ABSTRACT
Schopenhauer’s compassion (Mitleid) emphasises that a person participates immediately in another’s suffering. A pervasive theme among critics historically is that Schopenhauer engages in an unwitting reduction of compassion to some form of egoism. This article argues that a spatial-relational framework of concentric and diametric space can support Schopenhauer’s compassion and defend it against the charges of egoism. A distinction between concentric spatial projections as assumed connection and diametric opposition as the ‘thick partition’ of assumed separation offers contrasting frames for understanding a relational self, in Schopenhauer’s Mitleid. The objections of critics, including Nietzsche, that Schopenhauer’s compassion is mere egoism, are criticisms due to the projection of a diametric spatial-relational structure of assumed separation onto Schopenhauer’s way of thinking. Schopenhauer’s distinctive conception of compassion adopts an implicit concentric relation as assumed connection which challenges traditional diametric structured Western logic, the framework within which his critics are embedded. Key words: compassion, egoism, empathy, projection, protolanguage, Western logic
