Episode Details

You may not realize it, but hidden in his collection of essays, Arthur Schopenhauer has worked out a more or less systematic philosophy of religion. This is the first part in a series of videos that will cover Schopenhauer’s unique outlook on religion. If you want to be notified when the other parts come out, please consider subscribing and clicking the bell button.

Schopenhauer’s main gripe with religion is with the distinction they make between meaning in sensu proprio versus in sensu allegorico.

“Sensu proprio” is the Latin term he uses which basically means “in a literal sense.” Sensu allegorico, of course, means “in an allegorical sense.”

What happens with religion, is they present some kind of dogma, which might be true in an allegorical sense, but they have to pretend to mean it in a literal sense. Religion cannot pretend its main tenets are merely allegorical because doing so would mean to undermine their own credibility.

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