ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
From Modern Philosophy: Essential Selections, by James Fieser
Home: https://storage.googleapis.com/jfieser/316/Index.html
2008, updated 1/1/2024, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
The World as Representation
The World as Will
Aesthetics
Ethics
Essays
Study Questions
INTRODUCTION
Born in Danzig, Poland, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was the son of a successful merchant. He travelled throughout Europe with his father, where he attended schools in several countries, learning their languages. At age 17, his father died of suicide, and his mother, inheriting his wealth, became a socialite and introduced Schopenhauer to prominent writers of his time. He entered university first studying medicine but switching to philosophy, and at age 25 received his doctorate degree from the University of Jenna. At age 30 he had a fallout with his mother, and she instructed him to not contact her again. He taught briefly at the University of Berlin, but was unable to compete with the following that Hegel had there. His private life was an unhappy one, and he was sued by his seamstress after he beat her when she was talking loudly in the stairway to his apartment. During a cholera outbreak in Berlin in 1831 that took Hegel's life, Schopenhauer escaped to Frankfurt where he remained until his death at age 72 from a head injury. It is only during the final decade of his life that his philosophy achieved widespread recognition. Being one of the first major philosophers to be photographed, his images circulated widely among his admirers.
Schopenhauer's philosophy is distinguished by its atheism and pessimistic view that all life is driven by the blind impulse of a cosmic will, which has no goal other than to continue the cycles of life. He argues that our individual lives are dominated by suffering that results from this process, and, following Hindu philosophy, we are only insignificant and illusory parts of the larger cosmic reality. Our life efforts are mere distractions from this despair, and we gain nothing of value from them. The only escape from this, he maintains, is through art and morality. Works of art console us and connect us with the true inner nature of the cosmos, and morality enables us to move beyond our private desires and sympathize with others. The selections here develop these themes and are from Schopenhauer's three main works.
First is his doctoral dissertation, The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813), in which he argues that everything is determined, including human action. The principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is a longstanding concept in the history of philosophy that "nothing is without a reason for its being", that is, everything has a sufficient explanation for what it is or does. Schopenhauer's insight is that there are four distinct applications of this principle, which he calls the four roots: (1) causal judgments about empirical objects, (2) logical judgments about true and false concepts, (3) arithmetical inferences about space and time, and (4) motives behind human actions. Corresponding to each of these, there is a necessity at the physical, logical, mathematical and moral levels of human thought. Each of these four types of necessity typically play out independently of each other in their own realms of science. Schopenhauer intends his PSR theory to be an improvement over Kant's philosophy. Kant's central position is that our judgments about the world are shaped by synthetic a priori intuitions (space-time) and concepts (categories). That is, according to Kant, we never experience the external world as it is in itself, but we only form our thoughts of the world through these built-in mental patterns. For Schopenhauer, however, the PSR in its four forms is a better explanation of our mind's synthetic a priori principles than is Kant's scheme of space-time and the 12 categories. Thus, when Schopenhauer speaks of the PSR throughout his writings, it is helpful to think of it as an updated version of Kant. As such, PSR is about the phenomenal world and how our minds process sensory input data, and is not about the objects in themselves in the inaccessible noumenal realm.
Schopenhauer's longest and most important work is his World as Will and Representation, first published in 1818 and doubling in size in the 1844 and 1859 editions. The over-arching theme of the book is presented in its title. Suppose I look at a tree, where I am the subject and the tree is the object. As the subject, my true inner nature is that of a will that exists outside of space and time as a thing-in-itself. By contrast, as the object, the tree exists in space and time as only a representation or projection shaped through the PRS; it is a perceptual construction, not a thing-in-itself. The world is some kind of interplay between me as an unknowable will, and perceptual representations like trees. Accordingly, the book's title, "The World as Will and Representation", indicates that, first, the world is just a giant cosmic will, and, second, everything that we as humans can say about the world is restricted to perceptual representations as shaped by the PSR. The work is in four books, on the topics of (1) perceptual representation, (2) the blind will of the cosmos, (3) aesthetics as a means of encountering the blind will, and (4) ethics as a means of adjusting personal behavior with the blind will.
Book 1 is titled "The World as Representation", and his first main point is that our knowledge of the world is restricted to how it is represented in the mind of the perceiving subject, particularly as it is shaped through the PSR. In Kantian terminology, what we know about the world is at it appears in the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal realm of things in themselves. Schopenhauer uses the German term "Vorstellung" which English translators have variously rendered as "representation", "presentation," and "idea". His point is that the world as we perceive it is like a theatrical production within the stage of our minds, as shaped by the PSR. The second point is that, for the world to be represented to me (for example with my perception of a tree), there are two inseparable components: (1) the represented object as I perceive it through the PSR in space and time, and (2) me as subject, where my inner nature is the will of the cosmos that does not exist within space and time. The third point is that my personal understanding of the world around me does not begin with me perceiving something like a tree, but, rather, it begins with an awareness of my own body. However, he says, my body which gives me perceptions of the world, is itself only a representation. The history of philosophy has inadequately addressed this relation between the subject and object, such as materialists who try to move from object to subject, and idealists such as Fichte who try to move in the reverse direction from subject to object.
Book 2 is titled "The World as Will", and this is where Schopenhauer develops the view that the will of the cosmos is a blind impulse that creates endless suffering for individuals. The starting point for this position is again my understanding of my own body which I experience in a double aspect: (1) my body is objectively a thing, which I experience as a representation, and (2) my body is subjectively a will insofar as my bodily actions follow my motives. The unique thing about this experience is that my body is the only thing I directly know that is both representation and will. However, there is a larger lesson from this double experience of my body: when I understand that my will is central to my body, I will then recognize that will is the center of all bodies in nature. Schopenhauer is proposing a theory that we now call "panpsychism", that is, everything that exists, even the smallest speck of dust, has an element of mind in it, which for Schopenhauer is the will to live. This, he argues, is evidently the case with biological organisms like plants and animals, but it is also true of so-called inanimate objects like crystals, magnetic rocks and even gravity. The Will, existing as thing in itself, is a single will of the cosmos, but as we experience it in space and time it has multiple appearances, such as my will, your will, the tree's will. He thus refers to space and time as "the Principle of Individuation", that is, the source of plurality and the principle by which we distinguish one thing from another. Accordingly, the will within me is both a microcosm of me as an individual, and a macrocosm of the whole world. As an individual, it appears as though my will as a microcosm that has purpose, as when I go to work each day to earn a living. But my will as a macrocosm of the universe (as thing in itself) has no such purpose: it is only an endless striving that is groundless with no final goal. On closer inspection, though, even the endeavors of our individual wills are groundless, since as soon as we attain them, they are ignored or thrown aside as vanished illusions. Schopenhauer expands on this point in Supplement 28, one of the most famous parts of his book. Drawing on examples from biology and the preservation of the species, he argues that we are like puppets, and the blind will to life is the set of strings that move us.
Book 3 is on the subject of aesthetics, which is a study of the pleasure that we experience when contemplating works of art. Aesthetic pleasure holds a special place in Schopenhauer's philosophy as a path for discovering eternal truths of the will of the cosmos. Throughout his discussion, there are two sides to experiencing art. First is the subjective side where I become a "will-less" observer of a painting, or, as Kant would say, I view it without any interest in the object itself. Second is the objective side where my experience of the painting is a glimpse of the true timeless reality of the cosmos which we are all a part of. Thus, when I experience the beauty of a painting, for a moment I enter something like a mystical state where, subjectively, I lose my identity and become will-less, and, objectively, I experience timeless truths of the cosmos. He begins his discussion with the objective and timeless side of the experience and ties this in with both Kant and Plato. For Kant, the "thing in itself" of the cosmos is beyond space and time, and for Plato the Forms, or eternal truths of the cosmos, are also beyond space and time. For Schopenhauer, the thing in itself and the Platonic Forms are essentially the same timeless reality. Thus, when I experience the aesthetic pleasure of the painting, I am encountering the cosmic will as thing in itself and its Platonic Forms (eternal truths). Nevertheless, I can never grasp these truths directly insofar as I am still a phenomenal individual who is locked within the illusory realm of space and time. In the selections here, Schopenhauer refers to the Platonic forms as "Ideas" (with a capital "I"), from the Greek "eidos" which is one of the terms that Plato used to designate the Forms. Of all the arts, Schopenhauer argues, music is the one that best expresses the world's inner nature and the Platonic Forms, since everyone instantly understands it and the rules of music can be expressed numerically. Still, with all works of art, the pleasure we experience from their beauty allows us to briefly forget about the constant misery that is produced by the cosmic will.
Book 4 is on ethical subjects, and begins with a discussion of free will and determinism. Schopenhauer's view on this follows from everything he's said so far about the nature of individual people (in the phenomenal realm) vs. the thing in itself (in the noumenal realm). Thus, a person's phenomenal character is fully constrained by necessity (PSR), but one's inner nature as thing in itself is timeless, unconstrained and thus free. Like Kant and Hegel, his notion of "freedom" is not the liberty to do whatever we want, as we commonly understand the concept today. With Schopenhauer, freedom simply means the absence of necessity (PSR) that characterizes the phenomenal realm. Thus, he says, "freedom" for the thing itself is a purely negative concept. However, he says, there is a way that I can achieve a partial freedom within my individual phenomenal existence, and that is through self-renunciation. Through knowledge of the Platonic Forms, I see through the necessity that shapes the entire phenomenal world of space and time. Turning next to morality, he argues that morality is not based on abstract knowledge, as Kant maintains, but instead upon intuitive awareness of our shared inner nature. When we become aware of this shared inner nature, we will have sympathy for the suffering of others and see it as our own, and this is the motivation for good deeds. Just as this awareness of our shared inner nature motivates me towards kindness, it also moves me towards self-renunciation. I thus adopt an ascetic life by which I see the world of space and time as an illusion and resist the urges of my own individuality. The distinction between myself and other people thus blurs, and I take on the suffering of the world in my own life. Finally, he discusses suicide. Considering Schopenhauer's view of the world as a blind impulse that creates perpetual suffering, we might think that he would endorse suicide as an acceptable way out. But he does not, since there is something inherently contradictory in what the suicidal person does. While he may attempt to put an end to his individual phenomenal life, the effort is futile since the underlying life as thing in itself remains. It is like a person waging war against himself. The solution to suffering is not suicide, but self-conquest.
The final group of selections are three essays from Schopenhauer's work Parerga (1851), which, written for general readership, was so well received that it brought him almost overnight fame. The essay "On the Sufferings of the World" describes the relentless nature of suffering and how it should make us tolerant to others as fellow suffers. The essay "Pantheism" describes a conceptual flaw within that concept, and highlights why Schopenhauer's philosophy is atheistic, rather than a religious pantheism like Hegel's. Pantheism assumes that the creator God is himself the world of infinite torment, which essentially makes the cosmos the devil, and this, for Schopenhauer, is absurd. Finally, the essay "Immortality: A Dialogue" analyzes our drive for individual immortality and concludes that the cry for existence is really that of the universal will to live, not of me as an individual.
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON (The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, 1813)
What is the Principle of Sufficient Reason?
4. Importance of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [the Mother of all Sciences]
Its importance is indeed very great, since it may truly be called the basis of all science. For by science we understand a system of notions, i.e. a totality of connected, as opposed to a mere aggregate of disconnected, notions. But what is it that binds together the members of a system, if not the Principle of Sufficient Reason? That which distinguishes every science from a mere aggregate is precisely, that its notions are derived one from another as from their reason. So it was long ago observed by Plato: "All knowledge which is intellectual or partakes somewhat of intellect, deals with causes and principles." Nearly every science, moreover, contains notions of causes from which the effects may be deduced, and likewise other notions of the necessity of conclusions from reasons, as will be seen during the course of this inquiry. Aristotle has expressed this as follows: "All knowledge which is intellectual or partakes somewhat of intellect, deals with causes and principles." Now, as it is this very assumption a priori that all things must have their reason, which authorizes us everywhere to search for the why, we may safely call this why the mother of all science.
5. The Principle Itself ["Nothing is without a reason for its being"]
We purpose showing further on that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is an expression common to several a priori notions. Meanwhile, it must be stated under some formula or other. I choose Wolf's as being the most comprehensive: Nihil est sine ratione cur potius sit, quam non sit. Nothing is without a reason for its being. . . .
14. On the Proofs of the Principle [Attempts to Prove it are Circular]
We have still to record various fruitless attempts which have been made to prove the Principle of Sufficient Reason, mostly without clearly defining in which sense it was taken. . . . To seek a proof for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, is, moreover, an especially flagrant absurdity, which shows a lack of reflection. Every proof is a demonstration of the reason for a judgment which has been pronounced, and which receives the predicate true in virtue precisely of that demonstration. This necessity for a reason is exactly what the Principle of Sufficient Reason expresses. Now if we require a proof of it, or, in other words, a demonstration of its reason, we thereby already assume it to be true, indeed, we found our demand precisely upon that assumption, and thus we find ourselves involved in the circle of exacting a proof of our right to exact a proof. . . .
16. The Roots of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [Based on Four Classes of Representations]
The relations upon which it is founded, and which will be more closely indicated in this treatise, are what I call the Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now, on closer inspection, according to the laws of homogeneity and of specification, these relations separate into distinct species, which differ widely from each other. Their number, however, may be reduced to four, according to the four classes into which everything that can become an object for us that is to say, all our representations may be divided. These classes will be stated and considered in the following four chapters.
We shall see the Principle of Sufficient Reason appear under a different form in each of them; but it will also show itself under all as the same principle and as derived from the said root, precisely because it admits of being expressed as above. . . .
First Class: PSR of Becoming, Concerns Empirical Objects and their Causal Necessity
17. General Account of this Class of Objects [i.e., Appearances of Empirical Objects]
The first class of objects possible to our representative faculty, is that of intuitive, complete, empirical representations. They are intuitive as opposed to mere thoughts, i.e. abstract conceptions; they are complete, inasmuch as, according to Kant's distinction, they not only contain the formal, but also the material part of phenomena; and they are empirical, partly as proceeding, not from a mere connection of thoughts, but from an excitation of feeling in our sensitive organism, as their origin, to which they constantly refer for evidence as to their reality: partly also because they are linked together, according to the united laws of Space, Time and Causality, in that complex without beginning or end which forms our Empirical Reality. As, nevertheless, according to the result of Kant's teaching, this Empirical Reality does not annul their Transcendental Ideality, we shall consider them here, where we have only to do with the formal elements of knowledge, merely as representations.
20. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming [i.e., the Law of Causality]
In the Class of Objects for the Subject just described, the principle of sufficient reason figures as the Law of Causality, and, as such, I call it the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming, principium rationis sufficients fiendi. By it, all objects presenting themselves within the entire range of our representation are linked together, as far as the appearance and disappearance of their states is concerned, i.e. in the movement of the current of Time, to form the complex of empirical reality. . . . The law of causality is the regulator of the changes undergone in Time by objects of our outer experience; but these objects are all material. Each change can only be brought about by another having preceded it, which is determined by a rule, and then the new change takes place as being necessarily induced by the preceding one. This necessity is the causal nexus. . . .
21. A priori character of the conception of Causality [i.e., Kantian Synthetic A Priori Principles]
In the professorial philosophy of our philosophy-professors we are still taught to this day, that perception of the outer world is a thing of the senses, and then there follows a long dissertation upon each of the five senses: whereas no mention whatever is made of the intellectual character of perception: that is to say, of the fact, that it is mainly the work of the Understanding, which, by means of its own unique form of Causality, together with the forms of pure sensibility, Time and Space, which are postulated by Causality, primarily creates and produces the objective, outer world out of the raw material of a few sensations. . . .
24. Of the Misapplication of the Law of Causality. [Causality restricted to Changes in the Empirical World]
From the foregoing exposition it follows, that the application of the causal law to anything but changes in the material, empirically given world, is an abuse of it. For instance, it is a misapplication to make use of it with reference to physical forces, without which no changes could take place; or to Matter, on which they take place; or to the world, to which we must in that case attribute an absolutely objective existence independently of our intellect; indeed in many other cases besides. I refer the reader to what I have said on this subject in my chief work. Such misapplications always arise, partly, through our taking the conception of cause, like many other metaphysical and ethical conceptions, in far too wide a sense; partly, through our forgetting that the causal law is certainly a presupposition which we bring with us into the world, by which the perception of things outside us becomes possible; but that, just on that account, we are not authorized in extending beyond the range and independently of our cognitive faculty a principle, which has its origin in the equipment of that faculty, nor in assuming it to hold good as the everlasting order of the universe and of all that exists.
Second Class: PSR of Knowing, Concerns Concepts or Judgments and their Logical Necessity
[T]hinking does not consist in the bare presence of abstract conceptions in our consciousness, but rather in connecting or separating two or more of these conceptions under different restrictions and modifications which Logic indicates in the Theory of Judgments. A relation of this sort between conceptions distinctly thought and expressed we call a judgment. Now, with reference to these judgments, the Principle of Sufficient Reason here once more holds good, yet in a widely different form from that which has been explained in the preceding chapter; for here it appears as the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing, principium rationis sufficientis cognoscendi. As such, it asserts that if a judgment is to express knowledge of any kind, it must have a sufficient reason: in virtue of which quality it then receives the predicate true. . . .
34. Reason [i.e., Only Humans, not Animals, make Rational Judgments]
As the class of representations I have dealt with in this chapter belongs exclusively to Man, and as all that distinguishes human life so forcibly from that of animals and confers so great a superiority on man, is, as we have shown, based upon his faculty for these representations, this faculty evidently and unquestionably constitutes that Reason, which from time immemorial has been reputed the prerogative of mankind. Likewise all that has been considered by all nations and in all times explicitly as the work or manifestation of the Reason . . . may evidently also be reduced to what is only possible for abstract, discursive, reflective, mediate knowledge, conditioned by words, and not for mere intuitive, immediate, sensuous knowledge, which belongs to animals also.
35. Explanation of this Class of Objects [i.e., A Priori Intuitions of Space and Time]
It is the formal part of complete representations that is to say, the intuitions given us a priori of the forms of the outer and inner sense, i.e. of Space and of Time which constitutes the Third Class of Objects for our representative faculty. . . .
Space and Time are so constituted, that all their parts stand in mutual relation, so that each of them conditions and is conditioned by another. We call this relation in Space, position; in Time, succession. These relations are unique ones, differing entirely from all other possible relations of our representations; neither the Understanding nor the Reason are therefore able to grasp them by means of mere conceptions, and pure intuition a priori alone makes them intelligible to us; for it is impossible by mere conceptions to explain clearly what is meant by above and below, right and left, behind and before, before and after. . . .
The position of each division of Space towards any other, say of any given line and this is equally applicable to planes, bodies, and points determines also absolutely its totally different position with reference to any other possible line; so that the latter position stands to the former in the relation of the consequent to its reason. As the position of this given line towards any other possible line likewise determines its position towards all the others, and as therefore the position of the first two lines is itself determined by all the others, it is immaterial which we consider as being first determined and determining the others, i.e. which particular one we regard as ratio and which others as rationata. . . .
38. Reason of being in Time. Arithmetic
Every instant in Time is conditioned by the preceding one. The Sufficient Reason of Being, as the law of consequence, is so simple here, because Time has only one dimension, therefore it admits of no multiplicity of relations. Each instant is conditioned by its predecessor; we can only reach it through that predecessor: only so far as this was and has elapsed, does the present one exist. All counting rests upon this nexus of the divisions of Time, numbers only serving to mark the single steps in the succession; upon it therefore rests all arithmetic likewise, which teaches absolutely nothing but methodical abbreviations of numeration. Each number pre-supposes its predecessors as the reasons of its being: we can only reach the number ten by passing through all the preceding numbers, and it is only in virtue of this insight that I know, that where ten are, there also are eight, six, four. . . .
Fourth Class: PSR of Willing, Concerns Motive as a Necessary Cause of Action
40. General Explanation [i.e., the Will acts in Time, not in Space]
The last Class of Objects for our representative faculty which remains to be examined is a unique but highly important one. It comprises but one object for each individual: that is, the immediate object of the inner sense, the Subject in volition, which is Object for the Knowing Subject; thus it manifests itself in Time alone, never in Space, and as we shall see, even in Time under an important restriction. . . .
43. Willing. The Law of Motives [i.e., We Inwardly see the Motivating Causes behind our Actions]
At every resolution that we take ourselves, or that we see others take, we deem ourselves justified in asking, why? That is, we assume that something must have previously occurred, from which this resolution has resulted, and we call this something its reason, or, more correctly, the motive of the action which now follows. Without such a reason or motive, the action is just as inconceivable for us, as the movement of a lifeless body without being pushed or pulled.
Motives therefore belong to causes, and have also been already numbered and characterized among them in 20, as the third form of Causality. But all Causality is only the form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in the First Class of Objects: that is, in the corporeal world given us in external perception. There it forms the link which connects changes one with another, the cause being that which, coming from outside, conditions each occurrence. The inner nature of such occurrences on the contrary continues to be a mystery for us: for we always remain on the outside. We certainly see this cause necessarily produce that effect; but we do not learn how it is actually enabled to do so, or what is going on inside. Thus we see mechanical, physical, chemical effects, as well as those brought about by stimuli, in each instance follow from their respective causes without on that account ever completely understanding the process, the essential part of which remains a mystery for us; so we attribute it to qualities of bodies, to forces of Nature, or to vital energy, which, however, are all qualitates occult .
Nor should we be at all better off as to comprehension of the movements and actions of animals and of human beings, which would also appear to us as induced in some unaccountable way by their causes (motives), were it not that here we are granted an insight into the inward part of the process; we know, that is, by our own inward experience, that this is an act of the will called forth by the motive, which consists in a mere representation. Thus the effect produced by the motive, unlike that produced by all other causes, is not only known by us from outside, in a merely indirect way, but at the same time from inside, quite directly, and therefore according to its whole mode of action. Here we stand as it were behind the scenes, and learn the secret of the process by which cause produces effect in its most inward nature; for here our knowledge comes to us through a totally different channel and in a totally different way. From this results the important proposition: The action of motives (motivation) is causality seen from within. Here accordingly causality presents itself in quite a different way, in quite a different medium, and for quite another kind of knowledge; therefore it must now be exhibited as a special and unique form of our principle, which consequently here presents itself as the Principle of the Sufficient Reason of Acting, principium rationis sufficientis agendi, or, more briefly, as the Law of Motives (Law of Motivation). . . .
General Observations and Results
49. Necessity
There exists accordingly a fourfold necessity, in conformity with the four forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason:
1. Logical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, in virtue of which, when once we have admitted the premises, we must absolutely admit the conclusion.
2. Physical necessity, according to the law of causality, in virtue of which, as soon as the cause presents itself, the effect must infallibly follow.
3. Mathematical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of being, in virtue of which, every relation which is stated in a true geometrical theorem, is as that theorem affirms it to be, and every correct calculation remains irrefutable.
4. Moral necessity, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, is compelled, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many great thinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others. . . .
As the question why always demands a sufficient reason, and as it is the connection of its notions according to the principle of sufficient reason which distinguishes science from a mere aggregate of notions, we have called that why the parent of all science ( 4). In each science, moreover, we find one of the forms of that principle predominating over the others as its guiding-thread. Thus, in pure Mathematics the reason of being is the chief guiding-thread (although the exposition of the proofs proceeds according to the reason of knowing only); in applied Mathematics the law of causality appears together with it, but in Physics, Chemistry, Geology, &c., that law entirely predominates. The principle of sufficient reason in knowing finds vigorous application throughout all the sciences, for in all of them the particular is known through the general; but in Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, and other classifying sciences, it is the chief guide and predominates absolutely. The law of motives (motivation) is the chief guide in History, Politics, Pragmatic Psychology, &c. &c., when we consider all motives and maxims, whatever they may be, as data for explaining actions but when we make those motives and maxims the object-matter of investigation from the point of view of their value and origin, the law of motives becomes the guide to Ethics. In my chief work will be found the highest classification of the sciences according to this principle.
THE WORLD AS REPRESENTATION (World as Will and Representation, Book 1)
Interconnectedness of Subject (perceiver) and Object (world)
The World as we Know it (as Object) is Restricted to what is Presented to us (as Subject)
1. "The world is my representation": this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as representation, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this: for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience: a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it. Each of these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas. However, the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable. No truth therefore is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this: that all that exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole world, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver, in a word, representation. This is obviously true of the past and the future, as well as of the present, of what is farthest off, as of what is near; for it is true of time and space themselves, in which alone these distinctions arise. All that in any way belongs or can belong to the world is inevitably thus conditioned through the subject, and exists only for the subject. The world is representation. . . .
Object and Subject are Inseparable for the World to be Represented to us
2. So then the world as representation, the only aspect in which we consider it at present, has two fundamental, necessary, and inseparable halves. The one half is the object, the forms of which are space and time, and through these multiplicity. The other half is the subject, which is not in space and time, for it is present, entire and undivided, in every percipient being. So that any one percipient being, with the object, constitutes the whole world as representation just as fully as the existing millions could do. But if this one were to disappear, then the whole world as representation would cease to be. These halves are therefore inseparable even for thought, for each of the two has meaning and existence only through and for the other, each appears with the other and vanishes with it. They limit each other immediately; where the object begins the subject ends. The universality of this limitation is shown by the fact that the essential and hence universal forms of all objects, space, time, and causality, may, without knowledge of the object, be discovered and fully known from a consideration of the subject, i.e., in Kantian language, they lie a priori in our consciousness. . . .
Our Bodies, which give us Perceptions of the World, is Itself only a Presentation
6. For the present, however, in this first book we consider everything merely as representation, as object for the subject. Our own body, which is the starting-point for each of us in our perception of the world, we consider, like all other real objects, from the side of its knowableness, and in this regard it is simply a representation. Now the consciousness of everyone is in general opposed to the explanation of objects as mere representations, and more especially to the explanation of our bodies as such. For, the thing in itself is known to each of us immediately in so far as it appears as our own body; but in so far as it objectifies itself in the other objects of perception, it is known only indirectly. But this abstraction, this one-sided treatment, this forcible separation of what is essentially and necessarily united, is only adopted to meet the demands of our argument. Therefore, the disinclination to it must, in the meantime, be suppressed and silenced by the expectation that the subsequent treatment will correct the one-sidedness of the present one, and complete our knowledge of the nature of the world.
At present therefore the body is for us immediate object; that is to say, that representation which forms the starting-point of the subject's knowledge; because the body, with its immediately known changes, precedes the application of the law of causality, and thus supplies it with its first data. . . .
Failed Philosophical Attempts to Move from Object to Subject , or from Subject to Object
Materialism Attempted to Move from Object to Subject
7. With reference to our exposition up to this point, it must be observed that we did not start either from the object or the subject, but from the representation, which contains and presupposes them both. . . . This procedure distinguishes our philosophical method from that of all former systems. For they all start either from the object or from the subject, and therefore seek to explain the one from the other, and this according to the principle of sufficient reason. We, on the contrary, deny the validity of this principle with reference to the relation of subject and object, and confine it to the object. . . .
Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, an eternal truth, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. If we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility that is knowledge which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the uncontrollable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it.
Fichte Attempt to Move from Subject to Object
Opposed to the system we have explained, which starts from the object to derive the subject from it, is the system which starts from the subject and tries to derive the object from it. The first of these has been of frequent and common occurrence throughout the history of philosophy, but of the second we find only one example, and that a very recent one; the "philosophy of appearance" of J. G. Fichte. . . . This philosophy of Fichte, otherwise not worth mentioning, is interesting to us only as the late expression of the converse of the old materialism. For materialism was the most consistent system starting from the object, as this is the most consistent system starting from the subject. Materialism overlooked the fact that, with the simplest object, it assumed the subject also; and Fichte overlooked the fact that with the subject (whatever he may call it) he assumed the object also, for no subject is thinkable without an object. . . .
The method of our own system is entirely different in kind from these two opposite misconceptions, for we start neither from the object nor from the subject, but from the idea, as the first fact of consciousness. Its first essential, fundamental form is the antithesis of subject and object.
THE WORLD AS WILL (World as Will and Representation, Book 2)
Double Aspect of the Experience of My Body
My Body experienced as both a Presentation (objective) and a Will (subjective)
19. In the first book we were reluctantly driven to explain the human body as merely representation of the subject which knows it, like all the other objects of this world of perception. But it has now become clear that what enables us consciously to distinguish our own body from all other objects which in other respects are precisely the same, is that our body appears in consciousness in quite another way, totally different in kind from representation, and this we denote by the word will; and that it is just this double knowledge which we have of our own body that affords us information about it, about its action and movement following on motives, and also about what it experiences by means of external impressions; in a word, about what it is, not as representation, but as more than representation; that is to say, what it is in itself. None of this information have we got directly with regard to the nature, action, and experience of other real objects.
My Body is the Only Thing I Directly Know that is both Representation and Will
It is just because of this special relation to one body that the knowing subject is an individual. For regarded apart from this relation, his body is for him only a representation like all other representations. But the relation through which the knowing subject is an individual, is just on that account a relation which subsists only between him and one particular representation of all those which he has. Therefore he is conscious of this one representation, not merely as an representation, but in quite a different way as a will. Therefore, in order to understand the matter, the individual who knows must either assume that what distinguishes that one representation from others is merely the fact that his knowledge stands in this double relation to it alone; that insight in two ways at the same time is open to him only in the case of this one object of perception, and that this is to be explained not by the difference of this object from all others, but only by the difference between the relation of his knowledge to this one object, and its relation to all other objects. Or else he must assume that this object is essentially different from all others; that it alone of all objects is at once both will and representation, while the rest are only representations, i.e., only phantoms. . . .
Panpsychism: Will embedded in Every Existing Thing
The Double Aspect of my Body facilitates Understanding the Double Aspect in Everything
21. Whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction [that a person's will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal being] will find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the inmost being of the whole of nature. For he now transfers it to all those phenomena which are not given to him, like his own phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge, but only in the latter, thus merely one-sidedly as representation alone. He will recognize this will of which we are speaking not only in those phenomenal existences which exactly resemble his own, in men and animals as their inmost nature, but the course of reflection will lead him to recognize the force which germinates and vegetates in the plant, and indeed the force through which the crystal is formed, that by which the magnet turns to the north pole, the force whose shock he experiences from the contact of two different kinds of metals, the force which appears in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction, decomposition and combination, and, lastly, even gravitation, which acts so powerfully throughout matter, draws the stone to the earth and the earth to the sun, all these, I say, he will recognize as different only in their phenomenal existence, but in their inner nature as identical, as that which is directly known to him so intimately and so much better than anything else, and which in its most distinct manifestation is called will. It is this application of reflection alone that prevents us from remaining any longer at the phenomenon, and leads us to the thing in itself. Phenomenal existence is representation and nothing more. All representation, of whatever kind it may be, all object is phenomenal existence, but the will alone is a thing in itself. As such, it is throughout not representation, but completely different in kind from it; it is that of which all representation, all object, is the phenomenal appearance, the visibility, the objectification. It is the inmost nature, the kernel, of every particular thing, and also of the whole. It appears in every blind force of nature and also in the preconsidered action of man; and the great difference between these two is merely in the degree of the manifestation, not in the nature of what manifests itself. . . .
The Will (as Thing in Itself) is One, but Space and Time (the Principle of Individuation) give it Multiple Phenomenal Manifestations
23. The will as a thing in itself is quite different from its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all representation, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it; still less the forms which are subordinate to this and which collectively have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong, and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and space the principium individuationis [i.e., the principle of individuation that distinguishes one thing from another], borrowing an expression from the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw attention to this, once and for all. For it is only through the medium of time and space that what is one and the same, both according to its nature and to its concept, yet appears as different, as a multiplicity of co-existent and successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the principium individuationis, the subject of so many subtleties and disputes among the schoolmen, which may be found collected in Suarez (Disp. 5, Sect. 3). According to what has been said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. Further, it is free from all multiplicity, although its manifestations in time and space are innumerable. It is itself one, though not in the sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium individuationis, i.e., the possibility of multiplicity. Only when all this has become quite clear to us through the subsequent examination of the phenomena and different manifestations of the will, shall we fully understand the meaning of the Kantian doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but are only forms of knowing. . . .
The Will within us is both a Microcosm of the Individual Person and a Macrocosm of the whole World
29. I here conclude the second principal division of my exposition, in the hope that (so far as is possible in the case of an entirely new thought, which cannot be quite free from traces of the individuality in which it originated) I have succeeded in conveying to the reader the complete certainty that this world in which we live and have our being is in its whole nature through and through will, and at the same time through and through representation: that this representation, as such, already presupposes a form, object and subject, is therefore relative. If we ask what remains if we take away this form, and all those forms which are subordinate to it, and which express the principle of sufficient reason, the answer must be that as something entirely different in kind different from representation, this can be nothing but will, which is thus properly the thing-in-itself. Everyone finds that he himself is this will, in which the real nature of the world consists, and he also finds that he is the knowing subject, whose representation the whole world is, the world which exists only in relation to his consciousness, as its necessary supporter. Everyone is thus himself in a double aspect the whole world, the microcosm; he finds both sides whole and complete in himself. What he thus recognizes as his own real being also exhausts the being of the whole world the macrocosm. Thus the world, like man, is through and through will, and through and through representation, and nothing more than this. So we see the philosophy of Thales, which concerned the macrocosm, unite at this point with that of Socrates, which dealt with the microcosm, for the object of both is found to be the same. But all the knowledge that has been communicated in the two first books will gain greater completeness, and consequently greater certainty, from the two following books, in which I hope that several questions that have more or less distinctly arisen in the course of our work will also be sufficiently answered.
We see Goals in the Will as Phenomena, but not in the Will as Thing in Itself
In the meantime one such question may be more particularly considered, for it can only properly arise so long as one has not fully penetrated the meaning of the foregoing exposition, and may so far serve as an illustration of it. It is this: Every will is a will towards something, has an object, an end of its willing; what then is the final end, or towards what is that will striving that is exhibited to us as the being-in-itself of the world? This question rests, like so many others, upon the confusion of the thing-in-itself with the manifestation. The principle of sufficient reason, of which the law of motivation is also a form, extends only to the latter [i.e., to the manifestation], not to the former [i.e., to the thing in itself]. It is only of phenomena, of individual things, that a ground can be given, never of the will itself, nor of the Representation in which it adequately objectifies itself. So then of every particular movement or change of any kind in nature, a cause is to be sought, that is, a condition that of necessity produced it, but never of the natural force itself which is revealed in this and innumerable similar phenomena; and it is therefore simple misunderstanding, arising from lack of consideration, to ask for a cause of gravity, electricity, and so on. Only if one had somehow shown that gravity and electricity were not original special forces of nature, but only the manifestations of a more general force already known, would it be allowable to ask for the cause which made this force produce the phenomena of gravity or of electricity here. All this has been explained at length above.
The Will as Thing in Itself is an Endless Striving that is Groundless with no Final Goal
In the same way every particular act of will of a knowing individual (which is itself only a manifestation of will as the thing-in-itself) has necessarily a motive without which that act would never have occurred; but just as material causes contain merely the determination that at this time, in this place, and in this matter, a manifestation of this or that natural force must take place, so the motive determines only the act of will of a knowing being, at this time, in this place, and under these circumstances, as a particular act, but by no means determines that that being wills in general or wills in this manner; this is the expression of his intelligible character, which, as will itself, the thing-in-itself, is without ground, for it lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason. Therefore every man has permanent aims and motives by which he guides his conduct, and he can always give an account of his particular actions. But if he were asked why he wills at all, or why in general he wills to exist, he would have no answer, and the question would indeed seem to him meaningless; and this would be just the expression of his consciousness that he himself is nothing but will, whose willing stands by itself and requires more particular determination by motives only in its individual acts at each point of time.
In fact, freedom from all aim, from all limits, belongs to the nature of the will, which is an endless striving. This was already touched on above in the reference to centrifugal force. It also discloses itself in its simplest form in the lowest grade of the objectification of will, in gravitation, which we see constantly exerting itself, though a final goal is obviously impossible for it. For if, according to its will, all existing matter were collected in one mass, yet within this mass gravity, ever striving towards the center, would still wage war with impenetrability as rigidity or elasticity. The tendency of matter can therefore only be confined, never completed or appeased. But this is precisely the case with all tendencies of all phenomena of will. Every attained end is also the beginning of a new course, and so on to infinity. The plant raises its manifestation from the seed through the stem and the leaf to the blossom and the fruit, which again is the beginning of a new seed, a new individual, that runs through the old course, and so on through endless time. Such also is the life of the animal; procreation is its highest point, and after attaining to it, the life of the first individual quickly or slowly sinks, while a new life ensures to nature the endurance of the species and repeats the same phenomena. Indeed, the constant renewal of the matter of every organism is also to be regarded as merely the manifestation of this continual pressure and change, and physiologists are now ceasing to hold that it is the necessary reparation of the matter wasted in motion, for the possible wearing out of the machine can by no means be equivalent to the support it is constantly receiving through nourishment. Eternal becoming, endless flux, characterizes the revelation of the inner nature of will.
Human Will as Thing in Itself is also Groundless
Finally, the same thing shows itself in human endeavors and desires, which always delude us by presenting their satisfaction as the final end of will. As soon as we attain to them they no longer appear the same, and therefore they soon grow stale, are forgotten, and though not openly disowned, are yet always thrown aside as vanished illusions. We are fortunate enough if there still remains something to wish for and to strive after, that the game may be kept up of constant transition from desire to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new desire, the rapid course of which is called happiness, and the slow course sorrow, and does not sink into that stagnation that shows itself in fearful boredom that paralyzes life, vain yearning without a definite object, deadening languor. According to all this, when the will is enlightened by knowledge, it always knows what it wills here and now, never what it wills in general. Every particular act of will has its end, the whole will has none. This is just as every particular phenomenon of nature is determined by a sufficient cause so far as concerns its appearance in this place at this time, but the force which manifests itself in it has no general cause, for it belongs to the thing-in-itself, to the groundless will. The single example of self-knowledge of the will as a whole is the representation as a whole, the whole world of perception. It is the objectification, the revelation, the mirror of the will. What the will expresses in it will be the subject of our further consideration.
The Will to Live Exhibited in Everything [Book 2, Supplement 28]
Organic and Animal Nature exhibits a Striving towards Existence
Every glance at the world (which is the task of the philosopher to explain) confirms and proves that the will to live, far from being an arbitrary reality or an empty word, is the only true expression of its inmost nature. Everything presses and strives towards existence, if possible organized existence, i.e., life, and after that to the highest possible grade of it. In animal nature it then becomes apparent that will to live is the theme of its being, its one unchangeable and unconditioned quality. Let anyone consider this universal desire for life, let him see the infinite willingness, facility, and exuberance with which the will to live presses impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment, by means of fructification and of germs, indeed, when these are lacking, by means of spontaneous generation, seizing every opportunity, eagerly grasping for itself every material capable of life: and then again let him cast a glance at its fearful alarm and wild rebellion when in any particular phenomenon it must pass out of existence; especially when this takes place with distinct consciousness. Then it is precisely the same as if in this single phenomenon the whole world would be annihilated forever, and the whole being of this threatened living thing is at once transformed into the most desperate struggle against death and resistance to it.
Look, for example, at the incredible anxiety of a man in danger of his life, the rapid and serious participation in this of every witness of it, and the boundless rejoicing at his deliverance. Look at the rigid terror with which a sentence of death is heard, the profound awe with which we regard the preparations for carrying it out, and the heartrending compassion which seizes us at the execution itself. We would then suppose there was something quite different in question than a few less years of an empty, sad existence, embittered by troubles of every kind, and always uncertain: we would rather be amazed that it was a matter of any consequence whether one attained a few years earlier to the place where after an ephemeral existence he has billions of years to be. In such phenomena, then, it becomes visible that I am right in declaring that the will to live is that which cannot be further explained, but lies at the foundation of all explanations, and that this, far from being an empty word, like the absolute, the infinite, the idea, and similar expressions, is the most real thing we know, indeed, the kernel of reality itself.
Seen in the Preservation of the Species
But if now, abstracting for a while from this interpretation drawn from our inner being, we place ourselves as strangers over against nature, to comprehend it objectively, we find that from the grade of organized life upwards it has only one intention that of the maintenance of the species. To this end, through the immense superfluity of germs, it works through the urgent vehemence of the sexual instinct, through its willingness to adapt itself to all circumstances and opportunities, even to the production of illegitimate children, and through the instinctive maternal affection, the strength of which is so great that in many kinds of animals it even outweighs self-love, so that the mother sacrifices her life in order to preserve that of the young. The individual, on the contrary, has for nature only an indirect value, only so far as it is the means of maintaining the species. . . .
All Human Efforts are only a Blind Pressure and Ceaseless Striving
Let us now add the consideration of the human race. The matter indeed becomes more complicated, and assumes a certain seriousness of appearance; but the fundamental character remains unaltered. Here also life presents itself by no means as a gift for enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to be performed; and in accordance with this we see, in great and small, universal need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure, endless strife, compulsory activity, with extreme exertion of all the powers of body and mind. Many millions, united into nations, strive for the common good, each individual on account of his own; but many thousands fall as a sacrifice for it. First senseless delusions, then intriguing politics, incite them to wars with each other; then the sweat and the blood of the great multitude must flow, to carry out the ideas of individuals, or to atone for their faults. In peace industry and trade are active, inventions work miracles, seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from all ends of the world, the waves engulf thousands. All strive, some planning, others acting; the commotion is indescribable. But the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To sustain fleeting and tormented individuals through a short span of time in the most fortunate case with endurable desires and comparative freedom from pain, which, however, is at once attended with boredom; then the reproduction of this race and its striving. In this evident disproportion between the trouble and the reward, the will to live appears to us from this point of view, if taken objectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a delusion, seized by which everything living works with the utmost exertion of its strength for something that is of no value. But when we consider it more closely, we shall find here also that it is rather a blind pressure, a tendency entirely without ground or motive.
The law of motivation, as was shown in 29 of the first volume, only extends to the particular actions, not to willing as a whole and in general. It depends upon this, that if we view the human race and its action as a whole and universally, it does not present itself to us, as when we contemplate the particular actions, as a play of puppets who are pulled after the ordinary manner by strings outside them; but from this point of view, as puppets which are set in motion by internal clockwork. For if, as we have done above, one compares the ceaseless, serious, and laborious striving of men with what they gain by it, indeed, even with what they ever can gain, the disproportion we have pointed out becomes apparent, for one recognizes that that which is to be gained, taken as the motive-power, is entirely insufficient for the explanation of that movement and that ceaseless striving.
We do not See the Reward for our Human Efforts, but Merely Hope that there Is One
What, then, is a short postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or deferment of pain, a momentary stilling of desire, compared with such an abundant and certain victory over them all as death? What could such advantages accomplish taken as actual moving causes of a human race, innumerable because constantly renewed, which unceasingly moves, strives, struggles, grieves, writhes, and performs the whole tragic-comedy of the history of the world, indeed, what says more than all, perseveres in such a mock-existence as long as each one possibly can? Clearly this is all inexplicable if we seek the moving causes outside the figures and conceive the human race as striving, in consequence of rational reflection, or something analogous to this (as moving strings), after those good things held out to it, the attainment of which would be a sufficient reward for its ceaseless cares and troubles. The matter being taken thus, everyone would rather have long ago said, "the game is not worth the effort" ["Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle"] and quit it [i.e., killed onself]. But, on the contrary, everyone guards and defends his life, like a precious pledge entrusted to him under heavy responsibility, under infinite cares and abundant misery, even under which life is tolerable. The wherefore and the why, the reward for this, certainly he does not see; but he has accepted the worth of that pledge without seeing it, upon trust and faith, and does not know what it consists in.
Hence, I have said that these puppets are not pulled from without, but each bears in itself the clockwork from which its movements result. This is the will to live, manifesting itself as an untiring machine, an irrational tendency, which has not its sufficient reason in the external world. It holds the individuals firmly upon the scene, and is the prime mover of their movements; while the external objects, the motives, only determine their direction in the particular case; otherwise the cause would not be at all suitable to the effect. For, as every manifestation of a force of nature has a cause, but the force of nature itself none, so every particular act of will has a motive, but the will in general has none: indeed at bottom these two are one and the same. The will, as that which is metaphysical, is everywhere the boundary-stone of every investigation, beyond which it cannot go. From the original and unconditioned nature of the will, which has been proved, it is explicable that man loves beyond everything else an existence full of misery, trouble, pain, and anxiety, and, again, full of boredom, which, if he considered and weighed it purely objectively, he would certainly abhor, and fears above all things the end of it, which is yet for him the one thing certain. Accordingly we often see a miserable figure, deformed and shrunk with age, poverty, and disease, implore our help from the bottom of his heart for the prolongation of an existence, the end of which would necessarily appear altogether desirable if it were an objective judgment that determined here.
Puppet Analogy: The Blind Will to Life is the Strings that Animate Us and Prevent Suicide
Thus instead of this it is the blind will, appearing as the tendency to life, the love of life, and the sense of life; it is the same which makes the plants grow. This sense of life may be compared to a rope which is stretched above the puppet-show of the world of men, and on which the puppets hang by invisible threads, while they only seem to be supported by the ground beneath them (the objective value of life). But if the rope becomes weak, the puppet sinks. If it breaks, the puppet must fall, for the ground beneath it only seemed to support it. That is, the weakening of that love of life shows itself as hypochondria, irritation, melancholy: its entire exhaustion as the inclination to suicide, which now takes place on the slightest occasion, indeed, for a merely imaginary reason, for now, as it were, the man seeks a quarrel with himself, in order to shoot himself dead, as many do with others for a like purpose. Indeed, upon necessity, suicide is resorted to without any special occasion. As with the persistence in life, so is it also with its action and movement. This is not something freely chosen; but while everyone would really gladly rest, desire and boredom are the whips that keep the top spinning.
Therefore the whole and every individual bears the stamp of a forced condition; and everyone, in that, inwardly weary, he longs for rest, but yet must press forward, is like his planet, which does not fall into the sun only because a force driving it forward prevents it. Therefore everything is in continual strain and forced movement, and the course of the world goes on, to use an expression of Aristotle's (On the Heavens, 2.13), "not by nature, but by violence". Men only appear to be drawn from in front; really they are pushed from behind; it is not life that tempts them on, but necessity that drives them forward. The law of motivation is, like all causality, merely the form of the phenomenon. We may remark in passing that this is the source of the comical, the burlesque, the grotesque, the ridiculous side of life; for, urged forward against his will, everyone bears himself as best he can, and the straits that thus arise often look comical enough, serious as is the misery which underlies them.
In all these considerations, then, it becomes clear to us that the will to live is not a consequence of the knowledge of life, is in no way a conclusion from premises, and in general is nothing secondary. Rather, it is that which is first and unconditioned, the premise of all premises, and just on that account that from which philosophy must start, for the will to live does not appear in consequence of the world, but the world in consequence of the will to live.
AESTHETICS: (World as Will and Representation, Book 3)
Two Aspects of the Will: Time-Bound and Eternal
The Will is the Thing-in-Itself, which includes Timeless Platonic Forms as the Inner Reality of the World
31. I hope that in the preceding book I have succeeded in producing the conviction that what is called in the Kantian philosophy the thing-in-itself, and appears there as so significant, and yet so obscure and paradoxical a doctrine, and especially on account of the manner in which Kant introduced it as an inference from the caused to the cause, was considered a stumbling-stone, and, in fact, the weak side of his philosophy, that this, I say, if it is reached by the entirely different way by which we have arrived at it, is nothing but the will when the sphere of that conception is extended and defined in the way I have shown [i.e., as the true nature of one's self]. I hope, further, that after what has been said there will be no hesitation in recognizing the definite grades of the objectification of the will, which is the inner reality of the world, to be what Plato called the eternal Ideas or unchangeable forms (eidi); a doctrine which is regarded as the principal, but at the same time the most obscure and paradoxical dogma of his system, and has been the subject of reflection and controversy of ridicule and of reverence to so many and such differently endowed minds in the course of many centuries.
If now the will is for us the thing-in-itself, and the Idea is the immediate objectivity of that will at a definite grade, we find that Kant's thing-in-itself, and Plato's Idea, which to him is the only ontos on [i.e., real being], these two great obscure paradoxes of the two greatest philosophers of the West are not indeed identical, but yet very closely related, and only distinguished by a single circumstance. The purport of these two great paradoxes, with all inner harmony and relationship, is yet so very different on account of the remarkable diversity of the individuality of their authors, that they are the best commentary on each other, for they are like two entirely different roads that conduct us to the same goal. . . .
32. . . . [O]ur world would be a nunc stans ["eternal now"], if it were not that, as knowing subjects, we are also individuals, i.e., our perceptions come to us through the medium of a body, from the affections of which they proceed, and which is itself only concrete willing, objectivity of the will, and thus is an object among objects, and as such comes into the knowing consciousness in the only way in which an object can, through the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and consequently already presupposes, and therefore brings in, time, and all other forms which that principle expresses. Time is only the broken and piecemeal view which the individual being has of the Ideas, which are outside time, and consequently eternal. Therefore, Plato says time is the moving picture of eternity.
Experiencing the Identity of All Things within the Will-less Self
34. The transition which we have referred to as possible, but yet to be regarded as only exceptional, from the common knowledge of particular things to the knowledge of the Idea, takes place suddenly; for knowledge breaks free from the service of the will, by the subject ceasing to be merely individual, and thus becoming the pure will-less subject of knowledge, which no longer traces relations in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, but rests in fixed contemplation of the object presented to it, out of its connection with all others, and rises into it. . . .
[I]t is the Idea, the eternal form, the immediate objectivity of the will at this grade; and, therefore, he who is sunk in this perception is no longer individual, for in such perception the individual has lost himself; but he is pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge. . . . Whoever now, has, after the manner referred to, become so absorbed and lost in the perception of nature that he only continues to exist as the pure knowing subject, becomes in this way directly conscious that, as such, he is the condition, that is, the supporter, of the world and all objective existence; for this now shows itself as dependent upon his existence. Thus he draws nature into himself, so that he sees it to be merely an accident of his own being. In this sense Byron says,
"Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?"
But how shall he who feels this, regard himself as absolutely transitory, in contrast to imperishable nature? Such a man will rather be filled with the consciousness, which the [Hindu] Upanishad of the Veda expresses: "all these creatures are wholly I, and there is nothing else besides me".
The Gifted Artist Communicates Platonic Forms in Works of Art
37. Genius, then, consists, according to our explanation, in the capacity for knowing, independently of the principle of sufficient reason, not individual things, which have their existence only in their relations, but the [Platonic] Ideas of such things, and of being oneself the correlative of the Idea, and thus no longer an individual, but the pure subject of knowledge. Yet this faculty must exist in all men in a smaller and different degree; for if not, they would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of producing them; they would have no susceptibility for the beautiful or the sublime; indeed, these words could have no meaning for them. We must therefore assume that there exists in all men this power of knowing the Ideas in things, and consequently of transcending their personality for the moment, unless indeed there are some men who are capable of no aesthetic pleasure at all. The man of genius excels ordinary men only by possessing this kind of knowledge in a far higher degree and more continuously. Thus, while under its influence he retains the presence of mind which is necessary to enable him to repeat in a voluntary and intentional work what he has learned in this manner; and this repetition is the work of art. Through this he communicates to others the Idea he has grasped. This Idea remains unchanged and the same, so that aesthetic pleasure is one and the same whether it is called forth by a work of art or directly by the contemplation of nature and life.
The work of art is only a means of facilitating the knowledge in which this pleasure consists. That the Idea comes to us more easily from the work of art than directly from nature and the real world, arises from the fact that the artist, who knew only the Idea, no longer the actual, has reproduced in his work the pure Idea, has abstracted it from the actual, omitting all disturbing accidents. The artist lets us see the world through his eyes. That he has these eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things apart from all their relations, is the gift of genius, is inborn; but that he is able to lend us this gift, to let us see with his eyes, is acquired, and is the technical side of art.
Therefore, after the account which I have given in the preceding pages of the inner nature of aesthetical knowledge in its most general outlines, the following more exact philosophical treatment of the beautiful and the sublime will explain them both, in nature and in art, without separating them further. First of all we shall consider what takes place in a man when he is affected by the beautiful and the sublime; whether he derives this emotion directly from nature, from life, or partakes of it only through the medium of art, does not make any essential, but merely an external, difference.
Subjective and Objective Sides of Art
38. In the aesthetical mode of contemplation we have found two inseparable constituent parts [1] the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things; and [2] the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge. The condition under which both these constituent parts appear always united was found to be the abandonment of the method of knowing which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and which, on the other hand, is the only kind of knowledge that is of value for the service of the will and also for science. Moreover, we shall see that the pleasure which is produced by the contemplation of the beautiful arises from these two constituent parts, sometimes more from the one, sometimes more from the other, according to what the object of the aesthetical contemplation may be.
Subjective Side of Art: Becoming a Will-less subject of Knowledge
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. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we can never have lasting happiness nor peace. It is essentially all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear injury or seek enjoyment; the care for the constant demands of the will, in whatever form it may be, continually occupies and sways the consciousness; but without peace no true well-being is possible. The subject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the [endlessly] revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus.
But when some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, delivers knowledge from the slavery of the will, the attention is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relation to the will, and thus observes them without personal interest, without subjectivity, purely objectively, gives itself entirely up to them so far as they are representations, but not in so far as they are motives. Then all at once the peace which we were always seeking, but which always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord, and it is well with us. It is the painless state which Epicurus prized as the highest good and as the state of the gods; for we are for the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we keep the Sabbath of the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands still.
But this is just the state which I described above as necessary for the knowledge of the Idea, as pure contemplation, as sinking oneself in perception, losing oneself in the object, forgetting all individuality, surrendering that kind of knowledge which follows the principle of sufficient reason, and comprehends only relations; the state by means of which at once and inseparably the perceived particular thing is raised to the Idea of its whole species, and the knowing individual to the pure subject of will-less knowledge, and as such they are both taken out of the stream of time and all other relations. It is then the same whether we see the sun set from the prison or from the palace.
Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over willing, can produce this state under any circumstances. This is shown by those admirable Dutch artists who directed this purely objective perception to the most insignificant objects, and established a lasting monument of their objectivity and spiritual peace in their pictures of still life, which the aesthetic beholder does not look on without emotion; for they present to him the peaceful, still, frame of mind of the artist, free from will, which was needed to contemplate such insignificant things so objectively, to observe them so attentively, and to repeat this perception so intelligently; and as the picture enables the onlooker to participate in this state, his emotion is often increased by the contrast between it and the unquiet frame of mind, disturbed by vehement willing, in which he finds himself. In the same spirit, landscape-painters, and particularly Ruisdael, have often painted very insignificant country scenes, which produce the same effect even more agreeably.
In all these reflections it has been my object to bring out clearly the nature and the scope of the subjective element in aesthetic pleasure; the deliverance of knowledge from the service of the will, the forgetting of self as an individual, and the raising of the consciousness to the pure will-less, timeless, subject of knowledge, independent of all relations. With this subjective side of aesthetic contemplation, there must always appear as its necessary correlative the objective side, the intuitive comprehension of the Platonic Idea. . . .
The Objective Side: Knowledge of Platonic Ideas
When we say that a thing is beautiful, we thereby assert that it is an object of our aesthetic contemplation, and this has a double meaning [of objectivity]; on the one hand it means that the sight of the thing makes us objective, that is to say, that in contemplating it we are no longer conscious of ourselves as individuals, but as pure will-less subjects of knowledge; and on the other hand it means that we recognize in the object, not the particular thing, but an Idea; and this can only happen, so far as our contemplation of it is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, does not follow the relation of the object to anything outside it (which is always ultimately connected with relations to our own will), but rests in the object itself. For the Idea and the pure subject of knowledge always appear at once in consciousness as necessary correlatives, and on their appearance all distinction of time vanishes, for they are both entirely foreign to the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and lie outside the relations which are imposed by it; they may be compared to the rainbow and the sun, which have no part in the constant movement and succession of the falling drops. Therefore, if, for example, I contemplate a tree aesthetically, i.e., with artistic eyes, and thus recognize, not it, but its Idea, it becomes at once of no consequence whether it is this tree or its predecessor which flourished a thousand years ago, and whether the observer is this individual or any other that lived anywhere and at any time; the particular thing and the knowing individual are abolished with the principle of sufficient reason, and there remains nothing but the Idea and the pure subject of knowing, which together constitute the adequate objectivity of will at this grade. And the Idea dispenses not only with time, but also with space, for the Idea proper is not this special form which appears before me but its expression, its pure significance, its inner being, which discloses itself to me and appeals to me, and which may be quite the same though the spatial relations of its form be very different.
Since, on the one hand, every given thing may be observed in a purely objective manner and apart from all relations; and since, on the other hand, the will manifests itself in everything at some grade of its objectivity, so that everything is the expression of an Idea; it follows that everything is also beautiful. That even the most insignificant things admit of pure objective and will-less contemplation, and thus prove that they are beautiful, is shown by what was said above in this reference about the Dutch pictures of still-life. But one thing is more beautiful than another, because it makes this pure objective contemplation easier, it lends itself to it, and, so to speak, even compels it, and then we call it very beautiful.
Music is more Connected with the World's Inner Nature than are the Other Arts
52. We have considered all the fine arts in the general way that is suitable to our point of view. We began with architecture, the unique end of which is to elucidate the objectification of will at the lowest grades of its visibility, in which it shows itself as the dumb unconscious tendency of the mass in accordance with laws, and yet already reveals a breach of the unity of will with itself in a conflict between gravity and rigidity. We then ended with the consideration of tragedy, which presents to us at the highest grades of the objectification of will this very conflict with itself in terrible magnitude and distinctness. However, we find that there is still another fine art which has been excluded from our consideration, and had to be excluded, for in the systematic connection of our exposition there was no fitting place for it I mean music. It stands alone, quite cut off from all the other arts. In it we do not recognize the copy or repetition of any Idea of existence in the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly noble art, its effect on the inmost nature of man is so powerful, and it is so entirely and deeply understood by him in his inmost consciousness as a perfectly universal language, the distinctness of which surpasses even that of the perceptible world itself, that we certainly have more to look for in it than an exercitum arithmetic occultum nescientis se numerare animi ["Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which doesn't know that it is counting"] which Leibnitz called it. Yet he was perfectly right, as he considered only its immediate external significance, its form. But if it were nothing more, the satisfaction which it affords would be like that which we feel when a sum in arithmetic comes out right, and could not be that intense pleasure with which we see the deepest recesses of our nature find utterance. From our standpoint, therefore, at which the aesthetic effect is the criterion, we must attribute to music a far more serious and deep significance, connected with the inmost nature of the world and our own self, and in reference to which the arithmetical proportions, to which it may be reduced, are related, not as the thing signified, but merely as the sign. That in some sense music must be related to the world as the representation to the thing represented, as the copy to the original, we may conclude from the analogy of the other arts, all of which possess this character, and affect us on the whole in the same way as it does, only that the effect of music is stronger, quicker, more necessary and infallible. Further, its representative relation to the world must be very deep, absolutely true, and strikingly accurate, because it is instantly understood by everyone, and has the appearance of a certain infallibility, because its form may be reduced to perfectly definite rules expressed in numbers, from which it cannot free itself without entirely ceasing to be music. Yet the point of comparison between music and the world, the respect in which it stands to the world in the relation of a copy or repetition, is very obscure. Men have practiced music in all ages without being able to account for this; content to understand it directly, they renounce all claim to an abstract conception of this direct understanding itself.
Art Temporarily Consoles us from the Constant Sorrow of Life
The pleasure we receive from all beauty, the consolation which art affords, the enthusiasm of the artist, which enables him to forget the cares of life, the latter an advantage of the man of genius over other men, which alone repays him for the suffering that increases in proportion to the clearness of consciousness, and for the desert loneliness among men of a different race, all this rests on the fact that the in-itself of life, the will, existence itself, is, as we shall see farther on, a constant sorrow, partly miserable, partly terrible; while, on the contrary, as representation alone, purely contemplated, or copied by art, free from pain, it [i.e., life] presents to us a drama full of significance. This purely knowable side of the world, and the copy of it in any art, is the element of the artist. He is chained to the contemplation of the play, the objectification of will; he remains beside it, does not get tired of contemplating it and representing it in copies; and meanwhile he bears himself the cost of the production of that play, i.e., he himself is the will which objectifies itself, and remains in constant suffering. That pure, true, and deep knowledge of the inner nature of the world becomes now for him an end in itself: he stops there. Therefore it does not become to him a quieter of the will, as, we shall see in the next book, it does in the case of the saint who has attained to resignation; it does not deliver him forever from life, but only at moments, and is therefore not for him a path out of life, but only an occasional consolation in it, till his power, increased by this contemplation and at last tired of the play, lays hold on the real. The St. Cecilia of Raphael may be regarded as a representation of this transition. To the real, then, we now turn in the following book.
ETHICS (World as Will and Representation, Book 4)
Free Will vs. Necessity
A Person's Phenomenal Character is Constrained by Necessity (PSR), but one's Inner Nature as Thing in Itself is Timeless, Unconstrained and thus Free
55. That the will as such is free, follows from the fact that, according to our view, it is the thing-in-itself, the content of all phenomena. The phenomena, on the other hand, we recognize as absolutely subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason in its four forms. And since we know that necessity is throughout identical with following from given grounds, and that these are convertible conceptions, all that belongs to the phenomenon, i.e., all that is object for the knowing subject as individual, is in one aspect reason, and in another aspect consequent; and in this last capacity is determined with absolute necessity, and can, therefore, in no respect be other than it is. The whole content of Nature, the collective sum of its phenomena, is thus throughout necessary, and the necessity of every part, of every phenomenon, of every event, can always be proved, because it must be possible to find the reason from which it follows as a consequent. There is no exception to this: it follows from the unrestricted validity of the principle of sufficient reason. In another aspect, however, the same world is for us, in all its phenomena, objectivity of will. The will, since it is not phenomenon, is not representation or object, but thing-in-itself, and is not subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason, the form of all object; thus is not determined as a consequent through any reason, knows no necessity, i.e., is free. The concept of freedom is thus properly a negative concept, for its content is merely the denial of necessity, i.e., the relation of consequent to its reason, according to the principle of sufficient reason.
Partial Freedom in our Phenomenal Character through Self-Renunciation
Now here lies before us in its most distinct form the solution of that great contradiction, the union of freedom with necessity, which has so often been discussed in recent times, yet, so far as I know, never clearly and adequately. Everything as phenomenon, as object, is absolutely necessary: [but] in itself it is will, which is perfectly free to all eternity. . . .
As the result of the whole of this discussion of the freedom of the will and what relates to it, we find that although the will may, in itself and apart from the phenomenon, be called free and even omnipotent, yet in its particular phenomena enlightened by knowledge, as in men and brutes, it is determined by motives to which the special character regularly and necessarily responds, and always in the same way. We see that because of the possession on his part of abstract or rational knowledge, man, as distinguished from the brutes, has a choice, which only makes him the scene of the conflict of his motives, without withdrawing him from their control. This choice is therefore certainly the condition of the possibility of the complete expression of the individual character, but is by no means to be regarded as freedom of the particular volition, i.e., independence of the law of causality, the necessity of which extends to man as to every other phenomenon. Thus the difference between human volition and that of the brutes, which is introduced by reason or knowledge through concepts, extends to the point we have indicated, and no farther. But, what is quite a different thing, there may arise a phenomenon of the human will which is quite impossible in the brute creation, if man altogether lays aside the knowledge of particular things as such which is subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason, and by means of his knowledge of the Ideas sees through the principium individuationis. Then an actual appearance of the real freedom of the will as a thing-in-itself is possible, by which the phenomenon comes into a sort of contradiction with itself, as is indicated by the word self-renunciation; and, finally, the "in-itself" of its nature suppresses itself.
Morality
Morality not Based on Abstract Knowledge, but upon Intuitive Awareness of our Shared Inner Nature
66. A theory of morals without proof, that is, mere moralizing, can affect nothing, because it does not act as a motive. A theory of morals which does act as a motive can do so only by working on self-love. But what springs from this source has no moral worth. It follows from this that no genuine virtue can be produced through moral theory or abstract knowledge in general, but that such virtue must spring from that intuitive knowledge which recognizes in the individuality of others the same nature as in our own.
For virtue certainly proceeds from knowledge, but not from the abstract knowledge that can be communicated through words. If it were so, virtue could be taught, and by here expressing in abstract language its nature and the knowledge which lies at its foundation, we should make everyone who comprehends this even ethically better. . . .
Upon conduct, outward action, dogmas may certainly exercise a powerful influence, as also custom and example the last because the ordinary man does not trust his judgment, of the weakness of which he is conscious, but only follows his own or some one else's experience), but the disposition is not altered in this way. All abstract knowledge gives only motives; but, as was shown above, motives can only alter the direction of the will, not the will itself. All communicable knowledge, however, can only affect the will as a motive. Thus when dogmas lead it, what the man really and in general wills remains still the same. He has only received different thoughts as to the ways in which it is to be attained, and imaginary motives guide him just like real ones. . . .
The opposite of the sting of conscience, the origin and significance of which is explained above, is the good conscience, the satisfaction which we experience after every disinterested deed. It arises from the fact that such a deed, as it proceeds from the direct recognition of our own inner being in the phenomenon of another, affords us also the verification of this knowledge, the knowledge that our true self exists not only in our own person, this particular manifestation, but in everything that lives. By this the heart feels itself enlarged, as by egoism it is contracted. For as the latter concentrates our interest upon the particular manifestation of our own individuality, upon which knowledge always presents to us the innumerable dangers which constantly threaten this manifestation, and anxiety and care becomes the key-note of our disposition; the knowledge that everything living is just as much our own inner nature, as is our own person, extends our interest to everything living; and in this way the heart is enlarged. Thus through the diminished interest in our own self, the anxious care for the self is attacked at its very root and limited;
Good Actions arise from our Sympathy for the Suffering of Others
67. Now, however, I must remind the reader, with reference to the paradox stated above, that we found before, that suffering is essential to life as a whole and inseparable from it. And that we saw that every wish proceeds from a need, from a want, from suffering, and that therefore every satisfaction is only the removal of a pain, and brings no positive happiness; that the joys certainly lie to the wish, presenting themselves as a positive good, but in truth they have only a negative nature, and are only the end of an evil. Therefore, what goodness, love, and nobleness do for others, is always merely an alleviation of their suffering, and consequently all that can influence them to good deeds and works of love, is simply the knowledge of the suffering of others, which is directly understood from their own suffering and placed on a level with it. . . .
Asceticism: Denial of the Will to Live
Breaking through the Principle of Individuation to remove the Self-Other Distinction
68. . . . I now take up the thread of our discussion of the ethical significance of action, in order to show how, from the same source from which all goodness, love, virtue, and nobility of character spring, there finally arises that which I call the denial of the will to live.
We saw before that hatred and wickedness are conditioned by egoism, and egoism rests on the entanglement of knowledge in the principium individuationis [i.e., individual existence in space and time]. Thus we found that the penetration of that principium individuationis is the source and the nature of justice, and when it is carried further, even to its fullest extent, it is the source and nature of love and nobility of character. For this penetration alone, by abolishing the distinction between our own individuality and that of others, makes possible and explains perfect goodness of disposition, extending to disinterested love and the most generous self-sacrifice for others.
The Ascetic Renounces Personal Pleasures and Experiences the Suffering of All
If, however, this penetration of the principium individuationis, this direct knowledge of the identity of will in all its manifestations, is present in a high degree of distinctness, it will at once show an influence upon the will which extends still further. If that veil of Maya [i.e., "illusion" in Hinduism], the principium individuationis, is lifted from the eyes of a man to such an extent that he no longer makes the egotistical distinction between his person and that of others, but takes as much interest in the sufferings of other individuals as in his own, and therefore is not only benevolent in the highest degree, but even ready to sacrifice his own individuality whenever such a sacrifice will save a number of other persons, then it clearly follows that such a man, who recognizes in all beings his own inmost and true self, must also regard the infinite suffering of all suffering beings as his own, and take on himself the pain of the whole world. No suffering is any longer strange to him. All the miseries of others which he sees and is so seldom able to alleviate, all the miseries he knows directly, and even those which he only knows as possible, work upon his mind like his own. It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of his own person that he has in view, as is the case with him who is still involved in egoism; but, since he sees through the principium individuationis, all lies equally near him. He knows the whole, comprehends its nature, and finds that it consists in a constant passing away, vain striving, inward conflict, and continual suffering. He sees wherever he looks suffering humanity, the suffering brute creation, and a world that passes away. But all this now lies as near him as his own person lies to the egoist. Why should he now, with such knowledge of the world, assert this very life through constant acts of will, and thereby bind himself ever more closely to it, press it ever more firmly to himself? Thus he who is still involved in the principium individuationis, in egoism, only knows particular things and their relation to his own person, and these constantly become new motives of his volition. But, on the other hand, that knowledge of the whole, of the nature of the thing-in-itself which has been described, becomes a quieter of all and every volition. The will now turns away from life; it now shudders at the pleasures in which it recognizes the assertion of life. Man now attains the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, true indifference, and perfect will-lessness. . . .
Hot Coal Analogy: We Stand on All Coals at Once
If we compare life to a course or path through which we must unceasingly run, a path of red-hot coals, with a few cool places here and there; then he who is entangled in delusion is consoled by the cool places, on which he now stands, or which he sees near him, and sets out to run through the course. But he who sees through the principium individuationis, and recognizes the real nature of the thing-in-itself, and thus the whole, is no longer susceptible of such consolation; he sees himself in all places at once, and withdraws. His will turns around, no longer asserts its own nature, which is reflected in the phenomenon, but denies it. The phenomenon by which this change is marked, is the transition from virtue to asceticism. That is to say, it no longer suffices for such a man to love others as himself, and to do as much for them as for himself; but there arises within him a horror of the nature of which his own phenomenal existence is an expression, the will to live, the kernel and inner nature of that world which is recognized as full of misery.
He therefore disowns this nature which appears in him, and is already expressed through his body, and his action gives the lie to his phenomenal existence, and appears in open contradiction to it. Essentially nothing else but a manifestation of will, he ceases to will anything, guards against attaching his will to anything, and seeks to confirm in himself the greatest indifference to everything. His body, healthy and strong, expresses through the genitals, the sexual impulse; but he denies the will and gives the lie to the body; he desires no sensual gratification under any condition. Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step in asceticism or the denial of the will to live. It thereby denies the assertion of the will which extends beyond the individual life, and gives the assurance that with the life of this body, the will, whose manifestation it is, ceases.
Suicide as a Misguided Affirmation of the Will to Live
The Suicide wills Life but Surrenders his Individual Life to relieve Suffering
69. Suicide, the actual doing away with the individual manifestation of will, differs most widely from the denial of the will to live, which is the single outstanding act of free-will in the manifestation, and is therefore, as Asmus calls it, the transcendental change. This last has been fully considered in the course of our work. Far from being denial of the will, suicide is a phenomenon of strong assertion of will; for the essence of negation lies in this, that the joys of life are shunned, not its sorrows. The suicide wills life, and is only dissatisfied with the conditions under which it has presented itself to him. He therefore by no means surrenders the will to live, but only life, in that he destroys the individual manifestation. He wills life wills the unrestricted existence and assertion of the body; but the complication of circumstances does not allow this, and there results for him great suffering. The very will to live finds itself so much hampered in this particular manifestation that it cannot put forth its energies. . . .
Phenomenal Death does not Remove the Larger Existence of the Thing in Itself
The suicide denies only the individual, not the species. We have already seen that as life is always assured to the will to live, and as sorrow is inseparable from life, suicide, the willful destruction of the single phenomenal existence, is a vain and foolish act; for the thing-in-itself remains unaffected by it, even as the rainbow endures however fast the drops which support it for the moment may change. But, more than this, it is also the masterpiece of Maya [illusion], as the most flagrant example of the contradiction of the will to live with itself. As we found this contradiction in the case of the lowest manifestations of will, in the permanent struggle of all the forces of nature, and of all organic individuals for matter and time and space; and as we saw this antagonism come ever more to the front with terrible distinctness in the ascending grades of the objectification of the will, so at last in the highest grade, the Idea of man, it reaches the point at which, not only the individuals which express the same Idea extirpate each other, but even the same individual declares war against itself.
Self-Conquest is the Moral Motivation to Avoid Suicide
The vehemence with which it wills life, and revolts against what hinders it, namely, suffering, brings it to the point of destroying itself; so that the individual will, by its own act, puts an end to that body which is merely its particular visible expression, rather than permit suffering to break the will. Just because the suicide cannot give up willing, he gives up living. The will asserts itself here even in putting an end to its own manifestation, because it can no longer assert itself otherwise. As, however, it was just the suffering which it so shuns that was able, as mortification of the will, to bring it to the denial of itself, and hence to freedom, so in this respect the suicide is like a sick man, who, after a painful operation which would entirely cure him has been begun, will not allow it to be completed, but prefers to retain his disease. Suffering approaches and reveals itself as the possibility of the denial of will; but the will rejects it, in that it destroys the body, the manifestation of itself, in order that it may remain unbroken. This is the reason why almost all ethical teachers, whether philosophical or religious, condemn suicide, although they themselves can only give far-fetched sophistical reasons for their opinion. But if a human being was ever restrained from committing suicide by purely moral motives, the inmost meaning of this self-conquest (in whatever ideas his reason may have clothed it) was this: "I will not avoid suffering, in order that it may help to put an end to the will to live, whose manifestation is so wretched, by so strengthening the knowledge of the real nature of the world which is already beginning to dawn upon me, that it may become the final quieter of my will, and may free me forever."
On the Sufferings of the World
The Good does not Outweigh the Bad
Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It seems absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all, and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; however, misfortune in general is the rule.
I know of no greater absurdity than that propounded by most systems of philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt. Leibnitz is particularly concerned to defend this absurdity; and he seeks to strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism [i.e., cold is only the absence of the power of heat.] It is the good which is negative; in other words, happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end.
This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.
The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to everyone. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole!
We are like lambs in a field, displaying themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for us sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or reason.
No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that Time is continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom.
But misfortune has its uses; for, as our bodily frame would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere was removed, so, if the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they would be so swollen with arrogance that, though they might not burst, they would present the spectacle of unbridled folly indeed, they would go mad. I may say, further, that a certain amount of care or pain or trouble is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight.
Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the fate of almost all men their whole life long. But if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? What would they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.
It Would be Better if we Did not Exist
In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be said: "It is bad today, and it will be worse tomorrow; and so on till the worst of all."
If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery, pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.
Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. In any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, indeed, a cheat.
If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a life-time, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much and then performed so little. This feeling will so completely predominate over every other that they will not even consider it necessary to give it words; but on either side it will be silently assumed, and form the ground-work of all they have to talk about.
He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits sometime in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.
While no man is much to be envied for his lot, there are countless numbers whose fate is to be deplored.
Life is a task to be done. It is a fine thing to say defunctus est ["he died"]; it means that the man has done his task.
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.
I shall be told, I suppose, that my philosophy is comfortless because I speak the truth; and people prefer to be assured that everything the Lord has made is good. Go to the priests, then, and leave philosophers in peace! At any rate, do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to the lessons you have been taught. That is what those rascals of sham philosophers will do for you. Ask them for any doctrine you please, and you will get it. Your University professors are bound to preach optimism; and it is an easy and agreeable task to upset their theories. . . .
Tolerance towards Others as Fellow Sufferers
If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular; indeed, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in his own peculiar way. Amongst the evils of a penal colony is the society of those who form it; and if the reader is worthy of better company, he will need no words from me to remind him of what he has to put up with at present. If he has a soul above the common, or if he is a man of genius, he will occasionally feel like some noble prisoner of state, condemned to work in the galleys with common criminals; and he will follow his example and try to isolate himself.
In general, however, it should be said that this view of life will enable us to contemplate the so-called imperfections of the great majority of men, their moral and intellectual deficiencies and the resulting base type of countenance, without any surprise, to say nothing of indignation; for we shall never cease to reflect where we are, and that the men about us are beings conceived and born in sin, and living to atone for it. That is what Christianity means in speaking of the sinful nature of man.
Pardon's the word to all! Whatever foolishness men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remembering that when these faults appear in others, it is our follies and vices that we see. They are the shortcomings of humanity, to which we belong; whose faults, one and all, we share; yes, even those very faults at which we now wax so indignant, merely because they have not yet appeared in ourselves. They are faults that do not lie on the surface. But they exist down there in the depths of our nature; and should anything call them forth, they will come and show themselves, just as we now see them in others. One man, it is true, may have faults that are absent in his fellow; and it is undeniable that the sum total of bad qualities is in some cases very large; for the difference of individuality between man and man passes all measure.
In fact, the conviction that the world and man is something that had better not have been, is of a kind to fill us with indulgence towards one another. Indeed, from this point of view, we might well consider the proper form of address to be, not Monsieur, Sir, mein Herr, but my fellow-sufferer, Soci malorum, compagnon de miseres! This may perhaps sound strange, but it is in keeping with the facts; it puts others in a right light; and it reminds us of that which is after all the most necessary thing in life the tolerance, patience, regard, and love of neighbor, of which everyone stands in need, and which, therefore, every man owes to his fellow.
God is the World vs The World is God
The chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world "God" is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word "world." It comes to the same thing whether you say "the world is God," or "God is the world." But if you start from "God" as something that is given in experience, and has to be explained, and they say, "God is the world," you are affording what is to some extent an explanation, in so far as you are reducing what is unknown to what is partly known (ignotum per notius); but it is only a verbal explanation. If, however, you start from what is really given, that is to say, from the world, and say, "the world is God," it is clear that you say nothing, or at least you are explaining what is unknown by what is more unknown.
Pantheism Presupposes a misguided Theism
Hence, Pantheism presupposes Theism; only in so far as you start from a god, that is, in so far as you possess him as something with which you are already familiar, can you end by identifying him with the world; and your purpose in doing so is to put him out of the way in a decent fashion. In other words, you do not start clear from the world as something that requires explanation; you start from God as something that is given, and not knowing what to do with him, you make the world take over his role. This is the origin of Pantheism. Taking an unprejudiced view of the world as it is, no one would dream of regarding it as a god. It must be a very ill-advised god who knows no better way of diverting himself than by turning into such a world as ours, such a mean, shabby world, there to take the form of innumerable millions who live indeed, but are fretted and tormented, and who manage to exist a while together, only by preying on one another; to bear misery, need and death, without measure and without object, in the form, for instance, of millions of negro slaves, or of the three million weavers in Europe who, in hunger and care, lead a miserable existence in damp rooms or the cheerless halls of a factory. What a pastime this for a god, who must, as such, be used to another mode of existence!
Theism is at Least Barely Conceivable, but Pantheism is Absurd
We find accordingly that what is described as the great advance from Theism to Pantheism, if looked at seriously, and not simply as a masked negation of the sort indicated above, is a transition from what is unproved and hardly conceivable to what is absolutely absurd. For however obscure, however loose or confused may be the idea which we connect with the word "God," there are two predicates which are inseparable from it, the highest power and the highest wisdom. It is absolutely absurd to think that a being endowed with these qualities should have put himself into the position described above. Theism, on the other hand, is something which is merely unproved; and if it is difficult to look upon the infinite world as the work of a personal, and therefore individual, Being, the like of which we know only from our experience of the animal world, it is nevertheless not an absolutely absurd idea. That a Being, at once almighty and all-good, should create a world of torment is always conceivable; even though we do not know why he does so; and accordingly we find that when people ascribe the height of goodness to this Being, they set up the inscrutable nature of his wisdom as the refuge by which the doctrine escapes the charge of absurdity. Pantheism, however, assumes that the creative God is himself the world of infinite torment, and, in this little world alone, dies every second, and that entirely of his own will; which is absurd. It would be much more correct to identify the world with the devil, as the venerable author of the Deutsche Theologie has, in fact, done in a passage of his immortal work, where he says, "Wherefore the evil spirit and nature are one, and where nature is not overcome, neither is the evil adversary overcome."
Life after Death from Transcendent and Immanent Perspectives
Thrasymachos [i.e., a sophist]. Tell me now, in one sentence, what will I be after my death? Mind you, be clear and precise.
Philalethes [i.e., a lover of truth]. All and nothing!
Thrasymachos. I thought so! I gave you a problem, and you solve it by a contradiction. That's a very stale trick.
Thrasymachos. What do you mean by transcendental questions and immanent knowledge? I've heard these expressions before, of course; they are not new to me. The Professor was fond of using them, but only as predicates of the Deity, and he never talked of anything else; which was all quite right and proper. He argued thus: if the Deity was in the world itself, he was immanent; if he was somewhere outside it, he was transcendent. Nothing could be clearer and more obvious! You knew where you were. But this Kantian rigmarole won't do any more: it's antiquated and no longer applicable to modern ideas. Why, we've had a whole row of eminent men in the metropolis of German learning
Philalethes. (Aside.) German nonsense, he means.
Thrasymachos. The mighty Schleiermacher, for instance, and that gigantic intellect, Hegel; and at this time of day we've abandoned that nonsense. I should rather say we're so far beyond it that we can't put up with it any more. What's the use of it then? What does it all mean?
You Die as a Phenomenal Individual, but your Real Being Remains
Philalethes. Transcendental knowledge is knowledge which passes beyond the bounds of possible experience, and strives to determine the nature of things as they are in themselves. Immanent knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge which confines itself entirely with those bounds; so that it cannot apply to anything but actual phenomena. As far as you are an individual, death will be the end of you. But your individuality is not your true and inmost being: it is only the outward manifestation of it. It is not the thing-in-itself, but only the phenomenon presented in the form of time; and therefore with a beginning and an end. But your real being knows neither time, nor beginning, nor end, nor yet the limits of any given individual. It is everywhere present in every individual; and no individual can exist apart from it. So when death comes, on the one hand you are annihilated as an individual; on the other, you are and remain everything. That is what I meant when I said that after your death you would be all and nothing. It is difficult to find a more precise answer to your question and at the same time be brief. The answer is contradictory, I admit; but it is so simply because your life is in time, and the immortal part of you in eternity. You may put the matter thus: Your immortal part is something that does not last in time and yet is indestructible; but there you have another contradiction! You see what happens by trying to bring the transcendental within the limits of immanent knowledge. It is in some sort doing violence to the latter by misusing it for ends it was never meant to serve.
Thrasymachos. Look here, I will not give a cent for your immortality unless I'm to remain an individual.
Philalethes. Well, perhaps I may be able to satisfy you on this point. Suppose I guarantee that after death you will remain an individual, but only on condition that you first spend three months of complete unconsciousness.
Thrasymachos. I shall have no objection to that.
Philalethes. But remember, if people are completely unconscious, they take no account of time. So, when you are dead, it's all the same to you whether three months pass in the world of consciousness, or ten thousand years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter of believing what is told you when you awake. So far, then, you can afford to be indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand years that pass before you recover your individuality.
Thrasymachos. Yes, if it comes to that, I suppose you're right.
Philalethes. If by chance, after those ten thousand years have gone by, no one ever thinks of awakening you, I imagine it would be no great misfortune. You would have become quite accustomed to non-existence after so long a spell of it following upon such a very few years of life. At any rate you may be sure you would be perfectly ignorant of the whole thing. Further, if you knew that the mysterious power which keeps you in your present state of life had never once ceased in those ten thousand years to bring forth other phenomena like yourself, and to endow them with life, it would fully console you.
Thrasymachos. Indeed! So you think you're quietly going to do me out of my individuality with all this fine talk. But I'm up to your tricks. I tell you I won't exist unless I can have my individuality. I'm not going to be put off with 'mysterious powers,' and what you call 'phenomena.' I can't do without my individuality, and I won't give it up.
Philalethes. You mean, I suppose, that your individuality is such a delightful thing, so splendid, so perfect, and beyond compare that you can't imagine anything better. Aren't you ready to exchange your present state for one which, if we can judge by what is told us, may possibly be superior and more endurable?
The Cry for Existence is that of the Universal Will to Live, not of the Individual
Thrasymachos. Don't you see that my individuality, be it what it may, is my very self? To me it is the most important thing in the world. For God is God and I am I. I want to exist, I, I. That's the main thing. I don't care about an existence which has to be proved to be mine, before I can believe it.
Philalethes. Think what you're doing! When you say I, I, I want to exist, it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then, that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is not individual the part that is common to all things without distinction. It is the cry, not of the individual, but of existence itself; it is the intrinsic element in everything that exists, indeed, it is the cause of anything existing at all. This desire craves for, and so is satisfied with, nothing less than existence in general not any definite individual existence. No! that is not its aim. It seems to be so only because this desire this Will attains consciousness only in the individual, and therefore looks as though it were concerned with nothing but the individual. There lies the illusion an illusion, it is true, in which the individual is held fast: but, if he reflects, he can break the fetters and set himself free. It is only indirectly, I say, that the individual has this violent craving for existence. It is the Will to Live which is the real and direct aspirant alike and identical in all things. Since, then, existence is the free work, indeed, the mere reflection of the will, where existence is, there, too, must be will; and for the moment the will finds its satisfaction in existence itself; so far, I mean, as that which never rests, but presses forward eternally, can ever find any satisfaction at all. The will is careless of the individual: the individual is not its business; although, as I have said, this seems to be the case, because the individual has no direct consciousness of will except in himself. The effect of this is to make the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for the preservation of the species. From all this it is clear that individuality is not a form of perfection, but rather of limitation; and so to be freed from it is not loss but gain. Trouble yourself no more about the matter. Once thoroughly recognize what you are, what your existence really is, namely, the universal will to live, and the whole question will seem to you childish, and most ridiculous!
Thrasymachos. You're childish yourself and most ridiculous, like all philosophers! and if a man of my age lets himself in for a quarter-of-an-hour's talk with such fools, it is only because it amuses me and passes the time. I've more important business to attend to, so Good-bye.
STUDY QUESTIONS
Please answer all of the following questions.
1. What, for Schopenhauer, is the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) and what, briefly are its four "roots" or "classes"
2. In sections 21 and 24 of his discussion of the PSR, what specifically is the realm that causal laws apply to?
3. In his discussion of the PSR of willing, describe the motivating causes of our actions.
4. In Schopenhauer's discussion of the interconnectedness of subject and perceiver, explain his point that the world is representation, and how that relates to both the subject and perceiver.
5. In Schopenhauer's discussion of the double aspect of one's body, what is that double aspect and what does this tell us about all other bodies and objects in the world?
7. In his discussion of panpsychism, what does Schopenhauer mean when he says that the will as thing in itself is a groundless, and what is his reasoning for this?
8. In Supplement 28, what are Schopenhauer's examples of the striving towards nature that we see both in the world around us and in human efforts?
9. In Supplement 28, explain Schopenhauer's puppet analogy.
10. In Schopenhauer's discussion of aesthetics, what are the Platonic Forms and how does the gifted artist communicate them?
11. In Schopenhauer's discussion of the subjective side of art, what does it mean to become will-less and how does that facilitate the aesthetic experience?
12. In Schopenhauer's discussion of the objective side of art, how do the Platonic Forms facilitate the aesthetic experience?
13. In his discussion of music, what is Schopenhauer's reasoning for why music is more connected with the world's inner nature than are the other arts?
14. In Schopenhauer's discussion of free will, in what way is our inner nature free, and why does self-renunciation help us approach freedom in our individual phenomenal selves?
15. In his discussion of morality, what is Schopenhauer's argument for why morality is not based on abstract knowledge, and what is the moral insight that we gain from awareness of our inner nature?
16. In Schopenhauer's discussion of asceticism, explain how the ascetic person experiences the suffering of all, and what is the point of his hot coal analogy?
17. In his discussion of suicide, what is Schopenhauer's argument for why the suicidal person does not deny the will to live, and why is self-conquest a better solution?
18. In his essay "Suffering," what are Schopenhauer's main reasons for his pessimistic view about suffering?
19. In Schopenhauer's essay "Pantheism", what is the difference between saying "God is the World" vs. "the World is God?", and what does this distinction imply about pantheism?
20. In his dialogue "Immortality", what is the difference between one's individuality vs. one's true being, and what is his argument for why individual immortality is not so great?
21. Short essay: please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.
a. Kierkegaard criticizes Schopenhauer's view of asceticism: "he makes ascetism interesting the most dangerous thing possible for a pleasure-seeking age which will be damaged most of all by distilling pleasure even from asceticism" (Journal, 1854). Explain Kierkegaard's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.
b. Kierkegaard criticizes Schopenhauer's view of asceticism: "Therefore the Oriental may indeed wish to be liberated from the body and feel it as something burdensome, but this is really not in order to become more free but in order to become more bound, as if he wished for the vegetative life of the plant instead of locomotion" (Journal, 1854). Explain Kierkegaard's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.
c. Philipp Mainlander criticizes Schopenhauer's view that my knowledge of my body is dependent upon my will: "[Schopenhauer states that] 'The body is given to me directly only in the muscle action and in pain or comfort, both of which initially and immediately belong to the will.' This is fundamentally wrong. Feeling is based solely on the nervous system, only indirectly on the will. If we let feeling inhere directly in the will, we must also give sensitivity to plants and chemical forces. In nature feeling first appeared when the will changed its movement, or in other words when the first animal came into being. Feeling is part of the steering mechanism. The greater part of the movement, viewed objectively, has separated from the will as a nerve mass, the greater the susceptibility to pleasure and displeasure, pain and lust. It reaches its climax in the intelligent individual. No feeling without nerves" (Philosophy of Redemption, 1876, Appendix, Physics). What bearing does Mainlander's criticism have on Schopenhauer's panpsychism and how might Schopenhauer respond?
d. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer for describing the will (as thing in itself) with qualities from the world of representation (as phenomena): "Thirdly, we are compelled to guard against the predicates which Schopenhauer ascribes to his will, which for something simply unthinkable sound much too certain and all stem from the contradiction to the world of representation: while between the thing in itself and its appearance not even the concept of this opposition has any meaning" ("On Schopenhauer" 1868). Explain Nietzsche's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.
e. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer's view that suffering has a redemptive power: "If we admit, for example, the truth of the doctrine of Schopenhauer (but also of Christianity) concerning the redemptive power of suffering, then it becomes regard for the 'general welfare' not only not to lessen suffering, but perhaps even to increase it -- not only for oneself but also for others. Pushed to this limit, practical ethics becomes ugly -- even consistent cruelty to human beings" (Fragment of a Critique of Schopenhauer, 1868, 1.404). Explain Nietzsche's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.
f. William James criticizes Schopenhauer's rejection of moral progress: "There is a deep truth in what the school of Schopenhauer insists on, the illusoriness of the notion of moral progress. The more brutal forms of evil that go are replaced by others more subtle and more poisonous. . . But the subjectivist point of view reduces all these outward distinctions to a common denominator. The wretch languishing in the felon's cell may be drinking draughts of the wine of truth that will never pass the lips of the so-called favorite of fortune. And the peculiar consciousness of each of them is an indispensable note in the great ethical concert which the centuries as they roll are grinding out of the living heart of man ("Dilemma of Determinism" 1884).
g. Dewey criticizes Schopenhauer's theory of art for downplaying art's subject matter as experience: "The most effective criticism of Schopenhauer's theory is found in his own development of the theory . . . [especially] the fixed hierarchical arrangement he institutes. Not only are beauties of nature lower than those of art since will obtains a higher degree of objectification in man than in nature, but an order from inferior to superior runs through both nature and art. . . . Music is the highest of the arts, because it gives us not merely the external objectifications of Will but also sets before us for contemplation the very processes of Will. . . . [M]any of Schopenhauer's incidental remarks are just and illuminating. But the very fact that he shows many evidences of genuine and personal appreciation affords all the better evidence of the sort of thing that happens when the reflections of a philosophic thinker are not projections in thought of the actual subject-matter of art as an experience, but are developed without respect to art and are then forced into a substitute for it" (Art as Experience, 1934, 12). Discuss Dewey's criticism and how Schopenhauer might respond.
h. Russell criticizes Schopenhauer's pessimism as scientifically unfounded yet still useful contribution to philosophy: "His pessimism made it possible for men to take to philosophy without having to persuade themselves that all evil can be explained away, and in this way, as an antidote, it was useful. From a scientific point of view, optimism and pessimism are alike objectionable: optimism assumes, or attempts to prove, that the universe exists to please us, and pessimism that it exists to displease us. Scientifically, there is no evidence that it is concerned with us either one way or the other. The belief in either pessimism or optimism is a matter of temperament, not of reason, but the optimistic temperament has been much commoner among Western philosophers. A representative of the opposite party is therefore likely to be useful in bringing forward considerations which would otherwise be overlooked" (History, 1945, "Schopenhauer"). Discuss Russell's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.
i. Heidegger criticizes Schopenhauer for treating life as a business: "Both assessments, in the same way, consider Dasein [i.e., human being] in advance as a business, either a bad business or one that is going well. This way of viewing the world is expressed in Schopenhauer's well-known proposition: 'Life is a business that does not cover its costs.' The proposition is untrue not because "life" does cover its costs in the end but because life (as Being-here) is not a business at all. True, it has been one for centuries now. And this is why Greek Dasein remains so alien to us" (Metaphysics, 1935, 2). Discuss Heidegger's point and how Schopenhauer might respond.