Recondite Limericks about German Philosophy

Few things known to man are more profound than German philosophy. Even the secondary literature is downright impenetrable. That’s why I strictly keep to the tertiary literature. “Schopenhauer for Dummies” is pretty much my go to.

But seriously, even if you can’t wade through the entirety of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, you can surely manage a handful of limericks.

Immanuel Kant is one of the brightest stars around which modern philosophy revolves. His Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysics of Morals nearly turned Hume and Descartes on their heads. In the fine tradition of Plato, Kant had a healthy obsession with epistemology. And a nose for knowledge.

The Great Chain of Causes
What can we know, and how can we know it?
The original cause, I would like you to show it
Your logic’s proficient
But is reason sufficient?
For every sensation has something below it

The Metaphysical Challenge
A treasure of treatises weighs on my shelves
And into man’s knowledge it thoroughly delves
From here to Andromeda
We chart the phenomena
But nothing can capture the Things in Themselves

Hegel really shook things up when he came on the scene. In the wake of Kant, he picked up the mantle of German idealism and buried it with his notoriously opaque writing style.

G. F. W. Hegel
There’s a pig-headed pundit called Hegel
With logic he liked to finagle
Part of his thesis
Said change never ceases
It just keeps going ‘round like a bagel

Arthur Schopenhauer’s reputation as a pessimist precedes him, but his contributions to philosophy and metaphysics are impossible to ignore. His World as Will and Representation, clearly influenced by Buddhism and other eastern ideas, paints an elaborate and elegant picture of the forces that tie the cosmos together and keep it moving.

Schopenhauer’s Renunciation
Life is a struggle, a tale of resistance
Where being and becoming are held at a distance
Try and deny it
I dare you to try it
At bottom the Will is the ground of existence

Every angst-ridden teenager goes through his or her Friedrich Nietzsche phase at some point. Generally, the love affair comes to an abrupt end when the disgruntled youth realizes s/he’s misunderstood the entire body of work. Still, there’s something deceptively accessible about Nietzsche’s aphoristic writing. For many, the temptation to pull passages out of context is simply irresistible.

Amor Fati
There once was a hole but my hope has now filled it
My cup swims with joy even after I’ve spilled it
Your faith too can grow
Just as soon as you go
From believing “it is” to believing “I willed it”

Twilight of the Idols
As day turns to night and the sky grows crepuscular
The heroes we worshipped look less and less muscular
Ascend as you should
Beyond evil and good
At dawn you weren’t ready but maybe at dusk you were

The Love of Wisdom
The field of science has only one queen
A philosopher’s mind is remarkably keen
While Hume was empirical
I like the lyrical
Nietzsche by contrast was teeming with spleen

As a staunch and unapologetic member of the Nazi party, many struggle to reconcile Martin Heidegger‘s philosophy with his politics. Truly, it is problematic. But at the same time, it poses a challenge to us, to see beyond the foulness of his personality and into the depths of his lustrous ideas.

Being and Time
Thus have I heard it that God is a process
And not the scorekeeper who tallies your losses
No mystical wealth
Just Being itself
An effect which is more than the sum of its causes