What does /lit/ think of Schopenhauer's essay 'On Thinking

>>7610538
Didn't read it, I'd rather think for myself.

>>7610543
Okay.

What are your thoughts on the concept of thinking for oneself?

>>7610555
Stop asking me and think for yourself

here is a link should anyone want to read it: http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_thinking_for_oneself/

>>7610555
I think reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

>>7610958

thanks man. are there any books you'd recommend picking up from schopenhauer?

>>7610970
Thanks, Schopenhaeur.

>>7610992
I have only read the Penguin "Great Ideas" series book of his writings "On the Suffering of the World" which is a selection from "Parerga and Paralipomena" I think. It's a very entertaining read, with some provocative ideas especially "On the Indestructibility of our Essential Being by Death".

While the idea to look only to the natural world as a way to think for yourself sounds like a noble idea, I think it's ultimately the wrong to avoid reading things. Considering the fact that most of a person's knowledge comes through reading, whether it is literature or no, it is only possible to learn to think for oneself through reading by absorbing, digesting, and formulating your own opinions on what you read. Overtime, you learn what it is that separates yourself from others and become a more independent thinker because of it. I wonder if Schopenhauer were writing today, if he would not say we should avoid tv and movies and look to books.

Also bumping this thread because it might garner some interesting discussion.