ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860 – German philosopher known for his atheistic pessimism and philosophical clarity.
“Against the mighty voice of nature, reflection can do little.”
But that doesn’t mean his logic is flawless. Despite Schopenhauer’s realism and fierce opinions regarding instinct and will, there are still other facets of humanity that are noble and good, other redeeming qualities that negate such misanthropy. Principles such as love, freedom, compassion, friendship and forgiveness. And above all else, hope.
Jason battles directly with the statements that Schopenhauer logically proclaims, while mostly agreeing with him. Jason uses these logical views to fuel his deepest, bitterest views of humanity. Frequently, he is at war with himself and his own beliefs, his views of the world and what it has to offer, and what he wants to believe versus what he knows to be true.
The philosophical musings of Schopenhauer suit Jason’s needs until he falls in love. Schopenhauer says love is a delusion driven by the instinct to procreate. He stated we must lie to ourselves in order to believe such an empty duty means something.
That’s not how Jason feels though, even though he’s not acknowledged that he is in love by that point in the novel. Most importantly, he chooses to follow his heart at this point and not his logic, which is supported by Schopenhauer, because it does not fit his needs or his instincts to love and have hope. He begins bending black and white to his will philosophically without even realizing it.
The undertone of Schopenhauer’s views are profound because they are so very realistic and incredibly insightful. Somethings though, are not defined by black and white, right or wrong, or logic. Sometimes other absolutes clash directly with others and then what? Man must resign to his will, which is not driven by instinct alone.
Love is a constant in much the same way as any other absolute. One must learn to rule their lives with both the head and the heart.
SCHOPENHAUER’S VIEWS
LOVE, SEX AND THE PROCREATION
Schopenhauer believes in instinctive procreation and everything else is secondary. Man is, at bottom, driven by “something” to maintain life, engage in sex, and participate in goals; but people pursue those goals according to purposes completely hidden from their consciousness. For instance, the will, in other words, “uses” individuals when they perceive a certain person to be an excellent object of sexual desire, all for the sake of perpetuating itself. Despite the apparent choice or conscious level of attraction, this indicates a fundamental impulse that predetermines behavior, the presence of a biological programming. The real focus of the will lies in the loins, the genitals, where nature relentlessly pursues the propagation of the species, and manifests itself to human consciousness/perception as the emotion of being “in love”. Therefore, the individual’s actions are not truly free, despite the consciousness’ apparent role in “choosing” its actions.
Given that the genitals are the real focus of the will, the life preserving principle, the sexual impulse is the strongest example of the affirmation of life; and for man, as a biological organism, procreation is every individual’s highest goal. For nature, the preservation of the species is its only goal, and once the individual submits to the will of nature by procreating, s/he is superfluous.
“Nature… With all her force impels both man and the animal to propagate. After this she has attained her end with the individual and is quite indifferent to its destruction; for, as the will to live, she is concerned with the preservation of the species; the individual is nothing to her.” If we are more than just biological units, and our essence is will, then the entire universe is will as well, which continues to manifest itself in billions of individuals (at least on earth) while constantly struggling, growing, fighting, eating, excreting, breathing, dying; or, basically, suffering. Everyday we “awaken to a life out from unconsciousness, the will finds itself as an individual in a limitless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering and erring, and as if troubled by an old dream it hurries back to unconsciousness”. (2)
PHILOSOPHY OF THE “WILL”
A key focus of Schopenhauer was his investigation of individual motivation. Before Schopenhauer, Hegel had popularized the concept of Zeitgeist, the idea that society consisted of a collective consciousness which moved in a distinct direction, directing the actions of its members. Schopenhauer, a reader of both Kant and Hegel, criticized their logical optimism and the belief that individual morality could be determined by society and reason. Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated only by their own basic desires, or Wille zum Leben (”will”: (literally, “will-to-life”)), which directed all of mankind. For Schopenhauer, human desire was futile, illogical, directionless, and, by extension, so was all human action in the world.
The Will to Schopenhauer is a metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of intelligent agents, but physical phenomena. Thus, in a reversion to ancient schools of thought, the reason why objects are seen to drop to the ground is that will compels them to do so. This is not to say that the idea of will is contrary to any modern scientific beliefs-in some ways it reflects the idea that the world is composed of solely energy. Furthermore, there is only one Will, not the individual wills of individuals, and this idea is central to Schopenhauer’s form of determinism.
He defines the “will” accordingly (2): Will as “Inner sense”: acts of will (feelings, emotions, moods)
Direct knowledge of empirically observed movements of physical objects in space and time that are known simultaneously and directly from within that is not mediated through the senses. Take away all the empirical, observable features from your body’s movements and what is leftover are the acts of will. Therefore, the total sum of the observed data composes one aspect of existence. The second definition of the will includes all that the subject of knowing can know in its inner sense, not including the detached, neutral processes of conceptual thought.
ART AND AESTHETICS
For Schopenhauer, human desiring, “willing,” and craving cause suffering or pain. A temporary way to escape this pain is through aesthetic contemplation (a method comparable to Zapffe’s “Sublimation”). This is the next best way, short of not willing at all, which is the best way. Music was also given a special status in Schopenhauer’s aesthetics as it did not rely upon the medium of phenomenal representation. Music presents the will itself, not the way that the will appears to an individual observer. According to Daniel Albright (2004: p39, n34), “Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself.”
ETHICS
Schopenhauer’s moral theory proposed that of three primary moral incentives, compassion, malice and egoism, compassion is the major motivator to moral expression; malice and egoism are corrupt alternatives.
PSYCHOLOGY
Schopenhauer was perhaps even more influential in his treatment of man’s psychology than he was in the realm of philosophy.
Philosophers have not traditionally been impressed by the tribulations of love, but Schopenhauer addressed it and related concepts forthrightly:
“We should be surprised that a matter that generally plays such an important part in the life of man [love] has hitherto been almost entirely disregarded by philosophers, and lies before us as raw and untreated material.”
He gave a name to a force within man which he felt had invariably precedence over reason: the Will to Live (Wille zum Leben), defined as an inherent drive within human beings, and indeed all creatures, to stay alive and to reproduce.
Schopenhauer refused to conceive of love as either trifling or accidental, but rather understood it to be an immensely powerful force lying unseen within man’s psyche and dramatically shaping the world:
“The ultimate aim of all love affairs … is more important than all other aims in man’s life; and therefore it is quite worthy of the profound seriousness with which everyone pursues it.”
“What is decided by it is nothing less than the composition of the next generation.”
These ideas foreshadowed Darwin’s theory of evolution and Freud’s concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind.
VIEWS ON WOMEN
In Schopenhauer’s essay “Of Women” (”Über die Weiber”), he expressed his opposition to what he called “Teutonico-Christian stupidity” on female affairs. He claimed that “woman is by nature meant to obey”, and opposed Schiller’s poem in honor of women, “Würde der Frauen” (”Concerning the Ladies”). The essay does give two compliments, however: that “women are decidedly more sober in their judgment than [men] are” and are more sympathetic to the suffering of others. However, the latter was discounted as weakness rather than humanitarian virtue.
Schopenhauer had generally liberal views on other social issues: he was strongly against taboos on issues like suicide and homosexuality, and condemned the treatment of African slaves. Schopenhauer held a high opinion of one woman, Madame de Guyon, whose writings and biography he recommended.
Schopenhauer’s controversial writing has influenced many, from Nietzsche to nineteenth-century feminists. While Schopenhauer’s hostility to women may tell us more about his biography than about philosophy, his biological analysis of the difference between the sexes, and their separate roles in the struggle for survival and reproduction, anticipates some of the claims that were later ventured by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists in the twentieth century.
Schopenhauer told Richard Wagner’s friend Malwida von Meysenbug, “I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.”
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Every person takes the limits of their own for the limits of the world.
If we weren’t all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting we couldn’t endure it.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
The amount of noise which anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity.
The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Sources:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Arthur Schopenhauer German Philosopher (1788-1860) © Pixtal / SuperStock
