Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788 – 1860)
German philosopher, contemporary and opponent of Hegel. He built on the transcendental idealism of Kant and proposed a philosophical world view later characterised as philosophical pessimism, at the core of which, the world is not a rational place. His philosophy includes important ideas of Indian philosophy such as asceticism and denial of self. His major and most famous work is The World as Will and Representation (1819).
Following Kant, Schopenhauer also thought that the human mind is incapable of knowing the ultimate (noumenal) reality, and that the only reality we are capable of grasping is the phenomenal world (which has passed through the grid work of space and time and through the categories of understanding). So, for Schopenhauer, the external world exists only as a phenomenal representation, as encapsulated in the very first sentence of his seminal work: “The world is my representation”.
However, according to Schopenhauer, the noumenal world behind appearances does not contain higher concepts and beings such as God, goodness, justice or immortality. He thought that phenomenal appearances do have a basis in the noumenal world and that they key to it is the human body (a link between the two worlds):
When we become conscious of our bodies, we realise that its essential qualities are endless wanting, craving, desiring and striving
These qualities characterise the “Will” – a wild, irrational, self-determining, unconscious and almighty persistent force that is the noumenal world
The Will, in its insatiable wanting, creates and destroys everything in its path, as it always wants more. A good way to think of the Will is through images of sex and violence. For Schopenhauer, both in nature and in the human sphere, all actions are intentionally and unintentionally, motivated by procreation and destruction
There is no God to be comprehended, and the world is inherently meaningless, endlessly striving for nothing in particular, as it goes nowhere.
The world of daily human life is essentially violent, frustrating and full of suffering.
For Schopenhauer, everything in the phenomenal world is a manifestation of the Will. The process of the Will passing through the categories of space, time and understanding is called the “objectification of the Will”. In this process, the human mind denatures the Will and deceives itself on the real nature of the world, the product of which is human optimism, hope and belief in happiness.
Human culture (art, religion, philosophy, science, etc) is also a product of the deception (Schopenhauer terms it the “sublimation”) of the Will.
There is also no freedom, aa s person’s actions are a necessary consequence of motives and the given character of the individual. People might be able to do what they want, but their wants are not decided by them.
Schopenhauer’s conclusion is that the daily world of human life is essentially violent, frustrating and full of suffering, as people keep striving and wanting what they can’t have. His solution is the negation of the Will, which brings about peace and tranquility. He proposes a few ways to negate, or transcend the Will:- Aesthetic perception: disinterested contemplation of purely formal arts, particularly music without words and imagery.
Moral awareness that transcends bodily individuality: one should minimise desires of the flesh, treat others kindly, refrain from violence, reduce suffering in the world, avoid egoism and revenge, and practice compassion.
An ascetic lifestyle, which can bring about a life without-willing (a “will-less state”); a blissful and empty state, where a more universal manifestation of the Will overpowers the individual one (similar to Buddhist teachings) .