The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer
page 21 of 106 (19%)
page 21 of 106 (19%)
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and obviously appropriate name, so that when a man used this or that
particular trick, he could be at once reproached for it. I will give two examples of the homonymy. Example 1.--A.: "You are not yet initiated into the mysteries of the Kantian philosophy." B.: "Oh, if it's mysteries you're talking of, I'll have nothing to do with them." Example 2.--I condemned the principle involved in the word _honour_ as a foolish one; for, according to it, a man loses his honour by receiving an insult, which he cannot wipe out unless he replies with a still greater insult, or by shedding his adversary's blood or his own. I contended that a man's true honour cannot be outraged by what he suffers, but only and alone by what he does; for there is no saying what may befall any one of us. My opponent immediately attacked the reason I had given, and triumphantly proved to me that when a tradesman was falsely accused of misrepresentation, dishonesty, or neglect in his business, it was an attack upon his honour, which in this case was outraged solely by what he suffered, and that he could only retrieve it by punishing his aggressor and making him retract. Here, by a homonymy, he was foisting _civic honour_, which is otherwise called _good name_, and which may be outraged by libel and slander, on to the conception of _knightly honour_, also called _point d'honneur_, which may be outraged by insult. And since an attack on the former cannot be disregarded, but must be repelled by public disproof, so, with the same justification, an attack on the latter |
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