“Our self-awareness has for form the space only through time, which is why our thought does not progress toward three dimensions, like our observation, but only in one, namely in a line without width and depth.” Thus begins Schopenhauer’s text “The Essential Imperfections of Thought,” in which he sees the most fundamental imperfection of it. Thought processes something in sequence, and in order to engage with one thing, it must leave the others out. One thought brings forth another. Something that now occupies us must soon give way to something else, and, if it is not of particular vital importance, we may never encounter it again. This imperfection often underlies the fragmentation of our thought process and its inevitable scattering.

From the form of time and the simple dimension of the sequence of representations, based on which thought, in order to perceive one, must let all the others go, follows, just like its fragmentation, also its forgetfulness. In his text “On Genius,” he sees genius as an “unnatural” state, as a thought that has remained unfaithful to its natural purpose, which is to capture the relationships of things to the will.

The thought of the ordinary person is driven by will and is directed at serving the subjective purposes of the individual; genius, on the contrary, consists of a superior thought that has detached itself from will and seeks with its own energy to understand the objective world, without individual purpose, aimlessly, a perceptive capacity, that is, significantly more advanced than what is required to serve the will, which constitutes the natural purpose of thought. Genius is also differentiated from talent, and various other gradations of intelligence are examined.