|
In the early part of the 19th century, Europe was a mess. The Battle of Waterloo had been fought and lost, and millions of strong men had died. Millions of acres of land had been laid waste. There was poverty and uncleanliness all around.
It was after the influence of Hume, Kant, Liebnitz, and Voltaire, and while Hegel was still around. Nietzsche was still to come. Arthur Schopenhauer was born at Danzig on February 22, 1788.
His father was a rich merchant who tried to push Arthur in the family business, but Arthur was not interested. His mother was a talented and successful novelist but seemed to have little affection for Arthur.
They all moved to Hamburg in 1793 because of the annexation of Danzig to Prussia, and Arthur had an international education. His father, however, had a mental breakdown and committed suicide in 1805, and Arthur had terrible fights with his mother, who seemed to be jealous of Arthur's brilliance. She took to free love and moved to Weimar. When she once pushed Arthur down some stairs, he bitterly informed her that she would be known to posterity only through him.
Schopenhauer may have thought he was the greatest philosopher since Kant, but the world did not recognize him immediately. When he was favored with an appointment at the University of Berlin, he scheduled his lectures at the same times as Hegel's. Nobody, then, came to his lectures.
With no mother, no wife, no child, no family, no friends, and no country; Arthur worked on his manuscript, "The World as Will and Idea." When it was published, it fell flat. Rather than taking this gracefully, as did Hume when something similar happened to him, Schopenhauer struck out against those who could have helped him, academicians, other philosophers, especially Hegel and Hegelians, and anybody who would normally be interested in books about philosophy. He contented himself with the rationalization that only a few people would be advanced enough to appreciate his work, and he kept on publishing smaller works based on his larger manuscript. Eventually, a book of essays did have some success and people became interested, through it, in his earlier works. Very late in life, Schopenhauer did finally receive recognition.
These days, the name Schopenhauer is synonymous with pessimism. His philosophy appeals to those who are sick of the naive optimism of so many and want some honest criticism as an antidote. "The World as Will and Idea" provides that. Schopenhauer's idealism is not the most original. It is a rehash of Kant. He talks about the phenomena and how matter is only available to us through the mind.
| No truth therefore is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, that all exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole world, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver, in a word, idea. |
|
Kant distinguished between the noumena, which he claimed was the ultimate unknowable reality, and the phenomena, the appearance of that reality, that which we perceive. Schopenhauer went further and maintained we can know the noumena. The noumena is will.
Kant spoke of will in his ethical philosophy, that it was the will which was good, regardless of the consequences. One doesn't do good because one expects rewards or wishes to avoid punishment. Kant's theory of ethics is one of duty. So, even if what one does causes harm, if the intention, the will, was to do one's moral duty, the act was moral. The will is also not attached to physical causes and effects. It is free. Well, Schopenhauer goes further with this and makes will the essence behind everything.
What is will but a driving force? It can be gravity or any energy. It may not be the same as consciousness, but it underlies consciousness. Hume contemplated cause and effect as two distinct events which we try to connect, that the will to throw a stone and the throwing of that stone are cause and effect. But, Schopenhauer insists this is a mistake. The willing and throwing are the same but known under two aspects. The body is nothing but objectified will.
| The act of will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same, but they are given in entirely different ways,--immediately, and again in perception. ...The action of the body is nothing but the act of the will objectified. This is true of every movement of the body; ...the whole body is nothing but objectified will. ...The parts of the body must therefore completely correspond to the principal desires through which the will manifests itself; they must be the visible expression of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified sexual desire. ...The whole nervous system constitutes the antennae of the will, which it stretches within and without. ...As the human body generally corresponds to the human will generally, so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the individually modified will, the character of the individual. |
|
Okay, now we get to the pessimistic part. Once it is established the will is the essence of everything, Schopenhauer declares reality to be fundamentally evil.
| All willing arises from want, therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it; yet for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten which are denied. Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. But even the final satisfaction is itself only apparent; every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new one; both are illusions; the one is known to be so, the other not yet. No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification; it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. The basis of all willing is need, deficiency, and thus pain. Consequently, the nature of brutes and man is subject to pain originally and through its very being. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of desire, because it is at once deprived of them by a too easy satisfaction, a terrible void and boredom comes over it, i.e., its being and existence itself becomes an unbearable burden to it. Thus its life swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards between pain and boredom. |
|
We could go on and on thinking of how dismal things can be. We are born; we struggle, we achieve some measure of success in reaching our goals, then we die. Life sucks! Kierkegaard had an example of how boredom makes the world go around. God was bored, so he made man. Man was bored, so God made Eve. Adam and Eve were bored, so they had children. Soon, the entire population of the world got bored, so they had wars. Boredom must be, then, the motivating force behind everything.
Most people are unhappy when we get to know them. They may have a public face, but it hides all sorts of torment, if they have really been involved in life. Perhaps young people are optimistic until they see what lies on the other side of the mountain. Life for millions of people is factory work for most of one's waking hours.
Is there any alleviation? Schopenhauer spoke of contemplating art as will-less perception. One can enjoy a painting or a play. (A play, however, brings down the curtain before one sees that happy endings don't really last long.) Music was Schopenhauer's choice for the highest form of art.
Schopenhauer was not religious. He only admired Christianity for it denunciation of human nature and advocacy of compassion for others. He was more interested in the Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Some interpretations of Buddhism can also be ascetic, denying the self because willing is the source of all unhappiness and suffering.
How does Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy compare and contrast with NickOtani'sNeo-Objectivism? Hey, reality doesn't have to be optimistic nor pessimistic. It just is. We make it meaningful through our choices and projects. Yes, there are problems along the way. They are challenges. They keep things from getting boring. Certainly, NickOtani'sNeo-Objectivism does not think selfishness is evil, does not advocate self denial nor asceticism, but neither does it advocate happiness through materialistic extravagance. There is reason and balance where foreseeable. There is risk taking where willed. There is always respect for the will of others but not subjugation to them. We are free to forge our own paths within the parameters of allowing others to do the same.
Schopenhauer was a lonely man who saw a depressed Europe and had some bad experiences. Other people have been through worse but still radiated not the happiness of a fool, but the satisfaction of a proud person who holds his or her head up high, bloody but unbowed.
bis bald,
Nick
|