Introduction to Schopenhauer - The World as Will

in his masterpiece the world as will and representation the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote for if anything in the world is desirable so desirable that even the dull and uneducated heard in its more reflective moments would value it more than silver and gold it is that a ray of light should fall on the obscurity of our existence and that we should obtain some information about this enigmatical life of ours in which nothing is clear except its misery and vanity in this two-part series we will examine the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer in this lecture we will look at his metaphysics or his claim that the world is will while in the second lecture we will investigate Schopenhauer's ethics like many philosophers before him Schopenhauer proclaimed wonder to be the impetus which impels individuals to philosophize yet unlike other philosophers he maintained that this wonder arises simply because the world is such a wretched place not merely that the world exists but still more that it is such a miserable in melancholy world is the tormenting problem of metaphysics Schopenhauer believed the role of philosophy to be to lay bare the true nature of the world so as the shed array of light on the darkness of this miserable existence and in doing so provide consolation for the fragile and finite human animal all those who preceded him had failed at this project according to Schopenhauer and he believed that he alone had uncovered the true nature of the world in doing so he saw his philosophy as a great gift to mankind an oasis of peace in the tragic and wretched desert of life subject to the limitation of human knowledge my philosophy is the real solution of the Enigma of the world Schopenhauer did not envision that his philosophy would attract and be exalted by the masses instead he realized that for most individuals the world's existence is not a mystery at all the lower a man is in an intellectual respect the less puzzling and mysterious existence is to him on the contrary everything how it is and that it is seems to him a matter of course a common philosophical position many of these so-called lower men often adhere to is the belief that the physical world in the manner they perceive and experience it has an independent existence this view as Rogers scrutton nicely explains is problematic how can I know the world as it is I can have knowledge of the world as it seems since that is merely knowledge of my present perceptions memories thoughts and feelings but can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of how it seems to put the question in slightly more general form can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of my own point of view the possibility of objective knowledge or knowledge that is not merely my own point of view has been hotly disputed by philosophers throughout history and this dispute influenced Schopenhauer so we will briefly outline some of the important viewpoints the German philosopher GW Leibnitz a member of the philosophical school known as rationalism believed that through the use of one's reason it was possible to obtain objective knowledge of the world David Hume an 18th century Scottish philosopher and member of the philosophical school known as empiricism disagreed with Leibniz rather he proposed that all knowledge of the world was obtained through experience and therefore is always subjective and contaminated so to speak by the perspective or point of view of the knower objective knowledge according to Hume is not possible for human beings Immanuel Kant an 18th century German philosopher who was given the nickname vol pulverizer for supposedly destroying the foundations upon which all philosophies before him had been built was greatly influenced by the ideas of both Leibniz and Hume in fact he claimed that he was aroused from his dogmatic slumbers by the ideas of Hume Conte was very concerned with whether or not it was possible to obtain objective knowledge of the world and was not satisfied with either the rationalism of Leibniz or the empiricism of Hume this led Conte to formulate his own position known as transcendental idealism which was extremely influential in the development of Schopenhauer's philosophy because of the impact Kant head on Schopenhauer we will need to briefly discuss const ideas but or proceeding to Schopenhauer but as a warning Conte is notoriously difficult to understand and there is still no general consensus as to the meaning of many important aspects of his philosophy an integral distinction Conte made which is essential to understanding transcendental idealism is between the world as we experience it which is called the world of appearances or phenomenal world and the world as it exists independent of our experience which is composed of what caught called things in themselves according to Conte we cannot obtain knowledge of things in themselves what things maybe in themselves I know not and need not know because a thing is never presented to me otherwise then as a phenomena it is only the world of appearances which we can know and according to Conte this world is organized or structured by fundamental principles most notably space and time which Kant described as forms of intuition and causality which caught called a category of the understanding space and time along with the 12 categories Kant identified of which causality is but one structure or make possible our experience of the world furthermore according to Kant space-time and causality are not features of things in themselves or as Christopher Genoa explains it Kant thought that the world of appearance must occupy space and time it is obviously hard to imagine they're not being space or time but Conn went further and argued that without them there could not be a knowable world at all a similar point applies to cause and effect and to the principle that things can endure unchanged through time the rules of the empirical world are that it must contain enduring things arranged in space and time and having systematic effects upon one another nothing else Kant argued could ever count as an empirical world that we could know however his most startling claim is that all these rules are not present in the world as it is in itself they are all rules simply about how the world must be if we are to be able to experience it upon reading Kant Schopenhauer underwent what he called an intellectual rebirth and proceeded to use Khan's core ideas as the foundation upon which he built his own philosophical edifice Schopenhauer's interpretation of Conte was that space-time and causality do not exist in the world but are instead features of our mind which it uses to construct our experience it should be noted that there is still disagreement as to whether Conte actually meant that these principles were features of the mind however that is how Schopenhauer interpreted him the world as we experience it is structured by objects arranged in space and time which have causal relationships with other things now of space-time and causality are features of the mind then it follows according to Schopenhauer that the objects of the world depend on the mind for their existence and that the world as we know it is a representation created by our mind Schopenhauer famously expressed this idealist position by proclaiming the world is my representation Schopenhauer's idealism or his belief that all objects of experience are dependent for their existence on the brain or a knowing subject was influenced by Conte as well as the famous Irish philosopher George Berkeley he expressed his idealist position in the following quote if accordingly we attempt to imagine an objective world without a knowing subject then we become aware that what we are imagining at that moment is in truth the opposite of what we intended namely nothing but just the process in the intellect of a knowing being who perceives an objective world that is to say precisely that which we had sought to exclude for this perceptible and real world is obviously a phenomenon of the brain and so in the assumption that the world as such might exist independently of all brains there lies a contradiction while Schopenhauer agreed with the fundamental tenets of Kant's ideas he also believed that there was a major inconsistency which lay at the heart of his philosophy although Kant claimed we can never come to know the nature of reality in itself he thought there must be something which exists independently of us that is the cause of our representations or the world that appears to us if such a postulation is not made countries and the one would have to arrive at the absurd conclusion that our representations of the world arise out of nothing Kant proposed the existence of mind independent or what he called transcendental objects which are the cause of our representations but which we can never ascertain the nature of yet this made no sense to Schopenhauer as according to his interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism space-time and causality are features of the mind this means it makes no sense to speak of things in themselves causing our experience as causation requires a knowing subject in a similar manner since objects can only exist within space and time and because space and time also require a knowing subject it also makes no sense to speak of objects which exist in an independent manner the being of an object in general belongs to the form of appearances and is conditioned by the being of the subject in general just as the objects manner of appearance is conditioned by the subjects forms of knowledge hence if the thing in itself is to be assumed it cannot be an object at all Schopenhauer however did not disagree with Conte that there must be some sub stratum underlying our experience of the phenomenal world yet he did not think we could arrive at knowledge of such a substratum by gazing outward at the objects of our experience on the path of objective knowledge thus starting from the representation we shall never get beyond the representation ie the phenomenon we shall therefore remain at the outside of things we shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature and investigate what they are in themselves in other words what they may be by themselves Schopenhauer thought that the philosophical task of laying bare the true inner nature of the world would be impossible were it not for the fact that there is one object in the world which we experience from within that being our own body consequently away from within stands open to us to that real inner nature of things to which we cannot penetrate from without it is so to speak a subterranean passage a secret alliance which says if by treachery places us all at once in the fortress that cannot be taken by attack from without when we direct our awareness inward Schopenhauer claimed we will discover at the core of our being an unconscious instinct or force characterized by a restless striving this force of the core of our being Schopenhauer called will in fact Schopenhauer thought that our body was a manifestation of will so that our body and will are really one in the same thing presented to us in two different ways our body is presented to us in the form of representations and our will is presented via direct inner experience since he proposed that we can most clearly Intuit the raw desire that is the will within us during the sexual act and when our survival instincts are activated he also called it the will to live although our body is the only object in the world which we have inner access to Schopenhauer thought that because it is apparent that all life strives fundamentally towards survival nourishment and propagation it was justified to assert that all life forms are similar to us and that they are also manifestations of the will to live or will everything presses and strives towards existence 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 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 explanation Schopenhauer didn't think it was appropriate to claim that only organic life was the manifestation of will but not in organic nature doing so would introduce into the world an unnecessary divide between the organic and inorganic instead Schopenhauer claimed that not only is will the true inner nature of all life forms but of everything that exists it is as he wrote the kernel of reality itself we must therefore also apply the key for an understanding of the inner nature of things a key that only the immediate knowledge of our own inner nature could give us to these phenomena of the inorganic world which are the most remote of all from us for this word indicates that which is the being in itself of everything in the world and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon since everything in this world organic and inorganic alike is a manifestation of will at its core everything is one with everything else the separateness of all things is nothing but an illusion this conclusion of Schopenhauer's in many ways parallels that found in the apana shots the text which founds the basis of Hinduism this thou art the perceiver in the perceived r1 while Schopenhauer is known to have studied Eastern philosophy he arrived at this position independently prior to being acquainted with the apana shads certain philosophers throughout history perhaps most notably Spinoza have ascribed to pantheism and claimed that this world is the manifestation of a divine and benevolent God as an atheist Schopenhauer thought the pantheist position to be ludicrous for he proclaimed that if the pantheist opened his eyes to the misery of the world he would have to admit that a God who should presume to transform himself into such a world would certainly have been inevitably troubled and tormented by the devil instead of being a manifestation of God Schopenhauer thought the world is a manifestation of will which is a blind impulse or force which is not divine or benevolent but demonic as manifestations of will all life blindly strives towards nourishment and propagation however since organisms must feed on other organisms to nourish themselves and all organisms are manifestations of will Schopenhauer concluded that the will must live on itself for there exists nothing beside it and it is a hungry will in order to convey the pain and horror which arises when the manifestations of will feed on each other Schopenhauer conveys a striking image by rendering in his own words an account given by a European explorer Schopenhauer describes how the Explorer saw an immense field entirely covered with skeletons and took it to be a battlefield however they were nothing but skeletons of large turtles 5 feet long 3 feet broad and of equal height these turtles come this way from the sea in order to lay their eggs and are then seized by wild dogs with their United strength these dogs lay them on their backs tear open their lower Armour the small scales of the belly and devour them alive but then a tiger often pounces on the dogs now all this misery is repeated thousands and thousands of times urine year out for this then are these Turtles born for what offense must they suffer this agony what is the point of this whole scene of horror the only answer is that the will to live thus objectifies itself in the next lecture we will investigate the ethical side of Schopenhauer's philosophy that is we will look at what it means for us human beings to be manifestations of will and how this knowledge should guide our action as we will see as manifestations of will we are condemned to a life of misery pain and suffering and according to Schopenhauer there remains only one thing we can do if we are to find any semblance of peace on this miserable earth we must escape from the will

Channel: Academy of Ideas

Views: 283,496

Rating: 4.9136214 out of 5

Keywords: schopenhauer, metaphysics, will-to-live, will, representation, transcendental idealism, kant, idealism

Id: zNDw9lO8uKg

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 23 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/SistineShrapnel]

What more then is the difference between Schopenhauer's Will-to-live and Nietzsche's Will-to-power other than Nietzsche adds a more psychological component to the will? Namely, an expression of strength on top of nourishment and propagation.

[u/notaveryoriginalname]

Alright, I watched this, but when I got to the point about Schopenhauer's will to live, I was curious as to how he then explained suicide, if everything has a will to live.

[u/billtalts]

Thank you for sharing. I did a report about Schopenhauer a few years back and boy was it a challenge. My favorite quote of Schopenhauer’s is:

“Philosophy is an alpine road and the precipitous path which leads to it is strewn with stones and thorns. The higher you climb, the lonelier, more desolate, grows the way. But he who treads it must know no fear; he must leave everything behind him; he will at last have to cut his own path over the ice. His road will often bring him to the edge of chasm, when he can look into the green valley beneath. Giddiness will overcome him and strive to draw him down, but he must resist and hold himself back. In return the world will soon lie far beneath him. Its deserts and bogs will disappear from view. Its discords cannot pierce so high. The climber stands in the clear air and can behold the sun, while beneath is shrouded in black night.”

[u/Lightflow]

I'm surprised I watched all 16 minutes without any pause or distraction.

[u/Pretzlcoatl_]

Off topic, but the narrator seems to switch from a Canadian accent to an Irish one seemlessly at times. Very interesting.