What is a drunkard?
“Consider a person, pour in it five or six liters of beer, and you will get a drunkard,” Schopenhauer used to say to the pupils of his course on Pessimism at the University of Jena. It was such a phrase that the Master often used to say, and every time the pupils were wondering if their teacher was very deep or very drunk.
Actually, Schopenhauer wanted to say that any of us is a potential drunkard. Naturally, being drunk, he needed the comparison with the beer, to give an idea of the drunkenness. If he had been sober, he would have used different words, and he would not have laid down on the desk.
As a matter of fact, the philosopher used to wonder, what is a drunkard? And, I think, some of you have already addressed themselves the same question. A drunkard is not, obviously, one who drinks. All of us drink. Neither he is one who drinks a lot. Camels drink a lot, but I have never seen one thrown out from a pub.
Schopenhauer, for example, is used to give this definition for a drunkard: “A drunkard is that person who, after drinking a lot of wine, beer, or alcoholic drinks, at the end of the evening sees two barmen behind the counter“. Actually, that is an erroneous definition, Hobbes pointed him out. What if, for example, a barman and a barmaid are serving behind the counter, do all the customers of the pub have to be considered drunk? Obviously they don’t. Thus, the exact definition for Hobbes is: “A drunkard is that person who, after drinking a lot of wine, beer and treacle, sees, at the end of the evening, twice the barmen he saw before.”
Not mentioning the fact that Hobbes, as you have noticed, puts the word ‘treacle’ instead of alcoholic drinks, that is not ontologically correct, since it corresponds to a subjective taste, it is hard to see how this definition can be considered correct. “As a matter of fact”, Shopenhauer criticizes, “the theory of the double is absurd. Let us consider that at the beginning, when the becoming drunk starts to drink, only the barman is serving at the counter, and the barmaid is sweeping the back of the pub. At the end of the evening the drunkard will not see barman plus barman: but two barmen and two barmaids, that is four times the starting number. Furthermore, one who goes to the pub to have fun, cannot start counting the number of barmen all the time to realize whether he is drunk.”
The Schopenhauer’s critique is very fierce, certainly, but in re ipsa unacceptable, at least up to this point.
“Hobbes,” Schopenhauer follows, “may continue in his vain search for a mathematical definition of the essence of drunkenness. Actually, he is a treacle drinker, and hence he should restrict himself to talking of children’s books. However, if the definition of a drunkard may be attempted, I would suggest the following: “Drunkard is that person who, after drinking a lot of wine, or beer, or fernet, or alcoholic drinks, cannot stand on one leg and with arms wide open, and walk on an imaginary straight line.”Unshakeable definition, which nevertheless you may find some weakness in. And that did not escape Hobbes, who used to say that ‘in love and philosophy anything is allowed’, as his schoolgirls well knew. He attacked Schopenhauer’s construction with the heavy blow of his dialectic. He firstly pointed out the presence of the word ‘fernet’ 
in the Master’s speech. “Obviously”, Hobbes wrote, “in the room where by now he lives shut, Schopenhauer has found a bottle of fernet, and that has seriously deviated his methodological perspective; as a matter of fact his last definition is a masterpiece of formality, without any matter. Let us consider the fact of ’standing on one leg and with arms wide open’. It is fair that few civilized persons have ever been in such a position. And yet I don’t think they have to be considered drunk. Neither the Pope, I believe, could stand on one leg and with arms wide open. Is Schopenhauer insinuating some anticlericalism? And hence, how do have we to think this principle works? Must one get in a pub jumping on one leg, to prove he is sober? And he will be so as long as he is able to stay in that position? And if he puts the other foot on the ground, will he be considered drunk since then? And how should he manage to drink if he has to stay with his arms wide open? Schopenhauer answer to this question, and I shall present him a bottle of brandy. Moreover, what does “imaginary straight line” mean? It is obvious that if we give space to the imagination, the scientific rigour goes to hell. And what if I cannot imagine a straight line, but only naked girls? And, even if I can imagine it, who will tell me that it is straigh, and that fantasy has not played funny tricks on me, and I am spending the whole night walking on a circumference? I think I have made myself clear, although ruthless.
I propose then the following last definition, which I consider perfect: ‘A drunkard is one who, after drinking a lot of wine, or beer, or treacle, gets out from the self‘.”Short, enlightening definition, which nevertheless, as you can imagine, may not entirely satisfy a superior mind. “In fact”, wrote Schopehauer, “it seems we are becoming ridicolous. The sentence ‘gets out from the self’ is a masterpiece of stupidity. Gets out from the self? And where does he go? And if he gets out from the self, does he leave inside all that he has drunk? But then he is not drunk anymore. And if he takes what he has drunk with him, what will the first self say? And the barman, who is going to ask for paying? The new self, the old abandoned self, or both? I hope that is not an excuse to drink for free behind workers’ back.
“However, I grant a last chance for the discussion. Not for Hobbes, who is too busy in philosophical talks, but for all who care about the civil dialectic dispute. I will say then that ‘a drunkard is a person who has drunk really, but really really a lot of wine, beer and alcoholic drinks‘.”
I think that the Master’s definition doesn’t need any comment. That time, Hobbes agreed as well and paid for a drink.