The World as Will and Representation
Encyclopedia
The World as Will and Representation is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
. The first edition was published in December 1818, and the second expanded edition in 1844. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann
.
In the English language, this work is known under three different titles. Although English publications about Schopenhauer played a role in the recognition of his fame as a philosopher in later life (1851 until his death in 1860) and a three volume translation by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, titled The World as Will and Idea, appeared already in 1883-1886, the first English translation of the expanded edition of this work under this title The World as Will and Representation appeared by E.F.J.Payne (who also translated several other works of Schopenhauer) as late as in 1958 (paperback editions in 1966 and 1969). A later English translation by Richard E. Aquila in collaboration with David Carus is titled The World as Will and Presentation (2008).
Translator Aquila believes that the reader will not grasp the details of the philosophy of Schopenhauer properly without this new title: "The World as Will and Presentation." According to him, “Idea,” “Representation,” and “Presentation” are all acceptable renderings of the word “Vorstellung”, but it is the notion of a performance or a theatrical presentation that is key in his interpretation. The world that we perceive is a “presentation” of objects in the theatre of our own mind; the observers, the “subject,” each craft the show with their own stage managers, stagehands, sets, lighting, code of dress, pay scale, etc. The other part of the world, the Will, or “thing in itself,” which is not perceivable as a presentation, exists outside time, space, and causality. Aquila claims to make these distinctions as linguistically precise as possible.
's theories, and Schopenhauer is regarded by some as remaining more faithful to Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism
than any of the other later German Idealists
. However, the book contains an appendix entitled Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, in which Schopenhauer rejects most of Kant's ethics
and significant parts of his epistemology and aesthetics
. Schopenhauer demands that the introduction is read before the book itself, although it is not fully contained in this book but appeared earlier under the title On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
. He also states in his introduction that the reader will be at his best prepared to understand his theories if he lingered in the school of Plato
or he is already familiar with the Indian Philosophy
.
Schopenhauer believed that Kant had ignored inner experience, as intuited through the will
, which was the most important form of experience. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body. According to Schopenhauer, the entire world is the representation of a single Will, of which our individual wills are phenomena. In this way, Schopenhauer's metaphysics go beyond the limits that Kant had set, but do not go so far as the rationalist system-builders that preceded Kant. Other important differences are Schopenhauer's rejection of eleven of Kant's twelve categories, arguing that only causality
was important. Matter
and causality
were both seen as a union of time
and space
and thus being equal to each other.
Schopenhauer frequently acknowledges drawing on Plato
in the development of his theories and, particularly in the context of aesthetics, speaks of the Platonic forms as existing on an intermediate ontological
level between the representation and the Will.
, aesthetics and ethics, in order. Much later in his life, in 1844, Schopenhauer published a second edition in two volumes, the first a virtual reprint of the original, and the second a new work consisting of clarifications to and additional reflections on the first. His views had not changed substantially.
His belated fame after 1851 stimulated renewed interest in his seminal work, and led to a third and final edition with 136 more pages in 1859, one year before his death. In the preface to the latter, Schopenhauer noted: "If I also have at last arrived, and have the satisfaction at the end of my life of seeing the beginning of my influence, it is with the hope that, according to an old rule, it will last longer in proportion to the lateness of its beginning."
as a human's most familiar designation for the concept that can also be signified by other words such as "desire," "striving," "wanting," "effort," and "urging." Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is the expression of an insatiable will to life.
and gravity are described as fundamental forces of the will. Knowledge
is something that was invented to serve the will and is present in both human and non-human animals. It is subordinate to the demands of the will for all animals and most humans. The fundamental nature of the universe and everything in it is seen as this will. Schopenhauer presents a pessimistic picture on which unfulfilled desires are painful, and pleasure is merely the sensation experienced at the instant one such pain is removed. However, most desires are never fulfilled, and those that are fulfilled are instantly replaced by more unfulfilled ones.
. Genius, according to Schopenhauer, is possessed by all people in varying degrees and consists of the capacity for aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience occurs when an individual perceives an object and understands by it not the individual object itself, but the Platonic form of the object. The individual is then able to lose himself in the object of contemplation and, for a brief moment, escape the cycle of unfulfilled desire by becoming "the pure subject of will-less knowing." Those who have a high degree of genius can be taught to communicate these aesthetic experiences to others, and objects that communicate these experiences are works of art. Based on this theory, Schopenhauer viewed Dutch still-life as the best type of painting, because it was able to help viewers see beauty in ordinary, everyday objects. However, he sharply criticized depictions of nude women and prepared food, as these stimulate desire and thus hinder the viewer from the aesthetic experience and becoming "the pure subject of will-less knowing."
Music also occupies a privileged place in Schopenhauer's aesthetics, as he believed it to have a special relationship to the will. Where other forms of art are imitations of things perceived in the world, music is a direct copy of the will.
According to Schopenhauer, the Will (the great Will that is the thing-in-itself, not the individual wills of humans and animals, which are phenomena of the Will) conflicts with itself through the egoism
that every human and animal is endowed with. Compassion arises from a transcendence of this egoism (the penetration of the illusory perception of individuality, so that one can empathise with the suffering of another) and can serve as a clue to the possibility of going beyond desire and the will. Schopenhauer categorically denies the existence of the "freedom of the will" in the conventional sense, and only adumbrates how the will can be "released" or negated, but is not subject to change, and serves as the root of the chain of causal
determinism
. His praise for asceticism
led him to think highly of Buddhism
and Vedanta
Hinduism
, as well as some monastic sects of Catholicism
. He expressed contempt for Protestantism
, Judaism
, and Islam
, which he saw as optimistic, devoid of metaphysics
and cruel to non-human animals. According to Schopenhauer, the deep truth of the matter is that in cases of the over-affirmation of the will – that is, cases where one individual exerts his will not only for its own fulfillment but for the improper domination of others – he is unaware that he is really identical with the person he is harming, so that the Will in fact constantly harms itself, and justice is done in the moment in which the crime is committed, since the same metaphysical individual is both the perpetrator and the victim.
Schopenhauer discusses suicide at length, noting that it does not actually destroy the Will or any part of it in any substantial way, since death is merely the end of one particular phenomenon of the Will, which is subsequently rearranged. By asceticism
, the ultimate denial of the will, one can slowly weaken the individual will in a way that is far more significant than violent suicide, which is, in fact, in some sense an affirmation of the will.
The ultimate conclusion is that one can have a tolerable life not by complete elimination of desire, since this would lead to boredom, but by becoming a detached observer of one's own will and being constantly aware that most of one's desires will remain unfulfilled.
asserted that Kant's greatest error was the failure to distinguish between perceptual, intuitive knowledge and conceptual, discursive knowledge. One of Kant's greatest contributions, according to Schopenhauer, was the distinction of the phenomenon
from the thing-in-itself.
and his theory on sexuality
, which saw it as a manifestation of the whole will making sure that it will live on and depriving humans of their reason
and sanity in their longing for their loved ones. While this has been much improved on since, his honesty on the subject is unusual for the time and the central role of sexuality in human life is now widely accepted. Less successful is his theory of genetics
: he argued that humans inherit their will, and thus their character, from their fathers, but their intellect from their mothers and he provides examples from biographies of great figures to illustrate this theory. The second volume also contains what many readers view as attacks on contemporary philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling
, and Hegel.
The contents of Volume II are as follows.
Supplements to the First Book
First Half
The Doctrine of the Representation of Perception Through § 1 – 7 of Volume I
I. On the Fundamental View of Idealism
II. On the Doctrine of Knowledge of Perception or Knowledge of the Understanding
III. On the Senses
IV. On Knowledge a Priori
Second Half
The Doctrine of the Abstract Representation or of Thinking
V. On the Intellect Devoid of Reason
VI. On the Doctrine of Abstract Knowledge, or Knowledge of Reason
VII. On the Relation of Knowledge of Perception to Abstract Knowledge
VIII. On the Theory of the Ludicrous
IX. On Logic in General
X. On the Science of Syllogisms
XI. On Rhetoric
XII. On the Doctrine of Science
XIII. On the Methods of Mathematics
XIV. On the Association of Ideas
XV. On the Essential Imperfections of the Intellect
XVI. On the Practical Use of Our Reason and on Stoicism
XVII. On Man's Need for Metaphysics
Supplements to the Second Book
XVIII. On the Possibility of Knowing the Thing-in-Itself
XIX. On the Primacy of the Will in Self-Consciousness
XX. Objectification of the Will in the Animal Organism
XXI. Retrospect and More General Consideration
XXII. Objective View of the Intellect
XXIII. On the objectification of the Will in Nature without Knowledge
XXIV. On Matter
XXV. Transcendent Considerations on the Will as Thing-in-Itself
XXVI. On Teleology
XXVII. On Instinct and Mechanical Tendency
XXVIII. Characterization of the Will-to-Live
Supplements to the Third Book
XXIX. On Knowledge of the Ideas
XXX. On the Pure Subject of Knowing
XXXI. On Genius
XXXII. On Madness
XXXIII. Isolated Remarks on Natural Beauty
XXXIV. On the Inner Nature of Art
XXXV. On the Aesthetics of Architecture
XXXVI. Isolated Remarks on the Aesthetics of the Plastic and Pictorial Arts
XXXVII. On the Aesthetics of Poetry
XXXVIII. On History
XXXIX. On the Metaphysics of Music
Supplements to the Fourth Book
XL. Preface
XLI. On Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Inner nature
XLII. Life of the Species
XLIII. The Hereditary Nature of Qualities
XLIV. The Metaphysics of Sexual Love
Appendix to the Preceding Chapter
XLV. On the Affirmation of the Will-to-Live
XLVI. On the Vanity and Suffering of Life
XLVII. On Ethics
XLVIII. On the Doctrine of the Denial of the Will-to-Live
XLIX. The Road to Salvation
L. Epiphilosophy
and the works of Freud; some researchers have even questioned whether Freud was telling the truth when he said that he had not read Schopenhauer until his old age. The notion of the subconscious is present in Schopenhauer's will and his theory of madness
was consistent with this. Also, his theory on masochism is still now widely proposed by doctors . Nietzsche, Popper
, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy
, Jung
, Borges, D.H. Lawrence, Camus
, Beckett
, Mahler
and Wagner
were all strongly influenced by his work. For Nietzsche, the reading of The World as Will and Representation aroused his interest in philosophy. Although he despised especially Schopenhauer's ideas on compassion
, Nietzsche would admit that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, lauding him in his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher ("Schopenhauer as Educator", 1874), one of his Untimely Meditations
.
Schopenhauer's discussion of language was a major influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein
.
Many interpreters see Schopenhauer's account of the Will as closely resembling classic examples of Monism
, especially as propounded by Upanishads and Vedanta
philosophy. The writer himself expresses the opinion that the aphorisms contained in the Upanishads can be deducted from his work. Schopenhauer also developed some ideas that can be found in the theory of evolution
, before Darwin
began to publish his work, for example the idea that all life strives to preserve itself and to engender new life, and that our mental faculties are merely tools to that end. In contrast to what Darwin discovered, however, he saw species as fixed. His interest in Eastern philosophy
brought new ideas to the West. His respect for the rights of animals – including a vehement opposition to vivisection
- has led many modern animal rights
activists to look up to him.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
. The first edition was published in December 1818, and the second expanded edition in 1844. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
.
English translations
Translator Aquila believes that the reader will not grasp the details of the philosophy of Schopenhauer properly without this new title: "The World as Will and Presentation." According to him, “Idea,” “Representation,” and “Presentation” are all acceptable renderings of the word “Vorstellung”, but it is the notion of a performance or a theatrical presentation that is key in his interpretation. The world that we perceive is a “presentation” of objects in the theatre of our own mind; the observers, the “subject,” each craft the show with their own stage managers, stagehands, sets, lighting, code of dress, pay scale, etc. The other part of the world, the Will, or “thing in itself,” which is not perceivable as a presentation, exists outside time, space, and causality. Aquila claims to make these distinctions as linguistically precise as possible.
Relationship to earlier philosophical work
The main body of the work states at the beginning that it assumes prior knowledge of Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
's theories, and Schopenhauer is regarded by some as remaining more faithful to Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that...
than any of the other later German Idealists
German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...
. However, the book contains an appendix entitled Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, in which Schopenhauer rejects most of Kant's ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
and significant parts of his epistemology and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
. Schopenhauer demands that the introduction is read before the book itself, although it is not fully contained in this book but appeared earlier under the title On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason was originally published as a doctoral dissertation in 1813. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer revised this important work and re-published it in 1847....
. He also states in his introduction that the reader will be at his best prepared to understand his theories if he lingered in the school of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
or he is already familiar with the Indian Philosophy
Indian philosophy
India has a rich and diverse philosophical tradition dating back to ancient times. According to Radhakrishnan, the earlier Upanisads constitute "...the earliest philosophical compositions of the world."...
.
Schopenhauer believed that Kant had ignored inner experience, as intuited through the will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
, which was the most important form of experience. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body. According to Schopenhauer, the entire world is the representation of a single Will, of which our individual wills are phenomena. In this way, Schopenhauer's metaphysics go beyond the limits that Kant had set, but do not go so far as the rationalist system-builders that preceded Kant. Other important differences are Schopenhauer's rejection of eleven of Kant's twelve categories, arguing that only causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
was important. Matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
were both seen as a union of time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
and space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
and thus being equal to each other.
Schopenhauer frequently acknowledges drawing on Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
in the development of his theories and, particularly in the context of aesthetics, speaks of the Platonic forms as existing on an intermediate ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
level between the representation and the Will.
Development of the work
The development of Schopenhauer's ideas took place very early in his career (1814–1818) and culminated in the publication of the first volume of Will and Representation in 1819. This first volume consisted of four books - covering his epistemology, ontologyOntology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
, aesthetics and ethics, in order. Much later in his life, in 1844, Schopenhauer published a second edition in two volumes, the first a virtual reprint of the original, and the second a new work consisting of clarifications to and additional reflections on the first. His views had not changed substantially.
His belated fame after 1851 stimulated renewed interest in his seminal work, and led to a third and final edition with 136 more pages in 1859, one year before his death. In the preface to the latter, Schopenhauer noted: "If I also have at last arrived, and have the satisfaction at the end of my life of seeing the beginning of my influence, it is with the hope that, according to an old rule, it will last longer in proportion to the lateness of its beginning."
Will
Schopenhauer used the word "will"Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
as a human's most familiar designation for the concept that can also be signified by other words such as "desire," "striving," "wanting," "effort," and "urging." Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is the expression of an insatiable will to life.
Representation
He used the word representation (Vorstellung) to signify the mental idea or image of any object that is experienced as being external to the mind. It is sometimes translated as idea or presentation. This concept includes the representation of the observing subject's own body. Schopenhauer called the subject's own body the immediate object because it is in the closest proximity to the mind, which is located in the brain.Epistemology (Vol. 1, Book 1)
As mentioned above, Schopenhauer's notion of the will comes from the Kantian things-in-itself, which Kant believed to be the fundamental reality behind the representation that provided the matter of perception, but lacked form. Kant believed that space, time, causation, and many other similar phenomena belonged properly to the form imposed on the world by the human mind in order to create the representation, and these factors were absent from the thing-in-itself. Schopenhauer pointed out that anything outside of time and space could not be differentiated, so the thing-in-itself must be one and all things that exist, including human beings, must be part of this fundamental unity. Our inner-experience must be a manifestation of the noumenal realm and the will is the inner kernel of every being. All knowledge gained of objects is seen as self-referential, as we recognize the same will in other things as is inside us.Ontology (Vol. 1, Book 2)
In Book Two, electricityElectricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
and gravity are described as fundamental forces of the will. Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
is something that was invented to serve the will and is present in both human and non-human animals. It is subordinate to the demands of the will for all animals and most humans. The fundamental nature of the universe and everything in it is seen as this will. Schopenhauer presents a pessimistic picture on which unfulfilled desires are painful, and pleasure is merely the sensation experienced at the instant one such pain is removed. However, most desires are never fulfilled, and those that are fulfilled are instantly replaced by more unfulfilled ones.
Aesthetics (Vol. 1, Book 3)
Like many other aesthetic theories, Schopenhauer's centers on the concept of geniusGenius
Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....
. Genius, according to Schopenhauer, is possessed by all people in varying degrees and consists of the capacity for aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience occurs when an individual perceives an object and understands by it not the individual object itself, but the Platonic form of the object. The individual is then able to lose himself in the object of contemplation and, for a brief moment, escape the cycle of unfulfilled desire by becoming "the pure subject of will-less knowing." Those who have a high degree of genius can be taught to communicate these aesthetic experiences to others, and objects that communicate these experiences are works of art. Based on this theory, Schopenhauer viewed Dutch still-life as the best type of painting, because it was able to help viewers see beauty in ordinary, everyday objects. However, he sharply criticized depictions of nude women and prepared food, as these stimulate desire and thus hinder the viewer from the aesthetic experience and becoming "the pure subject of will-less knowing."
Music also occupies a privileged place in Schopenhauer's aesthetics, as he believed it to have a special relationship to the will. Where other forms of art are imitations of things perceived in the world, music is a direct copy of the will.
Ethics (Vol. 1, Book 4)
Schopenhauer claims in this book to set forth a purely descriptive account of human ethical behavior, in which he identifies two types of behavior: the affirmation and denial of the will.According to Schopenhauer, the Will (the great Will that is the thing-in-itself, not the individual wills of humans and animals, which are phenomena of the Will) conflicts with itself through the egoism
Psychological egoism
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly,...
that every human and animal is endowed with. Compassion arises from a transcendence of this egoism (the penetration of the illusory perception of individuality, so that one can empathise with the suffering of another) and can serve as a clue to the possibility of going beyond desire and the will. Schopenhauer categorically denies the existence of the "freedom of the will" in the conventional sense, and only adumbrates how the will can be "released" or negated, but is not subject to change, and serves as the root of the chain of causal
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. His praise for asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
led him to think highly of Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, as well as some monastic sects of Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. He expressed contempt for Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, which he saw as optimistic, devoid of metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
and cruel to non-human animals. According to Schopenhauer, the deep truth of the matter is that in cases of the over-affirmation of the will – that is, cases where one individual exerts his will not only for its own fulfillment but for the improper domination of others – he is unaware that he is really identical with the person he is harming, so that the Will in fact constantly harms itself, and justice is done in the moment in which the crime is committed, since the same metaphysical individual is both the perpetrator and the victim.
Schopenhauer discusses suicide at length, noting that it does not actually destroy the Will or any part of it in any substantial way, since death is merely the end of one particular phenomenon of the Will, which is subsequently rearranged. By asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
, the ultimate denial of the will, one can slowly weaken the individual will in a way that is far more significant than violent suicide, which is, in fact, in some sense an affirmation of the will.
The ultimate conclusion is that one can have a tolerable life not by complete elimination of desire, since this would lead to boredom, but by becoming a detached observer of one's own will and being constantly aware that most of one's desires will remain unfulfilled.
Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy (Vol. 1, Appendix)
At the end of Book 4, Schopenhauer appended a thorough discussion of the merits and faults of Kant's philosophy. Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophySchopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy
Schopenhauer appended a criticism to the first volume of his The World as Will and Representation. He wanted to show Kant's errors so that Kant's merits would be appreciated and his achievements furthered....
asserted that Kant's greatest error was the failure to distinguish between perceptual, intuitive knowledge and conceptual, discursive knowledge. One of Kant's greatest contributions, according to Schopenhauer, was the distinction of the phenomenon
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...
from the thing-in-itself.
Volume 2
The second volume consisted of several essays expanding topics covered in the first. Most important are his reflections on deathDeath
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
and his theory on sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, which saw it as a manifestation of the whole will making sure that it will live on and depriving humans of their reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
and sanity in their longing for their loved ones. While this has been much improved on since, his honesty on the subject is unusual for the time and the central role of sexuality in human life is now widely accepted. Less successful is his theory of genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
: he argued that humans inherit their will, and thus their character, from their fathers, but their intellect from their mothers and he provides examples from biographies of great figures to illustrate this theory. The second volume also contains what many readers view as attacks on contemporary philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend...
, and Hegel.
The contents of Volume II are as follows.
Supplements to the First Book
First Half
The Doctrine of the Representation of Perception Through § 1 – 7 of Volume I
I. On the Fundamental View of Idealism
II. On the Doctrine of Knowledge of Perception or Knowledge of the Understanding
III. On the Senses
IV. On Knowledge a Priori
Second Half
The Doctrine of the Abstract Representation or of Thinking
V. On the Intellect Devoid of Reason
VI. On the Doctrine of Abstract Knowledge, or Knowledge of Reason
VII. On the Relation of Knowledge of Perception to Abstract Knowledge
VIII. On the Theory of the Ludicrous
IX. On Logic in General
X. On the Science of Syllogisms
XI. On Rhetoric
XII. On the Doctrine of Science
XIII. On the Methods of Mathematics
XIV. On the Association of Ideas
XV. On the Essential Imperfections of the Intellect
XVI. On the Practical Use of Our Reason and on Stoicism
XVII. On Man's Need for Metaphysics
Supplements to the Second Book
XVIII. On the Possibility of Knowing the Thing-in-Itself
XIX. On the Primacy of the Will in Self-Consciousness
XX. Objectification of the Will in the Animal Organism
XXI. Retrospect and More General Consideration
XXII. Objective View of the Intellect
XXIII. On the objectification of the Will in Nature without Knowledge
XXIV. On Matter
XXV. Transcendent Considerations on the Will as Thing-in-Itself
XXVI. On Teleology
XXVII. On Instinct and Mechanical Tendency
XXVIII. Characterization of the Will-to-Live
Supplements to the Third Book
XXIX. On Knowledge of the Ideas
XXX. On the Pure Subject of Knowing
XXXI. On Genius
XXXII. On Madness
XXXIII. Isolated Remarks on Natural Beauty
XXXIV. On the Inner Nature of Art
XXXV. On the Aesthetics of Architecture
XXXVI. Isolated Remarks on the Aesthetics of the Plastic and Pictorial Arts
XXXVII. On the Aesthetics of Poetry
XXXVIII. On History
XXXIX. On the Metaphysics of Music
Supplements to the Fourth Book
XL. Preface
XLI. On Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Inner nature
XLII. Life of the Species
XLIII. The Hereditary Nature of Qualities
XLIV. The Metaphysics of Sexual Love
Appendix to the Preceding Chapter
XLV. On the Affirmation of the Will-to-Live
XLVI. On the Vanity and Suffering of Life
XLVII. On Ethics
XLVIII. On the Doctrine of the Denial of the Will-to-Live
XLIX. The Road to Salvation
L. Epiphilosophy
Influence
The value of this work is much disputed. Some rank Schopenhauer as one of the most original and inspiring of all philosophers, while others see him as inconsistent and too pessimistic. He has had a huge effect on psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and the works of Freud; some researchers have even questioned whether Freud was telling the truth when he said that he had not read Schopenhauer until his old age. The notion of the subconscious is present in Schopenhauer's will and his theory of madness
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
was consistent with this. Also, his theory on masochism is still now widely proposed by doctors . Nietzsche, Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
, Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Borges, D.H. Lawrence, Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
and Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
were all strongly influenced by his work. For Nietzsche, the reading of The World as Will and Representation aroused his interest in philosophy. Although he despised especially Schopenhauer's ideas on compassion
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
, Nietzsche would admit that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, lauding him in his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher ("Schopenhauer as Educator", 1874), one of his Untimely Meditations
Untimely Meditations
Untimely Meditations consists of four works by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, started in 1873 and completed in 1876....
.
Schopenhauer's discussion of language was a major influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
.
Many interpreters see Schopenhauer's account of the Will as closely resembling classic examples of Monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
, especially as propounded by Upanishads and Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
philosophy. The writer himself expresses the opinion that the aphorisms contained in the Upanishads can be deducted from his work. Schopenhauer also developed some ideas that can be found in the theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, before Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
began to publish his work, for example the idea that all life strives to preserve itself and to engender new life, and that our mental faculties are merely tools to that end. In contrast to what Darwin discovered, however, he saw species as fixed. His interest in Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...
brought new ideas to the West. His respect for the rights of animals – including a vehement opposition to vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
- has led many modern animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
activists to look up to him.
See also
- The AntichristThe Antichrist (book)The Antichrist is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1895. Although it was written in 1888, its controversial content made Franz Overbeck and Heinrich Köselitz delay its publication, along with Ecce Homo...
- Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy
- On the Freedom of the WillOn the Freedom of the WillOn the Freedom of the Will was an essay presented to the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences in 1839 by Arthur Schopenhauer as a response to the academic question that they had posed: "Is it possible to demonstrate human free will from self-consciousness?" It is one of the constituent essays of his...
- Schopenhauer's criticism of the proofs of the Parallel PostulateSchopenhauer's criticism of the proofs of the parallel postulateArthur Schopenhauer criticized mathematicians' attempts to prove Euclid's Parallel Postulate because they try to prove from indirect concepts that which is directly evident from perception....
- Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemataSchopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemataSchopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemata is part of Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy which was published in 1819. In the appendix to the first volume of his main work, Arthur Schopenhauer attempted to assign the psychological cause of Kant's doctrines of the categories and...
- WillWill (philosophy)Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
Further Reading
- Magee, BryanBryan MageeBryan Edgar Magee is a noted British broadcasting personality, politician, poet, and author, best known as a popularizer of philosophy.-Early life:...
, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford University Press, 1997 (reprint), ISBN 0-19-823722-7 - Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Dover. Volume I, ISBN 0-486-21761-2. Volume II, ISBN 0-486-21762-0
- Susanne Möbuß, Schopenhauer für Anfänger: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung - eine Lese-Einführung (introduction in German to The World as Will and Representation) 1998