Notes on the Basics of Schopenhauer

 

      Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimistic philosophy which is exemplified in his work, “The World as Will and Representation”. Schopenhauer’s metaphysics drew from Kant whom I have several blog posts on but in short, Kant believed in the Noumena-Phenomena distinction or Transcendental Idealism. Phenomena are the things we perceive through our senses which are shaped by our mind’s faculties and subject to the categories of understanding. Noumena, on the other hand, are things as they are in themselves that are beyond human perception and conceptualization. Kant argues that while we can understand phenomena through empirical investigation, we can never truly know noumena because they lie beyond the limits of human cognition. Thus, noumena represent the realm of things as they exist independently of our perception that are ultimately unknowable. Since we can never know the true world in itself as our perception of the phenomena is based on our mind, Schopenhauer believed this world we lived in was illusory. Even the concept of time was a category of the mind that is used to make sense of the world so therefore reality is independent of time. This world was endless chaos and confusion that seems like it is always changing but in reality has always been the same in eternity. This is why Schopenhauer’s philosophy is identified with pessimism. Escape from the suffering from this world can be found in things such as poodles or the arts or playing the flute which allow for a temporary relief as we tend to lose ourselves in them.

Why is life so bad? According to Schopenhauer, it’s because everything is a manifestation of the noumena which he identifies with the “Will”. It is a mindless force that powers everything in the universe. As blind force, it drives all our instincts and desires and thus forces humans to suffer in our pursuit of new things. However, it has no ultimate goal or purpose and so it can never be satisfied. Getting what we want provides only temporary relief from pain. Before long we get bored and the thirst returns. We need more love, more money, more status, and so we suffer again and this is very similar to the suffering that the material world is said to cause in Buddhism, happiness is a moment when we are free or perhaps distracted away from our suffering but this is only short-lived. Similar to Buddhism, he believed in reincarnation or perhaps a better word for it would be a recycling. While it seems that we can escape the suffering of the world by committing suicide, for Schopenhauer, when we die, the Will in us expresses itself through some other object, plant, animal or human being, where we are doomed to suffer all over again but there is more nuance to it.  The individual consciousness does not survive death and migrate to another body as it does in Hinduism and Buddhism but rather it is a new manifestation of the Will in a different way but the individual ceases to exist and therefore can be described as a non-personal immortality. There is nothing that stops the Will from manifesting. Death is ultimately the destruction of the individual appearance and is the final denial of the will to live. Those who learned to give up their will to live in this life die ultimately as their will has become extinguished.

Even his metaphysical principle of the noumena-phenomena distinction is drawn from the Hindu philosophy in the Upanishads which states that the world is an illusion while in reality it is a representation of Brahman or God but instead Schopenhauer’s metaphysical system is atheistic. Plants compete for sunlight and therefore are in a constant struggle just as humans are. Overall, it is better for us not to exist but this is not an option. The best damage control may be to live as an ascetic free from all desires which is the Buddhist answer as well. For Schopenhauer, these ascetics are simply complacent with their suffering as it is ultimately impossible to overcome it and therefore it is a denial of the will to live which is better for him than a constant struggle for the impossibility of happiness.

Furthermore, his metaphysics is deterministic. The world as it appears is ordered by space and time so the noumena or the Will must be outside this. The multiplicity in the world caused by the Will is always blind and striving and so is human rationality and actions and therefore no human actions are free. A man can do as he will, but not will as he will. The relationship between the Will and reality is not a causal one but they are identical but seen from two different perspectives as two sides of the same coin and in this it can be described as a monism. Just don’t ask for Schopenhauer’s opinion on women.