The World As Will And Idea: Containing The Criticism Of The Kantian Philosophy And The Supplements To The First Book And Part Of The Second Book Of Volume One V2

Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung #2

by Arthur Schopenhauer

The World As Will And Idea is a philosophical work by Arthur Schopenhauer that critiques the Kantian philosophy and offers supplements to the first and second books of Volume One. The book discusses Schopenhauer's concept of the will as the fundamental force underlying all reality and his belief that human beings are driven by this will, which is ultimately unsatisfying and leads to suffering. The work also explores Schopenhauer's ideas on perception, consciousness, and the nature of reality. This edition, Volume Two, includes additional supplements to the first book and part of the second book. Overall, The World As Will And Idea is a seminal work in the field of philosophy and offers a unique perspective on the nature of existence.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, German Literature, 19th Century, Psychology, Religion

paper

First published January 1, 1844

About the author

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in the city of Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; present day Gdańsk, Poland) and was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. Schopenhauer attempted to make his career as an academic by correcting and expanding Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world.

He was the son of author Johanna Schopenhauer and the older brother of Adele Schopenhauer.

Reviews

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seven hundred pages of intimidatingly dense and brilliant metaphysics from the dour prince of philosophy. Written twenty-six years after the first volume, Schopenhauer expands on key themes of his metaphysical system, notably his ontology, epistemology and reflections on death and religion. The centerpiece of Schopenhauer's thought is his concept of the will, a blind and irrational urge underlying all material reality, realizing itself as phenomena engaged in an unceasing and violent struggle for existence. This volume adds greater color and detail to the system revealed in his first book with all the characteristically razor-sharp observations and quotes that makes Schopenhauer so pleasing to read. In my opinion, this book is one of the greatest pleasures the study of philosophy has to offer.

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably the greatest mind in the human history!

[Said · Rating 4 out of 5]

جلد دوم کتاب جهان چون تصور و اراده بهتر و بسیار پر شور و حرارت تر از جلد اول هست و انگار نوشته ها پخته تر به نظر میرسند، بسیار قلم شوپنهاور دل نشین است. در ابتدای فصل چهارم این کتاب نویسنده اشاره می کند که یک آزاد اندیش است و قلمش به واسطه ی مقاصد شخصی خودش است که به حرکت در میاد و نه جیره خواری و ارزاق زندگی و این به نظر امتیاز بزرگ فلسفه ی اوست. در کل جلد دوم پاورقی جلد اول است و کسی که دوست دارد با فلسفه ی نویسنده آشنا بشود به قول نویسنده راه درازی را در پیش دارد زیرا او خواننده را وادار می کند که تک تک سطور آثارش را بخواند. کتاب بیشتر به دایرالتمعارفی شبیه است که فیلسوف تمام علم دوران خود در ابتدای قرن نوزدهم رو گرد اورده و در حال توضیح هر یک با چنان اعتماد به نفسی است که قابل تحسینِ، بعضی چیزها در حوزه ی فیزیک برای خواننده ی قرن بیست و یکم بسیار چرت به نظر میاد ولی بر هر حال تلاش نویسنده در نشان دادن دانشش که در قواره ی یک ابر انسان در کتاب به نمایش در می آید بسیار قابل ستایش است

شوپنهاور چه میگوید

داستان از شک دکارتی شروع میشه
https://goo.gl/7ktWbP
بعد گویا به برکلی میرسه
https://goo.gl/b6sEbw
اینجاست که ایده آلیسم مطلق به وجود میاد و سپس نوبت به ظهور کانت میرسه
https://goo.gl/QuQEmY
(البته خودم اطلاعات فلسفی بسیار کمی دارم ولی حدس میزنم برای شروع خودم سرنخ های خوبی باشد)

بله شوپنهاور یک کتاب خوان حرفه ای مجذوب کانت و ایده آلیسم آلمانی است و معتقد است که با شناخت ذهنی که در واقع پدیدارهست نمی توان به شی فی النفسه رسید و برای شناخت جهان از سطحی نمی توان بالاتر رفت زیرا شناخت ما قابلیت استعلایی ندارد

با این حال نویسنده که آشنایی با فرگشت ندارد طبیعت را خود شی فی النفسه می نامند و شروع می کند به تفسیر و بسط این قضیه که اراده ای که انسان را به جلو هل میدهد انسان را به بردگی گرفته است و شبیه قاتلی عمل میکند که این دنیا را برای ما جهنم کرده است

بد بینی نویسنده به جهان و ظلم و جور آن به غیر از ذات خبیث فرگشت به عبارت هابز نیز بر میگردد که می گوید انسان گرگ انسان است و همین امر باعث شده است که نسخه ای که برای تسلای انسان شوپنهاور بپیچد رنگ بوی برهما و بودا و ریاضت نشینی و صوفیگری داشته باشد. اینکه یک فیلسوف با قدرت بالای ذهنی و تمام تلاش مادی خود به عرفان برسد ستودنی است. دنیای شوپنهاور تیره است ولی پر از حکمت و خرد، نویسنده عجز انسان در مواجه با مرگ و مصائب زندگی را به خوبی نشان میدهد. اما من ترجیح میدم همچنان یک ماده باور باشم و به زندگی یهودی وار خود برای رسیدن به ثروت ادامه دهم تا تحت تاثیر یک شرق شناس کافر قرار بگیرم


کلام آخر: جلد دوم کتاب جهان چون تصور و اراده با تمام عیب هایش بدون شک یک شاهکار است

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book completes the second edition of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, published in 1844, by Arthur Schopenhauer. In it, Schopenhauer tries to elucidate and deepen the contents of the original work (published, unaltered, as volume 1). It spans more than 50 chapters and almost 700 pages and is accordinlgy longer and deeper than the original work.

(I read this book as a source of additional information on key topics of volume 1; I skipped the chapters on minor details like madness, a theory of laughter, etc. This is all outdated anyways. I read almost all of the chapters on book 1 (the world as representation) and book 2 (the world as will); just these chapters make up more than half of the entire volume 2. I also read some selected chapters on book 3 (aesthetics) and the most important chapters on book 4 (ethics). So, I read a fair bit of book 2, next to the original work.)

At some points the book is interesting, and at some points the book is even a worthy extension of the original work, but I have to admit that I found the totality of 1200 pages for just one philosophical work a bit too much. Even Kant, with a much more abstruse style of writing and much more new ground to cover, could do with not even the half of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. To make matters even worse: throughout volumes 1 and 2, Schopenhauer reminds the reader that he/she should read all of Schopenhauer's other essays and materials; he never explains his earlier works - the reader should just come to this book prepared (i.e. read everything of Schopenhauer besides Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung).

This is just an insane demand - not only because it isn't really practical, but also because Schopenhauer himself repeats himself over and over and over again, meaning that he could just as well have written one clear and concise book on his system of philosophy. The way he presents himself, and his material, is rather pedantic.

I therefore cannot rate this second volume very highly. I continuously irritated myself throughout both books, but at least volume 1 offered a new, total system of philosophy - an update of Kant. Volume 2 offered nothing but some confused notions, disguised as important material.

But let's leave my own opinion at the side for the moment. Is this book really that bad? Well, actually it's worse than bad. It's irrelevant. For example, in all of the chapters on book 2 (on the Will), Schopenhauer makes use of contemporary physiology, psychology and biology. But now, anno 2017, all these sciences have radically improved and this means that Schopenhauer's edifice comes crumbling down.

To illustrate this point: Schopenhauer has to explain how it comes that all the phenomena in nature have an ultimate ground (otherwise he has to deal with an infinite regress of cause and effect). What is the origin of animal or human bodies? Well the first, natural cause is blood. There is something in the blood that let's the blood act as a first cause and build bodies via long causal chains. This 'something' is the (then current) life force, or vis viva, some postulated natural force that made the blood develop into bodies. This smells like aristotelean teleology, and it rightfully does. Ever since Darwin (1859) we know that species orginate via natural selection; and ever since Watson and Crick (1953) we know that natural selection works by selecting genes at the cost of other competing genes. There is no need for any 'life force' anymore, we don't need final causes, we have DNA.

The same goes with all of Schopenhauer's ideas that are intertwined with the physics of his time. Ever since the 1920's - i.e. general relativity and quantum mechanics - we know that Newtonian physics is not the complete picture and especially quantum mechanics, with its notions of non-causal processes and probability distributions, has radically changed our world picture. Schopenhauer's phenomenal world is intimately interwoven with these sciences, which means that with the radical changes in these sciences, his philosophical system is annihilated as well.

And there is one more problematic point in Schopenhauer's system. This is purely a metaphysical point, but it was a problem that Kant couldn't deal with and that Schopenhauer didn't see or didn't know how to solve. This problem is the problem of causality. Schopenhauer, as well as Kant (but in a slightly different version), postulate a free will as noumenon, a thing in itself. This Will is supposedly infinite, since it exists independent of time, space and causality: these are phenomenal notions. But causality is nothing more than changes in time and space. Since time, space and (thus) causality don't exist for the Will (it exists as a GROUND for these notions!), how is this Will able to CAUSALLY determine all the phenomena?

Our intellect and motivation are just phenomena, objects of the Will. We can learn, gather knowledge about ourselves and the world, and this might offer the Will new routes by which to objectify itself - but the ultimate aim, the strife, of the Will - objectification - doesn't change. This means that, for Schopenhauer at least, the Will determines our behaviour; it is the ultimate ground for our behaviour. But I have yet to see an explanation of the mechanism by which this supposed Will determines us, since this presupposes a causal mechanism - which is prohibited by the definition of the Will itself.

This is a critical problem that Kant couldn't solve, and Schopenhauer seems to try to avoid it completely - and this is an accomplishment, for a book spanning 1200 pages. But since the Will is such a central element in his philosophy - or rather: the central element - we shouldn't skip over it too quickly. It requires a solution, or else it means a refutation of his system.

To end this review, I'd like to mention that the chapters on books 1 and 2 were interesting; the chapters on book 3 were superficial (to say the least) and the chapters on book 4 were variably useful and superficial.

Like I said in my review on the original work: after reading Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I cannot really recommend it to anyone. It is a long and often tiresome (due to the repetitions and span of the books) work, it is outdated and it is just not that interesting. If you want to know a new, total system of philosophy just for the sake of it, or to understand 19th century philosophy (e.g. Nietzsche), read Schopenhauer. But then read these 1200 pages - please know what you ask for.

[Deniz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is THE book that every intellectual should read. I'm going to insert some quotes that fascinated me the most:

"Whoever in his thinking takes note of his own age will influence only a few." (from Seneca)

"Just as in sight or vision we have recognized the sense of the understanding, and in hearing that of the faculty of reason, so smell might be called the sense of memory, because it recalls to our mind more directly than anything else the specific impression of an event or an environment, even from the most remote past." (This reminded me Proust)

"Since scholasticism, really in fact since Plato and Aristotle, philosophy has been for the most part a continued misuse of universal concepts, such as, for example, substance, ground, cause, the good, perfection, necessity, possibility, and very many others. A tendency of minds to operate with such abstract and too widely comprehended concepts has shown itself at almost all times. Ultimately it may due to a certain indolence of the intellect, which finds it too onerous to be always controlling thought through perception. Gradually such unduly wide concepts are then used algebraical symbols, and cast about here and there like them. In this way philosophizing degenerates into a mere combining, a kind of lengthy reckoning, which (like all reckoning and calculating) employs and requires only the lower faculties. In fact, there ultimately results from this a mere display of words, the most monstrous example of which is afforded us by mind-destroying Hegelism, where it is carried to the extent of pure nonsense. But scholasticism also often degenerated into word-juggling. ... But philosophy, down to the time of Locke and Kant, really pursued the path prepared by the scholastics; these two men at last turned their attention to the origin of concepts. "

"...imperfection of the intellect depends the rhapsodical and often fragmentary nature of the course of our thoughts... and from this arises the inevitable distraction of our thinking."

"Kant's propositon: 'The I think must accompany all our representations,' is insufficient, for the "I" is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since, by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. (This train of thought, and many others, leads to Freud)

"A second, though not a numerous, class of persons, who derive their livelihood from men's need of metaphysics is constituted by those who live on philosophy. Among the Greeks they were called sophists; among the moderns they are called professors of philosophy."

"The merely practical man, therefore, uses his intellect for that for which nature destined it, namely for comprehending the relations of things partly to one another, partly to the will of the knowing individual. The genius, on the other hand, uses his intellect contrary to its destiny, for comprehending the objective nature of things."

"There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy. ... So long as we persist in this inborn error, and indeed even become confirmed in through optimistic dogmas, the world seems to us full of contradictions. ... Now, while the thoughtless person feels himself vexed and annoyed hereby merely in real life, in the case of the person who thinks, there is added to the pain in reality the theoretical perplexity as to why a world and a life that exist so that he may be happy in them,answer their purpose so badly."

"We may still try to put the blame for our individual unhappiness now on the circumstances, now on the other people, now on our own bad luck or even lack of skill, and we may know quite well how all these have worked together to bring it about, but this in no way alters the result, that we have missed the real purpose of life, which in fact consist in being happy. The consideration of this then often proves to be very depressing, especially when life is already drawing to an end; hence the countenances of almost all elderly persons wear the expression of what is called disappointment."

[Taha]

Wallowing into sadness and sorrow can get very addictive at times. Reading through Schopenhauer gives you a well-needed break from all the mumbo jumbo politically correct the mainstream always tries to push. Gives you perspective by allowing you to see yourself in the third person which feels remarkable, to say the least.
His pessimistic standpoints face up to the unpleasant realities of our lives, the realities that most of us chose to ignore on a daily basis.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume I provided a coherent schema of all of Schopenhauer’s philosophy with a consistent system and with no mutually exclusive contradictory thoughts. Volume II amplifies and simplifies the thoughts laid out in the first Volume and can actually be read and understood without first having read Volume I. I’ve noticed Audible has the third volume now available and I will definitely listen to that sometime in the future.

This volume is not as coherent the first volume was. That’s not a criticism. It’s obvious that Schopenhauer wants to explain his masterpiece to others because he believes rightly that he gave the fish the proper bait but they had refused to nibble at it. He’s blaming the fish, but in this volume he’s making the bait easier to digest. (Nietzsche said a similar thing in ‘Ecce Homo’ about ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ and to read parts of this book one instantly sees what inspired the early Nietzsche and even at times the later Nietzsche).

There are many asides with in this volume. My first sentence above is a reworking of what Schopenhauer said in this volume about the ‘laws of thought’ and how they are all just variations of the law of the excluded middle. He really despises Hegel and there were about 10 or so insults (‘that kind of thinking only belongs in the insane asylum’, etc.) he directed at Hegel, and he disliked all of the German Idealist except for Kant.

Kant’s ‘thing in itself’, the phenomena after space, time (successive events), and relative background is taken away is what Schopenhauer means by ‘will’ (to live), he’ll say. A baby has will but it doesn’t know what it wills (he said that multiple times). Our intellect is a slave to our will (that’s obviously a Hume sentiment, but Schopenhauer tends more towards Locke overall). Our will is our ‘inclinations, emotions, passions’ and feelings, that which makes up our character and is the unchanging part of the individual, he will say. He lays all these thoughts out in order to elucidate what he was saying in Volume I. Our unchangeable self makes up our will, he says.

Kant will say ‘thought without content is empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind’. Schopenhauer bridges the ‘thought’ and ‘content’ with our ‘perception’. Perception is the glue that binds. Intellect (‘the head’) needs the will (‘the heart’) not the other way around. Our ideas are trumped by our feelings. There is the primal scream of the instinct that Schopenhauer calls for and he is clearly laying a foundation for Nietzsche. Also, Schopenhauer will expand on the cynics, skeptics and stoics schools presented in his first Volume, and his description of the stoics led to Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence of the now. (Nietzsche embraces the now while Schopenhauer knows our memories are convoluted with our memories about our memories (see Proust or just think about the madeleine you once ate!)). Freud claims to not have been influenced by Schopenhauer, but that’s hard to believe after reading this Volume or the previous Volume, because Schopenhauer clearly articulates what Freud will say before Freud! (Leibnitz, who gets quoted in this Volume multiple times, originated the unconscious mind with his ‘petit conception’, and Kant expands, but Schopenhauer runs with it until Freud owns it).


Schopenhauer mentions how important Descartes is to modern philosophy. He also tells the reader where Descartes went wrong and contrasts Parmenides’ ‘the one’, i.e. thinking equals being and fits that into his ‘will as representation’. The mind/body dichotomy is a step towards the atomization of the world (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger all despise that way of thinking too). Schopenhauer thinks he has solved the problem by making ‘will’ ontological, the foundation of all metaphysics. Kant makes experience ontic. Hegel makes experience ontologocial. Our ‘will’ (to live) leads to our experiences. Schopenhauer definitely prefers the Kantian formulation.

He ended the first Volume with Grace being the key to understanding and even dissing Pelagius in the process. Pelagius (and Erasmus) believed that prayers and praying would make a difference in the universe even with an All Powerful Necessary God. He ends Volume II with Grace too and how it’s necessary in order to give us freedom (it’s a literal end in the sense he saved it for the final paragraph). The German Idealist and Romantics were almost all Pelagiusians in spirit or at least thought time and our memories about our memories would act as Grace for us. Schopenhauer is most definitely not in that school of thought.

Of all the philosophers who have a complete system, Schopenhauer is one of the easiest to follow. This Volume is his effort to make his system even more understandable.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I read Schopenhauer, but I remember I used to laugh at some of his aphorisms. His comments about women notwithstanding, The World as Will and Idea (sic) is a truly important book in the history of modern thought. Modern philosophy should take it more seriously simply because of all the problems it raises.

I read this, I think, the summer after I had completed a graduate course in Hegel's Phenomenology. Schopenhauer was not much studied and there wasn't a course which included it (other than the plebian survey courses) and I became thoroughly engrossed in it over the summer. Oddly enough I recall I was reading Whitehead at the same time, ostensibly for the same reasons and found him much better than I had anticipated...but he is for another time.

First of all, I cannot understand why "Vorstellung" was ever changed from "Idea" to "Representation." I first saw this in a mid 60's translation. I think this is highly misleading. If anything it ought to be changed to "Conception" or "Presentation." I cannot figure how any translator thought that "Representation" was a better translation than "Idea." In English one ought to be as familiar with the derivations of words as we are their meaning and the idea of "presenting something again" seems a needless error.

After rereading book 2 recently, I was impressed as to the derivation of so much 20th century thought in him. While it is true that he didn't solve so many problems as he perhaps thought (destroying most of Kant was perhaps a serious mistake) I began thinking about the origins of consciousness, especially in Husserl and Heidegger. Schopenhauer's will seems much like Plato's demi-urge but with a greater part to play in things. I found his arguments about eternity somewhat compelling, although I would hardly equate the fear of death with what went on before one was born. Although both of the same type of mysteries, you aren't usually afraid of what you have already lived through right?
S's efforts to prove that Christianity was derived from Indian beliefs just seems rather silly and primitive today, although there are some modern critics who make their living at doing such things. One might, without being unreasonable, ask for a bit more evidence... of which there is none, but only pretty theories.

Still Schopenhauer not only brings eastern philosophy into the picture, but he suggests that certain issues of eternity and indestructibility of the will become not only linear but circular. It is a great shame that his concept of will seems to have occluded the difference between its existence and the impossibility of knowing its existence. If he had pushed a bit harder on epistemology, perhaps we should be studying this book in courses along with the First Critique and The Phenomenology of Mind (or Spirit).

[Warren Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Schopenhauer had so much to say in his seminal work "The World Is Will and Representation" that over 500 pages wasn't enough, so an even longer second volume expands on the chapters of the first.

In this book, he articulates beautifully humanity's need for metaphysics, whether it be through philosophical analysis of "the thing-in-itself" via empirical data or through religion. Kant felt that people really can't "do metaphysics," because you can only deal with phenomena, or the representation, and not actually study things in themselves. Schopenhauer disagrees. For him, metaphysics IS a science of experience, but the universal is its subject and source. The thing-in-itself expresses its inner nature through experience, and so a study and interpretation of the material can give us a true and correct of its meaning and content.

Now, this doesn't mean that he is a materialist--he does NOT believe everything can be understood by breaking things down to laws of physics. Such a belief system would make created nature into creative nature and seat physics on the throne of metaphysics. At the same time, he does not subscribe to theistic explanations or ideas of the soul. He feels that religious attempts to explain Truth should be kept separate from actual philosophy. Religion uses allegory and storytelling to convey truths to the masses who may not have leisure time to study metaphysics in great detail, but unfortunately also uses authority to defend dogma, whereas true metaphysics keeps an open mind to new discovery. Philosophers may defend their conclusions with pen and paper, but should never through war like religions have done. He does go on further to say that if wisdom is to be found in the religions of the world, it is best to study the oldest religions, like Buddhism, because he believes the fundamental principles were developed by humans closest to the Source of self-awareness, when our neurology evolved enough for our will to wonder at itself, to see beyond the present and ponder the future and where the world came from. Therefore, Schopenhauer says he is proud that his own philosophical analysis has largely been in line with the concepts in the Upanishads of the Vedas.

There is a lot of straight talk here that is easily accessible even to those readers without a lot of philosophical background. And it is through these clarifying musings that we really learn what Schopenhauer believed. It is here we see a lot of his pessimism for which he is famous. He flips the bird to Leibniz, arguing that we live in the WORST of all possible worlds. In short, life sucks. He says it in multiple ways, but perhaps the most memorable line for me was toward the end when he says,

"The happiest moment of the happy man is that of his falling asleep, just as the unhappiest moment of the unhappy man is that of his awakening."

But it is also here that we get a lot of his "practical" philosophy and psychology that readers have applied and used for generations, such as the importance of human suffering, and how accumulation of wealth can be detrimental to happiness. He points out that the symbol for Christianity is a torture device, that our purpose is to be purified through suffering crowned by death, and that there is no evil in the phenomena of the blind will other than that caused by our egoism. The person who understands the basic conflict within nature holds the key to questions of ethics. Down to the microscopic organism, nature says "My preservation is foremost. Nothing else matters." Yet in human beings, we have the ability to look beyond the individual and see the contradiction, where nature says, "I destroy infinite lives throughout time. The individual is nothing." We see how miniscule our lives are while seeing the importance of the consciousness of others. Therefore, the sublimation of our own egoism is important to Schopenhauer. Generations of readers have taken inspiration from his words to bear the trials of life while maintaining compassion and selflessness, the cornerstone of his denial of the will.

In fact, this volume was of particular interest to me as a psychiatrist, because he ventured into neuroscience and the source of the Self. Granted, some of his medical knowledge is a bit dated, and he was stepping a bit outside his lane. Thus, he believed that people with short necks were more intelligent because they got better brain circulation and that blood moved on its own and didn't need the heart. But to be fair, he was trusting the expertise of the famed physiologist Karl Burdach (credited with first using the term "biology") and the 18th Century pioneer in embryology Caspar Wolff.

So how has a guy like me applied Schopenhauer's philosophy? For one thing, he is one of the top three thinkers who has influenced my work in psychiatry, particularly how I approach trauma and addiction. When he watched a bird eating a worm, he saw that the pain of being eaten was much greater than the pleasure of eating. Yet everything, even that which we don't traditionally think of as "alive," needs to eat. The Will to live of one entity supercedes the Will of another. So life is pain, and you can't escape from it. For this reason, pain has a much more long-lasting and profound impact on our psychology than pleasure, which is fleeting. People tend to chase pleasure with novel sexual relationships, buying new toys, accumulating prestige and wealth, getting likes on social media, or getting drunk or high. This constant striving to minimize pain often comes at terrible prices, and one of those is in healthy relationships. When you are selfish in your addiction, you are cut off from others. One of my fundamental goals in my career is to help people learn to subvert the Will as Schopenhauer suggests. You don't have to be an aesthetic to do this. You can minimize pain caused by the Will by enjoying the little things that count. Don't escape from the pain. Recognize it and learn from it when you feel pain. That's mindfulness. Don't set yourself for more pain by giving into the Will, getting sloshed and catching another DUI, or getting arrested again for selling drugs, or losing your job because you failed to show up again due to a hangover, or getting another girl pregnant that you don't care about. Be compassionate and selfless, and with that, you earn the trust of others again. Ha! They say Schopenhauer was a pessimist. On the contrary, he was a humanist. Still don't believe me? Read what he has to say about slavery.

Allow me to highlight a few more areas that I found interesting. One of his most compelling arguments was on preservation of language. As people become more complacent about their linguistic heritage, simplifying language and belittling some words as archaic or conceited, thought becomes more limited. Even back in the 19th Century, Schopenhauer noticed that literature was becoming more pedestrian and common, particularly in journalism. But with the loss of each word in the vernacular comes the loss of a concept. I feel that is true, though I wonder what he would think about slang. I find that slang tends to fill in gaps, providing concepts for experience that, once it invaded popular speech, offers ideas to those not living in certain neighborhoods, cultures, or socioeconomic situations would not otherwise understand.

I also was particularly interested in his thoughts on memory and consciousness. Schopenhauer was one of the early thinkers who recognized that our consciousness is linear and our memory episodic. This therefore creates a very imperfect consciousness, with whole gaps in our personal awareness inaccessible unless circumstances recall it to memory, and even then, we are prone to confabulation. Therefore, our knowledge of the world and ourselves is always imperfect, since we are always prone to return to nature's baseline, to the realm of the unconscious. And this is why he didn't agree that the seat of the human sense of self lay in consciousness, since most of our lives are spent asleep or forgotten, and thus the cohesive self lays outside time.

From all these observations, Schopenhauer elegantly weaves some of the most beautiful conclusions I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and I think this volume is even more exquisitely written than the first. There is just so much more to unpack here, and I won't spoil it by rambling any further.

I again rate this volume a full 5 stars, making "The World Is Will and Representation" as a whole one of the best works in philosophy I've ever read outside of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." I encourage anyone to dive in. If you do, take it slow and enjoy yourself. Schopenhauer is actually quite witty, and you'll find that these ideas are not as daunting and incomprehensible as you might assume. You'll likely come away with new ideas of your own that will help you navigate your world and appreciate it all the more.

SCORE: A confident 5 out of 5!

[Αβδυλλα Aωαςhι · Rating 4 out of 5]

مراجعة كتاب العالم إرادةً و تمثلاً - المجلد الثاني للفيلسوف الألماني آرتور شوبنهاور

في هذا المجلد الثاني الذي يتعرض لفلسفة العالم إرادةً على وجه التحديد بعد انتهائه من طرحه لرؤيته حول العالم تمثلاً.. و ينبغي أن نذكر و نحيل القارىء لمراجعتنا الأولى عن المجلد الأول الذي كان بخصوص العالم تمثلاً ، لأن الفكرتان مترابطتان مع بعضهما البعض و سيبني عليهما الكاتب في نهاية المطاف استنتاجه الأخير.

في العالم إرادة يبدأ شوبنهاور بالتساؤل عن ماهية الإرداة و يحاول سبر أغوار عوالم الطبيعة/ الفيرياء و الكهرباء و الميكانيكا و الكيمياء و ممالك الحيوانات و النباتات متخذاً منها منطلقات لأمثلة غزيرة أبدع في ضربها و أظهر إلماماً عميقاً بجوانب عديدة من العلوم ، لا سيما فيما يخص عوالم النبات و الحيوانات و التشريح. و من هذا المنطلق يدرس شوبنهاور كنه الإرداة و التي يحلل أنها هي الطاقة الخفية التي تحرك العالم و جميع عناصره نحو هدف معين قد يكون ذلك الهدف بلا غاية نهائية -

فعلى سبيل المثال تحمل البذرة النباتية الطاقة الإنباتية فيها لآلاف السنين و تبقى خارج نطاق العلية و الزمان و المكان حتى تأتي اللحظة المناسبة التي تظهر فيها ظواهر تلك الإرداة في شكل معين ، قد يكون نبتة تنبت و تشق الأرض. من خلال تلك المقارنة يوضح شوبنهاور أن هناك فرق كبير بين الإرادة و العلة التي يشرحها علم الإيتولوجيا* - و *علم الإيتولوجيا هو العلم الذي يدرس أسباب الأشياء و عللها.

و بالعودة لمثال البذرة التي تبقى حسب شوبنهاور هي علة العلل و منتهى القدرة التفسيرية لعلم الإيتولوجيا الذي يتولى تفسير الظواهر ، لكن تلك البذر النباتية تبقى عصية على التفسير و بمثل البذرة تبقى كل علة أخيرة ترجع إليها أسباب الظواهر ، ففي علم الميكانيكا مثلاً يدرس ما هي العلة الأخيرة للحركة و في دراسة حركة الإنسان يكون البحث عن علة العلل أيضاً التي عندها يتوقف عمل الإيتولوجيا.

الجميل في الموضوع أن شوبنهاور يقول أن عمل الفلسفة بما هي نظر للكلي تبدأ حيث ينتهي عمل الإيتولوجيا في شرح الظواهر ، فالفلسفة لا تنشغل إلا بعلة العلل جميعها. و التي يرى شوبنهاور أن تلك العلة نسميها الإرادة - و الإرادة هي ما تجعل كل شيء يتحرك في اتجاه معين لبلوغ نهاية معينة و شكل معين أو لنسميها بلغة العصر الحديث البرمجة “الكمبيوترية- التي تحتويها أجسامنا و أذهانننا كبشر فنتصرف بشكل معين في مواقف معينة بشكل تلقائي طبيعي.

و فيما يخص عالم الإنسان يشير شوبنهاور إلى أن الجسم ما هو إلا الإرادة متجسدة ، تلك الإرادة التي تشق طريقها دون أن يكون في مقدور أحد الوقوف أمامها إلا إرادة أقوى منها، فعالم النبات تنهزم إرادته أمام إرادة مملكة الحيوان و هذه الأخيرة تنهزم أمام إرادة الإنسان نتيجة تسلط إرداته على كل تلك العوالم.

و بمزج التمثل و الإرادة يخلص شوبنهاور إلى أن الإنسان في ذاته يمثل العالم الأصغر الذي هو على هيئة العالم الأكبر الخارجي لأن في الإنسان يتمثل له العالم و فيه تلك الإرادة التي أيضاً هي موجودة في كل جزء و ذرة من هذا الكون العظيم الواسع و بالتالي فإنه يختم كتابه بالقول إنه يستطيع بعد كل تلك المقدمات أن يقول أن العالم إرادةً و تمثلاً بارتياح تام بعد أن قدم تلك المقدمات التي في رأيي كانت كافية لاستدلالاته.

و على الرغم من ذلك فإني أراه يكاد أن يصل لحقيقة عظيمة عند رده لأسباب الأشياء للعلل التي ليس لها تفسير و يقول إن العلل الأصلية هي خارج الزمان و المكان و هي بصورة الفردية التي لا تجري عليها أحكام الزمان و المكان - لأن الأخيرة - أي أحكام الزمان و المكان - تؤدي إلى الكثرة و الصيرورة ، و معنى ذلك أن الشيء الواحد بوجوده في الزمان و المكان يستحيل إلى كثرة نتيجة تعاقب الزمن عليه و تغير جوهره.

إلا أن الجواهر الأصلية للعلل الأولى لا تتغير كما بينا في معنى ذلك أن القدرة الانباتية في النبتة لا تتغير و جوهر الماء لا يتغير و كذلك الضوء و النار و إن ظهرت و تجلت بصور شتى و أشكال عديدة حسب الظروف المتاحة لها للتجلي.

تلك الحقيقة العظيمة التي كاد أن يصل لها شوبنهاور هي نفسها التي تصل لها فلسفات الأديان السماوية حينما ترد العلل كلها إلى علة العلل و هو الله سبحانه و تعالى - حيث أنه خارج الزمان و المكان و لا تجري عليه أحكامهما و هو من يبرمج كل تلك الشفرات المبهرة في كل ذرة و كل عنصر فيجعل إرداة تلك العناصر تتصرف بهذه الطريقة أو تلك وفقاً لتلك البرمجة.

كتاب أكثر من رائع و هو بحق أثر فلسفي عظيم خلفه شوبنهاور و سأطالع بإذن الله تعالى آثار أخرى لشوبنهاور.

عبدالله عواجي

١٩ شباط ٢٠١٦

[k. · Rating 4 out of 5]

El concepto central del pensamiento de Schopenhauer se basa en dos tipos de observación. La primera es una observación interior de que no somos simplemente seres racionales que tratan de conocer y comprender el mundo, sino también seres deseantes que se esfuerzan por obtener cosas del mundo. Detrás de cada esfuerzo hay una dolorosa carencia de algo, aunque obtener esa cosa rara vez nos hace felices. Porque, aunque consigamos satisfacer un deseo, siempre hay varios más insatisfechos dispuestos a ocupar su lugar. O bien nos aburrimos, conscientes de que una vida sin nada que desear es aburrida y vacía. Si tenemos la suerte de satisfacer nuestras necesidades básicas, como el hambre y la sed, para escapar del aburrimiento desarrollamos nuevas necesidades de artículos de lujo, como el alcohol, el tabaco o la ropa de moda. En ningún momento, dice Schopenhauer, llegamos a la satisfacción final y duradera. De ahí una de sus conocidas frases « la vida oscila como un péndulo entre el dolor y el aburrimiento ».
El segundo tipo de observación es la observación de la vida. El mundo que nos rodea como representación. Schopenhauer considera entonces que el mundo es tanto representación como voluntad. El mundo como representación caracteriza el aspecto externo de las cosas, es el mundo de las apariencias, de nuestras ideas o de los objetos: es una diversidad. En tanto que el mundo como voluntad caracteriza el aspecto interno de las cosas, es el mundo como es en sí mismo: es una unidad. «Una verdad, en suma, grave y propia para hacer reflexionar, si no temblar, a cualquier hombre: a saber, que al mismo tiempo que dice: El mundo es mi representación, puede y debe decir: El mundo es mi voluntad».

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Older mellower Schopenhauer than volume one but still pretty dark.

[MJD · Rating 5 out of 5]

More conversational in tone than the first volume, but at the same time not lacking in intellectual vigor. Another way of putting it is that volume 1 had more of a professorial tone of Kant, and volume 2 has more of the down to earth tone of Schopenhauer's essays.

I also think that it bears mentioning that while of course this volume is better read as a whole with volume 1 and Schopenhauer's other works as he intended, it seems to me that the individual chapters could be read on their own as self-contained essays if you so choose.

[Rob McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

My #2 fav book of all time. It's a complex read and it's very long, but Schopenhauer is a brain among brains. A very bleak and depressing look at existence and the originator of the phrase "The world is hell", Schopenhauer can be a tough pill to swallow. But his understanding of religions, eastern mysticism, philosophy and science make him a must read in understanding the things that drive me to do what they do.

[Stefan Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

German Idealism at its most profound.

That Schopenhauer rejected worldly activity in his idea of the Will shows us how much modern society had impacted on this generation of thinkers, to the extent they tried desperately to avoid its influence.

An excellent work for anyone wanting to see how the old and new worlds collided in the 19th century.

[нєνєℓ ¢ανα · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great work!

[Alex Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much to admire about Schopenhauer, mostly regarding the range of his thoughts. Schopenhauer may be dated but you see here that he tries to encompass as much of the new empirical sciences as much as possible, to make it subservient, direct from principle causes, as much as possible. This is an impressive amount of calibration as the thickness of this book presents. But this is also hypocritical; far warning from Schopenhauer's hero Kant should have meant something, when one tries to calibrate ideas to a supreme teleology.

In a sense, this is Schopenhauer as an old man missing Kant's lesson from Critique of Judgement. Schopenhauer, here, insists on solidifying the sense of the Idea he holds prime, making it the centerpiece of everything. In that sense, this volume 2 is really less philosophical than volume 1, as this volume is only "application". So when you get a sense of why he is saying what he is saying it becomes a fairly boring book to read. Considering that much of Schopenhauer's data is dated, there is only historic interest here... unless you sought to find clues to the intricacies of Schopenhauer's method, there isn't much here to be gained since a contemporary application of Schopenhauer would be aligned on different contingencies not on some 19th century natural philosophy.

With this, we can see why Schopenhauer, despite his early promises as a young man, is only a 2nd rate philosopher.

[Michael Baranowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better than the amazing Volume 1 - Schopenhauer had the benefit of decades of thought and experience in writing what he calls a 'supplement' to the main work, but which can be read by itself. In fact, I'd probably recommend this over Volume 1 (if you had to read only one of them), though that would absolutely *kill* Schopenhauer, who felt that one must read all of his works multiple times in order to fully understand and appreciate them. (I'm not saying he's wrong, but life is short and there are a lot of great books out there.)

[Finn Childers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer: Rationalistic Neo-Platonism

Schopenhauer enjoys little fame in the modern Philosophic studies but was critically influential on some of the biggest names in history- Kafka, Freud, and Nietzsche among them. Like Kant, he is responding English Empiricism, borrowing heavily from Kant but then developing a bizarre new type of Platonism which is deeply pessimistic and points towards Nihilism.

To Schopenhauer, Kant is correct that the world is Idea, and Hume is wrong in assuming the human consciousness is a blank slate. We can never interact with the Object in an unmediated way, without forms preceding the encounter. So as far as the external world and the basic epistemology it is concerned, Schopenhauer is a pure Kantian. However, he turns to Kant when it comes to the internal world. Schopenhauer argues that consciousness is a thing-in-itself and can be experienced a priori because it is Noumena, not Phenomena, but that it is one unified thing- Will. The pure, unmediated will to which all of reality is subject. This emphasis on Will is critical to Nietzsche and post-Hegelian philosophers and is inherently anti-Socratic because this conception of Will is a-teleological and independent of consciousness. He is very critical of Spinoza, calling Hegel a copycat of Spinoza, but here he inverts Spinoza's conatus concept. As such, one cannot know oneself, so this anti-Socratic view of consciousness means that phenomena manifest themselves to us within noumena within a power-praxis that cannot be controlled.

Schopenhauer's claim that reason is subject to Will is a critical shift that would be expounded upon by Nietzsche, leading to Freud's entire philosophic project. The entire idea of the Unconscious is rooted in Schopenhauer. From the brutality of this existence where we are oppressed and enslaved by the Will, art is the only escape. Here Nietzsche's Art-Philosophy begins to make sense in light of this deification of the experience of Art. Kafka was a reader of Schopenhauer, and one can see this emphasis on suffering being meaningless and inescapable.

Schopenhauer was a student of Kant, but an enemy of his fellow lecturer at the University of Berlin, Hegel. On Kant, he writes in a letter written in English to a Thomas Campbell, a publisher in London in 1831: "I for my part, who have spent all my life in metaphysical studies believe him to be the greatest philosopher that ever lived and think him and Goethe the only first rate geniuses that Germany ever produced." He saw himself as a finisher or perfecter of Kant, removing the Super-rational a priori metaphysical positions and developing a pessimistic, subjective idealism which inverted Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Ethics.

He was the first major German philosopher to reject the idea of the world existing according to rational principles- in other words, he rejected the ration, Teleological understanding of human history championed by Hegel. This foreshadowed the pessimistic anti-metaphysical positions of Schopenhauer's biggest fan- Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's Perspectivism is rooted in Schopenhauer's iteration of Kant's Epistemology, and owes his rejection of Anthropological Teleology and a fixation on the Will-to-Live which was the basis of his Will-to-Power. Schopenhauer has not enjoyed posthumous fame like Hegel and Kant, but through Nietzsche he is still widely read. The Honey Badger of Philosophy attacked Schopenhauer the least. There wasn't a single philosopher who didn't go way out of his way to brutally tear apart, even poor Richard Wagner had two books written against him denouncing him as a sham of an artist. In his 1876 Untimely Reflections he praises Schopenhauer:

I am one of those readers of Schopenhauer who, after reading the first page of him, know with certainty that they will read all the pages and listen to every word he has ever said. My confidence in him was there at once and is the same now as it was nine years ago

And even after he changed his mind on Wagner, he never denounced Schopenhauer, only lightly criticized his work. Nietzsche believed Schopenhauer was not Pessimistic enough and went to light on religious thinking: "Schopenhauer's religious-moral interpretation of man and the world, it is also certain that he was mistaken about the value of religion for knowledge." and later accusing him of being a "Metaphysical philosopher" (a sick burn in these circles). And this is exactly what makes Schopenhauer interesting- he was a kind of Platonic Atheist. He writes "My readers know that I accept the word idea only in its original, the Platonic, sense".

He tried to create a new regime which maintained the knowability of the object through rejecting a priori metaphysics (exactly as Nietzsche did), while denying an external rationality, making him a semi-Platonist. Phenomena exists through Ontology, as in Platonism: "After I had to reject Kant's doctrine of the categories just as he himself rejected Aristotle's, I want to point here to a third way to achieve the intended by way of suggestion". Even though he attacks the very idea of metaphysics, he uses a Platonic Ontological Noumena-Phenomenal divide to describe human consciousness, and rejects an independent rationality apart from the mind. Both the Subject and the Object exist within the knowing consciousness. The Subject's self-consciousness contains the entire afferent-efferent divide. This is not Platonic Idealism, for understanding is rooted in experience with the Object. His version of the principle of sufficient reason. To do this, he circumvents hundreds of years of philosophy and returns to Leibniz's Enlightenment Principle of Sufficient Reason, which he uses as the foundation for his entire project.

Hegel's Horrible Very Bad No Good Philosophy

Schopenhauer is known for his comedic dismissal of Hegel and anything he said. Like Nietzsche's hatred of Socrates, and his life-long tilt at Richard Wagner's Windmill, Schopenhauer made is clear that Hegel was the worst. Schopenhauer also hated Wagner, but Hegel was at the top of his list. His arguments about what precisely was wrong with Hegel were a bit hazy.

A quick glance at his biography revels his “unintelligible rage” was based on professional jealousy. Schopenhauer not only lived in Hegel's shadow, but his fame at the university of Berlin cut his personal career short. For every 100 students to sign up for Hegel's lecture, only one signed up for Schopenhauer. His arguments against Hegel are not nuanced. All of his works are laced with the insults of a 7-year-old: "the well-known clumsy charlatan Hegel" and Hegelianism is "whishy-washy windbaggery" and modern philosophy has been ruined by the "thoroughly pathetic patron Hegel". Nietzsche criticized Schopenhauer's attacks on Hegel, and saw them as an antinomy:

with his unintelligent rage at Hegel, he succeeded in breaking the whole last generation of Germans out of connection with German culture... in the struggle with the English mechanistic depravity of the world, Hegel and Schopenhauer (with Goethe) were united, those two hostile brother-geniuses in philosophy, who strove to separate from each other according to the opposite poles of the German spirit and thereby wronged each other, as only brothers wrong each other…

das Gesamtwerk von Schopenhauer
On the Fourfold Root of the Theorem of the Sufficient Reason: https://bit.ly/3I1J1bN
The World as Will and Imagination Part I: https://bit.ly/3RZPlF4
The World as Will and Imagination Part II: https://bit.ly/3I5ugEG
Pererga and Paralipomena Part I/ On the Basis of Morality/ Attempt on Spirit-Seeing and what is connected with it: https://bit.ly/3YTHon0
Pererga and Paralipomena Part II: https://bit.ly/3RZPR5Y

[Miguel Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

El segundo volumen de El mundo como voluntad y representación es un extenso comentario de cada uno de los cuatros libros del primer volumen. Además de detallar su ya de por sí claro sistema filosófico, añade contenido valioso. Habiendo sido escrito 26 años después de la primera parte, la prosa es más sosegada y refinada, y las referencias a otros autores cambian, virando notablemente hacia el este. En pro de ser claro, Schopenhauer puede resultar repetitivo a lo largo de la obra.

Cabe destacar su análisis acerca de cómo nuestra voluntad (querer, deseos, instinto, afecciones) afecta nuestra facultad cognoscitiva y su derivación de cómo esta última está a servicio de la primera. También resultan interesantes sus reflexiones sobre la necesidad metafísica del ser humano, la locura y la muerte. Por otro lado, la mayoría del contenido del libro es una paráfrasis del texto original, por lo incluye poco nuevo más allá de una bochornosa y machista “metafísica del amor sexual”. El libro falla precisamente en el comentario al punto más flojo del primer libro, la teoría sobre la negación de la voluntad de vivir. Sigue sin quedar claro cómo gracias al intelecto (obra de la voluntad, que es la esencia del mundo), un individuo puede llegar a tener autoconsciencia del carácter ideal del mundo fenoménico y negar su propia voluntad, suprimiéndola. Es una lástima también que la explicación pormenorizada de dos puntos clave de la filosofía schopenhaueriana (la objetivación de la voluntad y la moral) se encuentran en dos libros aparte, que algún día leeré.

En definitiva, El mundo como voluntad y representación (I y II) es una obra que me acompañará durante toda la vida, tanto por la profundidad de sus reflexiones como por su influencia y el alcance del idealismo trascendental. Aunque hay disfrutado más del primer volumen, ambos son grandísimas obras y, junto con su tesis doctoral (Sobre la cuádruple raíz del principio de razón suficiente, que hay que leer en primer lugar) engloban casi todo el sistema filosófico de este gran pensador.

P.D.: Ahora es tiempo de una relectura de Nietzsche.

[Nour Elhuda Zuraiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have read the first book, then this second book is like the first book but explained in more details I actually enjoyed reading this one more, since all the foundations established in the first book were a bit hard to comprehend at the start, this book therefore goes over them again from a slight different angle. However I wrote the review for Volume 1 after reading both volumes so just to be clear, Schopenhauer, in Volume 2 goes more into details about his pessimistic view that’s resulted from the non-stoppable and unsatisfied will inside us which manifests itself in your world as a form of appearance or (representation). Now if we were to apply the Will that Schopenhauer talks about to pessimism, we will get that the Will inside you is striving to survive, in the Darwinian sense so essentially your self-interestedly striving against the Will of others which in turns will results in the suffering we see in the world today.

Reading this volume might leave you in a dark area of depression but if you’re like me and enjoy being there then go for it, also I believe to completely understand Schopenhauer’s philosophy we’re ought to read all four volumes, I’ve only read the first two but I heard that the third volume gives you hope so I will be reading it after few months once the first two volumes settle down clearly in my mind.

PS: I haven’t explained much in details here about the content of the book as I didn’t want to repeat myself, I’d advise you to read my review for the first volume as it refers to some content of the second volume.

[Tycho Van Hauwaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Op aanraden ben ik eerst begonnen aan deel II van de Wereld als Wil en Voorstelling. Het is een lijvig boek (800+ pagina's) en stellen de aanvullingen voor, die hij 25 jaar na het verschijnen van De Wereld als Wil en Voorstelling I (1818) publiceerde. Hij raakt niet aan zijn basisideeën, maar verduidelijkt zijn filosofie en deelt zijn boek in in hoofdstukken (betiteld alles), wat hij niet deed in zijn eerste.

Schopenhauer verwacht dat de lezer bekend is met enkele filosofische ideeën. Het boek is in hoofdzaak kritiek op de ideeën van Kant (het Ding-an-sich) uit zijn Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ik kende enkel de basis (uit standaard filosofie werken) en dat was net niet voldoende om het te begrijpen, ook al schrijft Schopenhauer heel leesbaar en makkelijk zodat je alles beschouwd als zijnde waar. Het was ook niet mijn intentie om dit hele boek te begrijpen, want -zoals reeds gezegd- heb ik op aanraden dit gelezen zodoende deel I beter te kunnen begrijpen, gezien dit nog steeds geldt als het standaardwerk van Schopenhauer.

De eerste drie hoofdstukken (3/4e van het boek) zijn moeilijk en bouwt voornamelijk verder op Kant. Deel 4 echter wordt heel interessant, met onder meer wederom zijn passages over liefde, de nietigheid van het leven, de ethiek enzoverder. Begrijpbaar, prachtig geschreven en aan te nemen als werkelijk. Met veel belangstelling begin ik aan deel I.

[Bogdan Strugari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much valuable Insight into Human Nature.

[Choukri AOUSSAR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entre les désirs et leurs réalisations s’écoule toute la vie humaine. Le désir, de sa nature, est souffrance ; la satisfaction engendre bien vite la satiété ; le but était illusoire ; la possession lui enlève son attrait ; le désir renaît sous une forme nouvelle, et avec lui le besoin ; sinon, c’est le dégoût, le vide, l’ennui, ennemis plus rudes encore que le besoin.

Quand le désir et la satisfaction se suivent à des intervalles qui ne sont ni trop longs, ni trop courts, la souffrance, résultat commun de l’un et de l’autre, descend à son minimum ; et c’est là la plus heureuse vie.

Les efforts incessants de l’homme, pour chasser la douleur, n’aboutissent qu’à la faire changer de face. À l’origine, elle est privation, besoin, souci pour la conservation de la vie.

Réussissez-vous (rude tâche !) à chasser la douleur sous cette forme, elle revient sous mille autres figures, changeant avec l’âge et les circonstances ; elle se fait désir charnel, amour passionné, jalousie, envie, haine, inquiétude, ambition, avarice, maladie, et tant d’autres maux, tant d’autres !

Enfin, si, pour s’introduire, nul autre déguisement ne lui réussit plus, elle prend l’aspect triste, lugubre, du dégoût, de l’ennui ; que de défenses n’a-t-on pas imaginées contre eux !

les plus beaux de la vie, des joies qu’on appellerait les plus pures ; mais elles nous enlèvent au monde réel et nous transforment en spectateurs désintéressés de ce monde ; c’est la connaissance pure, pure de tout vouloir, la jouissance du beau, le vrai plaisir artistique ; encore ces joies, pour être senties, demandent-elles des aptitudes bien rares ; elles sont donc permises à bien peu. au reste, ils les doivent, ces joies, à une intelligence supérieure, qui les rend accessibles à bien des douleurs inconnues du vulgaire plus grossier, et fait d’eux, en somme, des solitaires au milieu d’une foule toute différente d’eux.

mon corps, hormis qu’il est ma représentation, n’est que ma volonté.

Quant à la grande majorité des hommes, les joies de la pure intelligence leur sont interdites, le plaisir de la connaissance désintéressée les dépasse ; ils sont réduits au simple vouloir. Donc rien ne saurait les toucher, les intéresser (les mots l’indiquent de reste), sans émouvoir en quelque façon leur volonté, si lointain d’ailleurs que soit le rapport de l’objet à la volonté, et dût-il dépendre d’une éventualité ; de toute façon il faut qu’elle ne cesse pas d’être en jeu, car leur existence est bien plus occupée par des actes de volonté que par des actes de connaissance ; action et réaction, voilà leur élément unique.

rien ne révèle mieux ce besoin d’excitation de la volonté que l’invention et le succès du jeu de cartes ; rien ne met plus à nu le côté misérable de l’humanité.

C’est toujours chez les mêmes personnes qu’on rencontre et les joies sans mesure et les douleurs impétueuses ; ces deux extrêmes se font pendant ; l’un et l’autre supposent une âme très vive. L’un et l’autre, nous l’avons déjà vu, ont leur principe non pas seulement dans le présent, mais dans l’avenir, sur lequel ils anticipent.

la douleur, en elle-même, est naturelle à ce qui vit, inévitable, qu’il en est d’elle comme de la forme même sous laquelle se manifeste la vie et qui ne doit rien au hasard ; qu’ainsi la douleur présente remplit simplement une place où, à défaut d’elle, quelque autre viendrait se mettre, qu’elle nous sauve par là de cette autre ; qu’enfin la destinée, au fond, a bien peu de prise sur nous ; toutes ces réflexions, si elles devenaient une pensée vraiment vivante en nous, nous mèneraient assez loin dans la sérénité stoïque et allégeraient grandement le soin que nous prenons de notre bonheur personnel.

chaque individu aurait une part déterminée de souffrance, cela par essence ; c'est sa nature qui une fois pour toutes lui fixerait sa mesure ; cette mesure ne saurait ni rester vide, ni déborder, quelque forme d’ailleurs que la douleur pût prendre. Ce qui déterminerait la quantité de maux et de biens à lui réservée, ce ne serait donc pas une puissance extérieure, mais cette mesure même, cette disposition innée ; sans doute, de temps en temps et selon les variations de sa santé, cette mesure pourrait bien être ou dépassée ou mal remplie, mais, au total, elle serait juste atteinte ; ce serait là ce que chacun appelle son tempérament.

puisque la souffrance est essentielle à la vie, puisque même le degré où elle doit atteindre est fixé par la nature du sujet, il est clair que les variations brusques sont toujours à la surface et ne changent rien au fond ; dès lors il faut que la joie ou la tristesse sans mesure reposent sur quelque erreur, sur quelque illusion ; par suite, à condition d’y voir plus clair, on doit pouvoir s’épargner ces deux sortes de surexcitation.

[Souviens-toi de conserver ton âme égale à elle-même dans les mauvaises passes de la vie ; et dans la prospérité, qu’elle reste modérée, éloignée d’une joie insolente.] HORACE.

de la sensibilité, une joie démesurée (exultatio, laetitia insolens), c’est toujours au fond cette illusion de croire qu’on a découvert dans la vie ce qui ne saurait s’y trouver, la satisfaction durable des désirs qui nous dévorent, et sans cesse renaissent, en un mot le remède des soucis. Or toute illusion de ce genre est un sommet d’où il faudra bien redescendre, un fantôme qui se dissipera, et ce ne sera pas sans nous causer une peine plus amère que ne fut notre première joie. Telle est la nature de toutes les hauteurs, qu’on n’en puisse revenir que par une chute. Il faut donc les fuir ; une douleur subite et extraordinaire n’est rien autre que cette chute, l’évanouissement de ce fantôme ; pas d’ascension, pas de chute.

Maintenant, éviter l’un et l’autre, on le pourrait, à condition de prendre sur soi, de regarder les choses bien en face, d’en voir clairement la liaison, d’éviter avec constance de leur jamais prêter les couleurs dont on voudrait les voir parées. La morale stoïque se réduisait à ce point principal : tenir son âme libre d’une pareille illusion et de ce qu’elle traîne à sa suite, pour l’établir dans une indifférence inébranlable.

Mais la nature aurait beau faire, et même le bonheur : quel que soit un homme, quel que soit son bien, la souffrance est pour tous l’essence de la vie, nul n’y échappe.

Tant que notre conscience est remplie par notre volonté, tant que nous sommes asservis à l’impulsion du désir, aux espérances et aux craintes continuelles qu’il fait naître, tant que nous sommes sujets du vouloir, il n’y a pour nous ni bonheur durable, ni repos.

Poursuivre ou fuir, craindre le malheur ou chercher la jouissance, c’est en réalité tout un : l’inquiétude d’une volonté toujours exigeante, sous quelque forme qu’elle se manifeste, emplit et trouble sans cesse la conscience ; or sans repos le véritable bonheur est impossible.

l’égoïsme pratique, qui, dans l’application, ne voit et ne traite comme une réalité que sa personne, et toutes les autres comme des fantômes.

C’est l’expérience seule qui nous enseigne combien le caractère des hommes est peu maniable, et longtemps, comme des enfants, nous croyons pouvoir, par de sages représentations, par la prière et la menace, par l’exemple, par un appel à la générosité, amener les hommes à quitter leur façon d’être, à changer leur conduite, à se relâcher de leur opinion, à agrandir leur capacité ; de même pour notre propre personne. Il faut que les épreuves viennent nous apprendre ce que nous voulons, ce que nous pouvons ; et jusque-là nous l’ignorons, nous n’avons pas de caractère ; et il faut plus d’une fois que de rudes échecs viennent nous rejeter dans notre vraie voie.

une fois tout bien exploré, notre fort et notre faible bien connus, nous pouvons cultiver nos dispositions naturelles les plus marquantes, les employer, chercher à en tirer tout le parti possible, et ne jamais nous appliquer qu’aux entreprises où elles peuvent trouver leur place et nous servir, et quant aux autres, à celles dont la nature nous a médiocrement fournis, nous pouvons nous dominer assez pour y renoncer ; et par là nous nous épargnons de rechercher des objets qui ne nous conviennent pas.

Notre intérieur, son fort et son faible, nous étant bien connus, nous ne chercherons pas non plus à faire montre de facultés que nous n’avons pas, à payer les gens en fausse monnaie, sorte de jeu où toujours le tricheur finit par perdre. En somme, puisque l’homme n’est tout entier que la forme visible de sa propre volonté, il n’est rien assurément de plus absurde que d’aller se mettre en tête d’être un autre que soi-même ; c’est là, pour la volonté, tomber en une contradiction flagrante avec elle-même.

quand un grand et cuisant souci vient de prendre fin, par exemple par suite d’un heureux succès, quand nous avons un poids de moins sur le cœur, aussitôt quelque autre souci vient occuper la place ; toute la matière dont il naît était déjà là auparavant ; mais il n’en pouvait sortir le sentiment d’un souci, il n’y avait plus de place.

Ce qui nous chagrine, dans un malheur, ce n’est pas tant le malheur que la pensée de telle ou telle circonstance qui, changée, eût pu nous l’épargner ; aussi, pour se calmer, ce qu’il y a de mieux, c’est de considérer l’événement du point de vue de la nécessité ; de là, tous les événements nous apparaissent comme les dictées d’un puissant destin ; et le mal qui nous a frappé n’est plus que l’inévitable effet de la rencontre entre les événements du dehors et notre état intérieur. Le consolateur, c’est le fatalisme.

les grandes douleurs font taire les petits ennuis, et réciproquement, en l’absence de toute grande douleur, les plus faibles contrariétés nous tourmentent et nous chagrinent ; mais surtout, quand un grand malheur, un de ceux dont la pensée nous épouvantait, a fondu sur nous, notre humeur, une fois le premier accès de souffrance passé, revient sensiblement à son état d’auparavant ; en sens inverse, quand un bonheur longtemps désiré, nous est enfin accordé, nous ne nous trouvons pas, à tout prendre, sensiblement mieux, ni plus satisfaits qu’avant.

C’est seulement à l’instant ou ils arrivent sur nous, que ces grands changements nous frappent avec une force inusitée, jusqu’à atteindre à la tristesse profonde ou à la joie éclatante ; mais l’un et l’autre effet bientôt s’évanouissent, tous deux étant nés d’une illusion ; car ce qui les produisait, ce n’était point une jouissance ou une douleur actuelle, mais l’espérance d’un avenir vraiment nouveau, sur lequel nous anticipions en pensée.

Quiconque s’est bien rendu compte de ses bonnes qualités et de ses ressources, comme de ses défauts et de ses faiblesses, quiconque s’est là-dessus fixé son bat et a pris son parti de ne pouvoir atteindre le reste, s’est par là mis à l’abri, autant que le permet sa nature personnelle, du plus cruel des maux ; le mécontentement de soi-même, suite inévitable de toute erreur, qu’on fait dans le jugement de sa propre nature, de toute vanité déplacée, et de la présomption, fille de la vanité.

la volonté, dans tous ses phénomènes, est soumise à la nécessité, tout en demeurant elle-même digne du nom de libre, ou plutôt de toute-puissante.

la volonté, à tous les degrés de sa manifestation, du bas jusqu’en haut, manque totalement d’une fin dernière, désire toujours, le désir étant tout son être ; désir que ne termine aucun objet atteint, incapable d’une satisfaction dernière, et qui pour s’arrêter a besoin d’un obstacle, lancé qu’il est par lui-même dans l’infini.

l’essence de chaque chose, c’est au fond le même, nous l’avons depuis longtemps reconnu, qui en nous, manifesté avec la dernière clarté, à la lumière de la pleine conscience, prend le nom de volonté. Est-elle arrêtée par quelque obstacle dressé entre elle et son but du moment : voilà la souffrance. Si elle atteint ce but, c’est la satisfaction, le bien-être, le bonheur.

Tout désir naît d’un manque, d’un état qui ne nous satisfait pas ; donc il est souffrance, tant qu’il n’est pas satisfait. Or, nulle satisfaction n’est de durée ; elle n’est que le point de départ d’un désir nouveau. Nous voyons le désir partout arrêté, partout en lutte, donc toujours à l’état de souffrance ; pas de terme dernier à l’effort ; donc pas de mesure, pas de terme à la souffrance.

Au milieu de l’espace infini et du temps infini, l’individu humain se voit, fini qu’il est, comme une grandeur infime devant celles-là ; comme elles sont illimitées, les mots où et quand, appliqués à sa propre existence, n’ont rien d’absolu ; ils sont tout relatifs ; son lieu, sa durée, ne sont que des portions finies dans un infini, un illimité. –À la rigueur, son existence est confinée dans le présent, et, comme celui-ci ne cesse de s’écouler dans le passé, son existence est une chute perpétuelle dans la mort, un continuel trépas ; sa vie passée, en effet, à part le retentissement qu’elle peut avoir dans le présent, à part l’empreinte de sa volonté, qui y est marquée, est maintenant bien finie, elle est morte, elle n’est plus rien ; si donc il est raisonnable, que lui importe qu’elle ait contenu des douleurs ou des joies ? Quant au présent, entre ses mains même, perpétuellement il se tourne en passé ; l’avenir enfin est incertain, et tout au moins court. Ainsi, considérée selon les seules lois formelles, déjà son existence n’est qu’une continuelle transformation du présent en un passé sans vie, une mort perpétuelle.

la vie de notre corps n’est qu’une agonie sans cesse arrêtée, une mort d’instant en instant repoussée ; enfin, l’activité même de notre esprit n’est qu’un ennui que de moment en moment l’on chasse. À chaque gorgée d’air que nous rejetons, c’est la mort qui allait nous pénétrer, et que nous chassons ; ainsi nous lui livrons bataille à chaque seconde, et de même, quoique à de plus longs intervalles, quand nous prenons un repas, quand nous dormons, quand nous nous réchauffons, etc. Enfin il faudra qu’elle triomphe ; car il suffit d’être né pour lui échoir en partage ; et si un moment elle joue avec sa proie, c’est en attendant de la dévorer. Nous n’en conservons pas moins notre vie, y prenant intérêt, la soignant, autant qu’elle peut durer ; quand on souffle une bulle de savon, on y met tout le temps et les soins nécessaires ; pourtant elle crèvera, on le sait bien.

en considérant la nature brute, nous avons reconnu pour son essence intime l’effort, un effort continu, sans but, sans repos ; mais chez la bête et chez l’homme, la même vérité éclate bien plus évidemment. Vouloir, s’efforcer, voilà tout leur être ; c’est comme une soif inextinguible. Or tout vouloir a pour principe un besoin, un manque, donc une douleur ; c’est par nature, nécessairement, qu’ils doivent devenir la proie de la douleur.

en considérant la nature brute, nous avons reconnu pour son essence intime l’effort, un effort continu, sans but, sans repos ; mais chez la bête et chez l’homme, la même vérité éclate bien plus évidemment. Vouloir, s’efforcer, voilà tout leur être ; c’est comme une soif inextinguible. Or tout vouloir a pour principe un besoin, un manque, donc une douleur ; c’est par nature, nécessairement, qu’ils doivent devenir la proie de la douleur. Mais que la volonté vienne à manquer d’objet, qu’une prompte satisfaction vienne à lui enlever tout motif de désirer, et les voilà tombés dans un vide épouvantable, dans l’ennui ; leur nature, leur existence leur pèse d’un poids intolérable. La vie donc oscille, comme un pendule, de droite à gauche, de la souffrance à l’ennui : ce sont là les deux éléments dont elle est faite, en somme.

La vie donc oscille, comme un pendule, de droite à gauche, de la souffrance à l’ennui.

les hommes ayant placé toutes les douleurs, toutes les souffrances dans l’enfer, pour remplir le ciel n’ont plus trouvé que l’ennui.

la volonté se révèle à elle-même en un corps vivant, qui lui impose une loi de fer, celle de le nourrir ; et ce qui donne vigueur à cette loi, c’est que ce corps c’est tout simplement la volonté même de vivre, mais incarnée. Voilà bien pourquoi l’homme, la plus parfaite des formes objectives de cette volonté, est aussi et en conséquence, de tous les êtres le plus assiégé de besoins ; de fond en comble, il n’est que volonté, qu’effort ; des besoins par milliers, voilà la substance même dont il est constitué.

Ainsi fait, il est placé sur la terre, abandonné à lui-même, incertain de tout, excepté de ses besoins et de son esclavage ; aussi le soin de la conservation de son existence, au milieu d’exigences si difficiles à satisfaire, et chaque jour renaissantes, c’en est assez d’ordinaire pour remplir une vie d’homme. Ajoutez un second besoin que le premier traîne à sa suite, celui de perpétuer l’espèce.

En même temps, de tous côtés viennent l’assiéger des périls variés à l’infini, auxquels il n’échappe qu’au prix d’une surveillance sans relâche. D’un pas prudent, avec un regard inquiet qu’il promène partout, il s’avance sur sa route ; mille hasards, mille ennemis sont là, aux aguets. Telle était sa démarche aux temps de la sauvagerie, telle elle est en pleine civilisation ; pour lui, pas de sécurité.

Pour la plupart, la vie n’est qu’un combat perpétuel pour l’existence même, avec la certitude d’être enfin vaincus. Et ce qui leur fait endurer cette lutte avec ses angoisses, ce n’est pas tant l’amour de la vie, que la peur de la mort, qui pourtant est là, quelque part cachée, prête à paraître à tout instant. –La vie elle-même est une mer pleine d’écueils et de gouffres ; l’homme, à force de prudence et de soin, les évite, et sait pourtant que, vînt-il à bout par son énergie et son art de se glisser entre eux, il ne fait ainsi que s’avancer peu à peu vers le grand, le total, l’inévitable et l’irrémédiable naufrage ; qu’il a le cap sur le lieu de sa perte, sur la mort ; voilà le terme dernier de ce pénible voyage, plus redoutable à ses yeux que tant d’écueils jusque-là évités.

Ce qui fait l’occupation de tout être vivant, ce qui le tient en mouvement, c’est le désir de vivre. Eh bien, cette existence, une fois assurée, nous ne savons qu’en faire, ni à quoi l’employer ! Alors intervient le second ressort qui nous met en mouvement, le désir de nous délivrer du fardeau de l’existence, de le rendre insensible, « de tuer le temps, » ce qui veut dire de fuir l’ennui.

la plupart des gens à l’abri du besoin et des soucis, une fois débarrassés de tous les autres fardeaux, finir par être à charge à eux-mêmes, se dire, à chaque heure qui passe : autant de gagné ! À chaque heure, c’est-à-dire à chaque réduction de cette vie qu’ils tenaient tant à prolonger ; car à cette œuvre ils ont jusque-là consacré toutes leurs forces. L’ennui, au reste, n’est pas un mal qu’on puisse négliger ; à la longue il met sur les figures une véritable expression de désespérance.

L’ennui, au reste, n’est pas un mal qu’on puisse négliger ; à la longue il met sur les figures une véritable expression de désespérance. Il a assez de force pour amener des êtres, qui s’aiment aussi peu que les hommes entre eux, à se rechercher malgré tout ; il est le principe de la sociabilité.

On le traite comme une calamité publique ; contre lui, les gouvernements prennent des mesures, créent des institutions officielles ; car c’est avec son extrême opposé, la famine, le mal le plus capable de porter les hommes aux plus folles licences : « panem et circenses ! » voilà ce qu’il faut au peuple.

Le système pénitentiaire en vigueur à Philadelphie n’est que l’emploi de l’isolement et de l’inaction, bref de l’ennui, comme moyen de punition ; or l’effet est assez effroyable pour décider les détenus au suicide.

Comme le besoin pour le peuple, l’ennui est le tourment des classes supérieures. Il a dans la vie sociale sa représentation le dimanche ; et le besoin, les six jours de la semaine.

[Петко Ристић · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer's Hauptwerk erfordert eine hohe Konzentrationsfähigkeit und so manche Kenntnis verschiedenster Themen und Schriften, was es für den Durchschnittsbürger von heute zu keiner leichten Lektüre macht. Die Grundaussagen lassen sich dennoch größtenteils verstehen, wobei man auch viele Begriffe mit dazu lernt.
Ich bin jedenfalls mit Schopenhauer und Nietzsche einer Meinung, wenn sie sagen, dass man den Philosophen selber lesen muss, also nicht Zweit-und Drittwerke über sie, sondern nur sie, um sie zu verstehen. Etwas, was sich der Großteil nicht getraut, weil sie lieber ihrer eigenen Unvollkommenheit aus dem Weg gehen.

Ein solches Werk wie dies hier läßt sich jedenfalls nicht in wenigen Sätzen rezensieren und ich fühle mich auch nicht berechtigt, hier genug Urteile fällen zu können, zumal meine eigene Unvollkommenheit so manche falsche Schlüsse fördern würde. Was ich mich aber zu sagen traue, ist, dass "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" ein höchst metaphysisches Werk ist, in der Schopenhauer die Auffassung vertritt dass die Vorstellung dem Willen unterworfen ist, als auch die Individualität der Vorstellungen und Individualität an sich, Produkte des Willens sind. Jedes Individuum besitzt demnach eine ihm eigene Vorstellung von der Realität, an der die Außenwelt gemessen wird, welche Teil des Umstandes einer Subjekt-Objekt-Beziehung ist.

Diese Betrachtungsweise lässt viel Raum für Vorstellungskraft und fördert das tiefsinnige Denken über alles Ursache und Wirkung und Kausalität. Die biochemischen Prozesse innerhalb unseres Verstandes lassen uns alles außerhalb von uns nur als Objekt wahrnehmen. Das Werk insgesamt zeigt uns auch unsere eigenen Grenzen der Erkenntnis und lässt unsere eigenen Glaubenansätze, da auch dies nur Vorstellungen, zweifelhaft da stehen.

Schopenhauer' Hauptwerk ist in der Tat kein Buch, dass man nebenbei lesen kann. Natürlich kann man hierbei auch viel über Schopenhauer's Persönlichkeit nachdenken, und viele lassen sich sehr oberflächlich zu falschen, simplistischen Urteilen hinreißen und beschimpfen ihn als pessimistischen, schwierigen "Frauenhasser". Man hütte sich, wie auch Nietzsche meint, seine eigenen, modernen Moralvorstellungen auf Menschen früherer Epochen anzuwenden und sie demgemäß zu verurteilen. Dies zeugt nur von einem Mangel an Reife und Verständis historischer Begebenheiten. Für alles gibt es gute und verständliche Gründe und Schopenhauer war, obgleich ein uns alle weit übertreffender und weit mehr wissender Genius, auch ein Wesen, der auch vor falschen, allzumenschlichen Schlüssen nicht frei war.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

GOOD--

I've slain the beast at last. Finished Schopenhauer's magnum opus in two magnum-sized volumes. The second volume consists of "supplementary" essays to the first volume and it's a hodgepodge of explanations that marshal together a breathtakingly wide range of disciplines, from physiology and chemistry to Buddhism and Christian mysticism, not to mention all the Greek and Latin classics as well as modern philosophy (Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Locke, Hume, etc.) in support of his own philosophy. And along the way, Schopenhauer, this truly erudite curmudgeon per excellence (that he hates Hegel and his homies is hilariously and endlessly repeated) covers pretty much everything philosophy can conceivably cover, from the more traditional topics like logic and ethics to the more unorthodox, like the theory of laughter, eugenics, and the evolution of human sexuality that in a way anticipates Darwinian explanations. I give it only 3 stars (i.e. "I liked it") because despite the astonishing variety of topics presented, there really isn't much in this volume that you can't find in the first volume. And yes, in this sense, it really is a "supplement": he uses this volume to elucidate and collect supporting evidence for the position he sets forth in his first volume. So the fact that there's nothing much new in this volume makes total sense and should be a given, but I do wonder—contrary to Schopenhauer's view that our character is unalterable and that we discover all our basic thoughts by the age of 35—if Schopenhauer did not change his view in the 40 years since he first articulated his philosophy, because as far as I can see, his fundamental views do not change in both volumes that are published 25 years apart from each other. Perhaps his character was unalterable. Perhaps he was himself one of the geniuses he so reverently portrays. In any case, his thorough consistency is his virtue and his vice, and even though I have my grievances, I'm glad I've read this volume.

[X · Rating 2 out of 5]

These three volumes are priceless in that they reveal so much about the white, Victorian mindset that shaped our current failed civilization that it is difficult to dismiss them, despite their utter speciousness. I had a philosophy professor who once told me that "philosophy is in its infancy." After reading these three exhausting tomes, I can understand why. There is SO MUCH wrong with Schopenhauer's world view, that I can't tell where to begin. But, I think I can sum it up best like this: the weakness of this manifesto is the weakness of ALL pre-twentieth-century philosophy (and much after it). That is to say that it is a loose collection of rhetorical statements of sentiment and belief with no logical structure to speak of.

This is a huge problem because philosophers have known about syllogistic logic for thousands of years. Schopenhauer himself even claims to have gained complete mastery over logic in all its forms (as he claims to have gained mastery over just about all other intellectual persuits -- dude was a professional braggart). In a post-logic, post-science world, it is simply unacceptable to bend the facts of your argument towards the will of your religious belief system. Make no mistake about it: Schopenhauer was a devout Christian. And, like any good Christian, he picks and chooses his logic to support the particular whims of the congregation he serves. In this way, he is more of a preacher than a philosopher.

However, that is presuming that there is such a thing as a logical philosopher. And, as far as I can tell, in my many years reading philosophy, those are few and far between. The real advent of reason-based philosophy occurred in the twentieth century, after philosophy was forced to admit that it had nothing of value to say about neurology, psychology, sociology, or physics: all subjects it used to concern itself with almost exclusively. Schopenhauer illustrates this fact in painful detail as he propounds on nearly all subjects of human learning. He is at his most ridiculous when he repeatedly attacks Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. But these volumes are filled with similar instances where history has not been so kind to either Schopenhauer or Western Philosophy itself. These tomes are filled with so much disproved bunkus, so much misogyny and naked-faced white supremacy, that it is hard to find anything of value in them at all.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about this series is Schopenhauer's constant insistence on his own greatness. He never mentions one of his own essays without first calling it "my prize essay". He never discusses another philosopher's work without demeaning it or referring to it in a condescending tone. He boasts obsessively. The only writer he appears to have any compliments for at all, other than himself, is the great and greatly-contradictory Immanuel Kant, who he praises and razes with equal vigor. The gall of Schopenhauer as a writer becomes doubly infuriating when you finish the book and realize that his "world as will and representation" schema is nothing but a disjointed, contrived attempt at make the developments of science and industry more palatable for the mystical Christian mindset of his aristocratic, benighted, white supremacist audience. The idea itself is so lacking in cohesion as to make it almost as nonsensical as the Hegelian dialectic that he takes such joy in vituperating. As a philosopher, Schopenhauer has nothing cogent to say.

So what then is the value of this series? The value is primarily historical: Schopenhauer bends the rules of logic to force the growing uncertainty of scientific revelation into a neat and tidy hierarchy that white aristocrats can support without fear. At the top of his hierarchy is the Victorian philosopher, who poses no threat to either the peerage or the church and soothes their agitated conscience by reassuring them that all other non-European peoples of the world are savages with only the notable exception of Indians, who he venerates and tries (unsuccessfully) to unite with Christianity while conveniently ignoring the devastating effects of contemporary colonial efforts in that country and others like it. The real value of this series is that it shows you how Victorians really thought. And those thoughts are backwards, racist, unchallenging, incoherent, and disgustingly obsequious.

But, in this one regard, the series is a wild success. I can think of no other collection of essays that more exhaustively accounts the various bigotries of European culture than World As Idea And Representation. If you want to know why the world is such a messed up place, if you want to know why white supremacy is so widespread, this book will lay it all out for you over and over again, in a thousand unhappy facets.

For me, Schopenhauer typifies a consistently ignoble tendency of human nature: the obsessive need to twist the facts of human experience to meet our own worldview, regardless of how inconsistent the results are, regardless of the atrocities that must be ignored in order to do so. This is, ultimately, the real legacy of Western Philosophy. It is one long attempt at justifying the self-interest of the ruling class. If there is any hope for human progress going forward, we MUST learn to use logic and reason to develop ALL of our philosophical theories. And, we MUST learn that philosophy has it's limits. If this book doesn't convince you of this crucial humbling fact, I'm afraid nothing else will! And shame on all of us so-called lovers of wisdom for not learning this lesson!

A philosopher has no business telling the world how the human mind works. There are numerous scientific fields that do a much better job of that, thank you. Likewise, a philosopher has no business pontificating on the essential nature of reality. Physicists have been doing that much more rigorously for much longer and with much greater success than anyone else. When a philosopher speaks, he or she must humble themselves and learn to allow logic and reason to limit and control their ideas at every turn. Philosophy should not be about your own unique brand of genius and it's ability to synthesize systems of staggering brilliance: let the physicists do that. If we want to bring philosophy out of its infancy, perhaps we need to go back to the roots of philosophy: the syllogism. Perhaps we need to treat philosophy with the method and rigor of a mathematician and confine ourselves to questions of ethics and human governance bounded at all times by the empirical evidence backing our premises and the logically-valid conclusions that MUST follow discretely from them. Lest we embarrass ourselves, and underline our own uselessness yet again, by producing yet another narcissistic, cowardly soothsaying blowhard like Arthur Schopenhauer!

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE MASTERWORK OF THE "PHILOSOPHER OF PESSIMISM”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher; the companion volume to this book is 'The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1.' Schopenhauer wrote other works such as 'Essays and Aphorisms.' [NOTE: page numbers refer to the 687-page Dover paperback edition.]

He observes, "we find that the interest inspired by philosophical and also religious systems has its strongest and essential point absolutely in the dogma of some future existence after death... at bottom this is only because they have tied up their teaching on immortality therewith, and regard the one as inseparable from the other; this alone is really of importance to them. For if we could guarantee their dogma of immortality to them in some other way, the lively ardour for their gods would at once cool; and it would make way for almost complete indifference if, conversely, the absolute impossibility of any immortality were demonstrated to them... if continued existence after death could also be proved to be incompatible with the existence of gods... they would soon sacrifice these gods to their own immortality, and be eager for atheism." (Ch. XVII, pg. 161-162)

He states, "My philosophy alone... puts man's real inner nature not in consciousness, but in the will. This will... is related to consciousness... it comes into consciousness from within just as the corporeal world comes from without. Now we can grasp the indestructibility of real kernel and true inner being that is ours, in spite of the obvious extinction of consciousness in death and its corresponding non-existence before birth. For the intellect is as fleeting and as perishable as the brain... But the brain, like the whole organism, is the product or phenomenon of... a secondary thing to, the will, and it is the will alone that is imperishable." (Ch. XVIII, pg. 199-200)

He explains, "The intellect grows tired; the will is untiring... All knowing is associated with effort and exertion; willing, on the contrary, is our very nature, whose manifestations occur without any weariness and entirely of their own accord. Therefore, if our will is strongly excited... and we are then called upon to know... then the violence we must do to ourselves for this purpose is evidence of the transition from the original, natural activity proper to us to the activity that is derived, indirect, and forced. For the will alone is ... active, unbidden and of its own accord... it knows no weariness." (Ch. XIX, pg. 211)

Later, he adds, "If willing sprang merely from knowledge, our anger would inevitably be exactly proportionate to its cause or occasion in each case... But it rarely turns out like this... the will shows itself as an essence which is entirely different from knowledge, and makes use of knowledge merely for communication with the outside world... it follows the laws of its own nature without taking from knowledge anything more than the occasion." (Ch. XIX, pg. 225) He further notes, "The will in itself is without consciousness... The secondary world of the representation must be added for the will to become conscious of itself." Ch. XXII, pg. 277)

He contends, "If what makes death seem so terrible to us were the thought of non-existence, we should necessarily think with equal horror of the time when as yet we did not exist. For it is irrefutably certain that non-existence after death cannot be different from non-existence before birth, and therefore no more deplorable than that is. An entire infinity ran its course when we did NOT YET exist, but this in no way disturbs us... Now could this thirst for existence possibly have arisen through having tasted it and found it so very delightful?... certainly not; the experience gained would far rather have been capable of causing an infinite longing for the lost paradise of non-existence. To the hope of immortality of the soul there is always added that of a `better world'; an indication that the present world is not worth much." (Ch. XLI, pg. 466-467)

He asserts, "I have to confirm... the negative nature of all satisfaction, and hence of all pleasure and happiness, in opposition to the positive nature of pain. We feel pain, but not painlessness; care, but not freedom from care; fear, but not safety and security. We feel the desire as we feel hunger and thirst; but as soon as it has been satisfied, it is like the mouthful of food... which ceases to exist for our feelings the moment it is swallowed.

"We painfully feel the loss of pleasures and enjoyments, as soon as they fail to appear... For only pain and want can be felt positively; and therefore they proclaim themselves; well-being, on the contrary, is merely negative. Therefore, we do not become conscious of the three greatest blessings of life as such, namely health, youth, and freedom, as long as we possess them, but only after we have lost them; for they too are negations." (Ch. XLVI, pg. 575)

He goes on, "This world is the battle-ground of tormented and agonized beings who continue to exist only by each devouring the other... To this world the attempt has been made to adapt the system of optimism, and to demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The absurdity is glaring... an optimist tells me to open my eyes and look at the world and see how beautiful it is in the sunshine, with its mountains, valleys, rivers, plants, animals, and so on. But is the world, then, a peep-show? These things are certainly beautiful to BEHOLD, but to BE them is something quite different." (Ch. XLVI, pg. 581)

He argues, "But against the palpably sophistical proofs of Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds, we may even oppose seriously and honestly the proof that it is the WORST of all possible worlds. For possible means not what we may picture in our imagination, but what can actually exist and last. Now this world is arranged as it had to be if it were to be capable of continuing with great difficulty to exist; if it were a little worse, it would no longer be capable of continuing to exist. Consequently, such a worse world could not continue to exist, it is absolutely impossible; and so this world itself is the worst of all possible worlds." (Ch. XLVI, pg. 583)

Schopenhauer's philosophy (heavily influenced by Buddhism, as it was known in Europe in the early 19th century) is deeply pessimistic; but it is also clearly (and sometimes eloquently) stated, which makes it a welcome change from the turgid prose of a Hegel.

[Marko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ovaj svetonazor je fizionomija duha jednog genija, ovde sve odiše onim spokojstvom i svežinom koju osećamo usred duboke šume sa visokim drvećem. Šopi nam uvek govori pošteno i misaono snažno, njegove misli za svoj temelj građe imaju one najzrelije plodove Platonove i Kantove filozofije u okviru jedne tradicije koja potiče još od Parmenida. Kod njega nalazimo jednu doslednu i smelu, duboko proživljenu subjektivnu ubeđenost, koja ima jedinstveni sklad klasičnih i romantičarskih elemenata metafizike, jedan plod koji niče između duboke melanholije i ljudskog ponosa. Ova filozofija je značajno umetničke prirode, jer ovde su lepota i istina u uzajamnom odnosu, istina kao najdublja subjektivnost, koja polazi od neposredne i empiričke svesti koja predstavlja korelat svetu izvan sebe. U svom korenu ona ima nečega duboko mističnog, jer ono što pronicljiva svetslost njegovog intelekta razotkriva istovremeno nam produbljuje tminu postojanja, dok su u njenim okvirima sadržani motivi spasenja, izbavljenja iz čvrstog majčinskog zagrljaja ove svekolike grobnice. Kao i u Vedama i Puranama starih Indusa, ovde postajemo budniji za snoliku prirodu fenomena svesti, dok nam se smisao života razotkriva u njegovom prevazilaženju...

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.