branches of power, and a monarch as an impartial element able to practise justice in a pr |
actical and everyday sense, not a cosmological one.
He declared that monarchy is "natural to man in almost the same way as it is to bees and ants, to cranes in flight, to wandering elephants, to wolves in a pack in search of prey, and to other animals". Intellect in monarchies, he writes, always has "much better chances against stupidity, its implacable and everpresent foe, than it has in republics; but this is a great advantage." On the other hand, Schopenhauer disparaged republicanism as being "as unnatural to man as it is unfavorable to higher intellectual life and thus to the arts and sciences".
By his own admission, Schopenhauer did not give much thought to politics, and several times he wrote proudly of how little attention he paid "to political affairs of his day". In a life that spanned several revolutions in French and German government, and a few continentshaking wars, he maintained his position of "minding not the times but the eternities". He wrote many disparaging remarks about Germany and th |
e Germans. A typical example is "For a German it is even good to have somewhat lengthy words in his mouth, for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to reflect."
Punishment
The State, Schopenhauer claimed, punishes criminals to prevent future crimes. It places "beside every possible motive for committing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone, in the inescapable punishment. Accordingly, the criminal code is as complete a register as possible of countermotives to all criminal actions that can possibly be imagined ..." He claimed that this doctrine was not original to him but had appeared in the writings of Plato, Seneca, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Anselm Feuerbach.
Races and religions
Schopenhauer attributed civilizational primacy to the northern "white races" due to their sensitivity and creativity except for the ancient Egyptians and Hindus, whom he saw as equal
The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; an |
d even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilization.
Schopenhauer was fervently opposed to slavery. Speaking of the treatment of slaves in the slaveholding states of the United States, he condemned "those devils in human form, those bigoted, churchgoing, strict sabbathobserving scoundrels, especially the Anglican parsons among them" for how they "treat their innocent black brothers who through viol |
ence and injustice have fallen into their devil's claws". The slaveholding states of North America, Schopenhauer writes, are a "disgrace to the whole of humanity".
In his Metaphysics of Sexual Love, Schopenhauer wrote
Further, the consideration as to the complexion is very decided. Blondes prefer dark persons, or brunettes; but the latter seldom prefer the former. The reason is, that fair hair and blue eyes are in themselves a variation from the type, almost an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or at least to grey horses. In no part of the world, not even in the vicinity of the pole, are they indigenous, except in Europe, and are clearly of Scandinavian origin. I may here express my opinion in passing that the white colour of the skin is not natural to man, but that by nature he has a black or brown skin, like our forefathers the Hindus; that consequently a white man has never originally sprung from the womb of nature, and that thus there is no such thing as a white race, much as this is talked of, but e |
very white man is a faded or bleached one. Forced into the strange world, where he only exists like an exotic plant, and like this requires in winter the hothouse, in the course of thousands of years man became white. The gipsies, an Indian race which immigrated only about four centuries ago, show the transition from the complexion of the Hindu to our own. Therefore in sexual love nature strives to return to dark hair and brown eyes as the primitive type; but the white colour of the skin has become a second nature, though not so that the brown of the Hindu repels us. Finally, each one also seeks in the particular parts of the body the corrective of his own defects and aberrations, and does so the more decidedly the more important the part is.
Schopenhauer also maintained a marked metaphysical and political antiJudaism. He argued that Christianity constituted a revolt against what he styled the materialistic basis of Judaism, exhibiting an Indianinfluenced ethics reflecting the AryanVedic theme of spiritual s |
elfconquest. He saw this as opposed to the ignorant drive toward earthly utopianism and superficiality of a worldly "Jewish" spirit
Judaism is, therefore, the crudest and poorest of all religions and consists merely in an absurd and revolting theism. It amounts to this that the 'Lord', who has created the world, desires to be worshipped and adored; and so above all he is jealous, is envious of his colleagues, of all the other gods; if sacrifices are made to them he is furious and his Jews have a bad time ... It is most deplorable that this religion has become the basis of the prevailing religion of Europe; for it is a religion without any metaphysical tendency. While all other religions endeavor to explain to the people by symbols the metaphysical significance of life, the religion of the Jews is entirely immanent and furnishes nothing but a mere warcry in the struggle with other nations.
Women
In his 1851 essay "On Women", Schopenhauer expressed opposition to what he called "TeutonicoChristian stupidity" |
of "reflexive, unexamined reverence for the female abgeschmackten Weiberveneration". He wrote "Women are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our early childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and shortsighted." He opined that women are deficient in artistic faculties and sense of justice, and expressed his opposition to monogamy. He claimed that "woman is by nature meant to obey". The essay does give some compliments "women are decidedly more sober in their judgment than men are", and are more sympathetic to the suffering of others.
Schopenhauer's writings influenced many, from Friedrich Nietzsche to nineteenthcentury feminists. His biological analysis of the difference between the sexes, and their separate roles in the struggle for survival and reproduction, anticipates some of the claims that were later ventured by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists.
When the elderly Schopenhauer sat for a sculpture portrait by the Prussian sculptor Elisabet Ney |
in 1859, he was much impressed by the young woman's wit and independence, as well as by her skill as a visual artist. After his time with Ney, he told Richard Wagner's friend Malwida von Meysenbug "I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man."
Pederasty
In the third, expanded edition of The World as Will and Representation 1859, Schopenhauer added an appendix to his chapter on the Metaphysics of Sexual Love. He wrote that pederasty has the benefit of preventing illbegotten children. Concerning this, he stated that "the vice we are considering appears to work directly against the aims and ends of nature, and that in a matter that is all important and of the greatest concern to her it must in fact serve these very aims, although only indirectly, as a means for preventing greater evils".
Schopenhauer ends the appendix with the statement that "by expounding the |
se paradoxical ideas, I wanted to grant to the professors of philosophy a small favour. I have done so by giving them the opportunity of slandering me by saying that I defend and commend pederasty."
Heredity and eugenics
Schopenhauer viewed personality and intellect as inherited. He quotes Horace's saying, "From the brave and good are the brave descended" Odes, iv, 4, 29 and Shakespeare's line from Cymbeline, "Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base" IV, 2 to reinforce his hereditarian argument.
Mechanistically, Schopenhauer believed that a person inherits his intellect through his mother, and personal character through the father. This belief in heritability of traits informed Schopenhauer's view of loveplacing it at the highest level of importance. For Schopenhauer the "final aim of all love intrigues, be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is nothing less than the composition of the next generation. ... It is not the weal |
or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to come, which is here at stake." This view of the importance for the species of whom we choose to love was reflected in his views on eugenics or good breeding. Here Schopenhauer wrote
With our knowledge of the complete unalterability both of character and of mental faculties, we are led to the view that a real and thorough improvement of the human race might be reached not so much from outside as from within, not so much by theory and instruction as rather by the path of generation. Plato had something of the kind in mind when, in the fifth book of his Republic, he explained his plan for increasing and improving his warrior caste. If we could castrate all scoundrels and stick all stupid geese in a convent, and give men of noble character a whole harem, and procure men, and indeed thorough men, for all girls of intellect and understanding, then a generation would soon arise which would produce a better age than that of Pericles.
In another context, S |
chopenhauer reiterated his eugenic thesis "If you want Utopian plans, I would say the only solution to the problem is the despotism of the wise and noble members of a genuine aristocracy, a genuine nobility, achieved by mating the most magnanimous men with the cleverest and most gifted women. This proposal constitutes my Utopia and my Platonic Republic." Analysts e.g., Keith AnsellPearson have suggested that Schopenhauer's antiegalitarianist sentiment and his support for eugenics influenced the neoaristocratic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who initially considered Schopenhauer his mentor.
Animal welfare
As a consequence of his monistic philosophy, Schopenhauer was very concerned about animal welfare. For him, all individual animals, including humans, are essentially phenomenal manifestations of the one underlying Will. For him the word "will" designates force, power, impulse, energy, and desire; it is the closest word we have that can signify both the essence of all external things and our own direct |
, inner experience. Since every living thing possesses will, humans and animals are fundamentally the same and can recognize themselves in each other. For this reason, he claimed that a good person would have sympathy for animals, who are our fellow sufferers.
In 1841, he praised the establishment in London of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in Philadelphia of the Animals' Friends Society. Schopenhauer went so far as to protest using the pronoun "it" in reference to animals because that led to treatment of them as though they were inanimate things. To reinforce his points, Schopenhauer referred to anecdotal reports of the look in the eyes of a monkey who had been shot and also the grief of a baby elephant whose mother had been killed by a hunter.
Schopenhauer was very attached to his succession of pet poodles. He criticized Spinoza's belief that animals are a mere means for the satisfaction of humans.
Intellectual interests and affinities
Indology
Schopenhauer read the Latin tra |
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