Die Welt Als Wille Und Vorstellung 1

Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung #1

by Arthur Schopenhauer

»Wie dieses Buch zu lesen sei, um möglicherweise verstanden werden zu können, habe ich hier anzugeben mir vorgesetzt. - Was durch dasselbe mitgetheilt werden soll, ist ein einziger Gedanke. Dennoch konnte ich, aller Bemühungen ungeachtet, keinen kürzern Weg ihn mitzutheilen finden, als dieses ganze Buch. - Ich halte jenen Gedanken für Dasjenige, was man unter dem Namen der Philosophie sehr lange gesucht hat, und dessen Auffindung, eben daher, von den historisch Gebildeten für so unmöglich gehalten wird, wie die des Steines der Weisen.«
Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauers Hauptwerk als zweibändige Gesamtausgabe nach der Edition von Arthur Hübscher.

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

736 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1818

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

[Mark Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two years ago, while reading a philosophy textbook, I’ve learned that for German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, our world is “the best of all possible worlds.” This is because God, who is good and omnipotent, chose to create our world of all the possible worlds. But contrary to that, the textbook pointed out, another German philosopher will say one hundred years later that our world is instead “the worst of all possible worlds.” I found that funny then, being young and innocent, and somewhat a believer of the human race, but nevertheless that was my first encounter with the philosopher whose philosophy will today serve as my guiding light. That was my first encounter with Arthur Schopenhauer.

But I didn’t study Schopenhauer immediately after I read about him. Back then, I have no reason to study someone who says our world is the worst of all possible worlds. His philosophy was simply too bleak, too dark, too pessimistic for me who then believed in utilitarianism, in the greatest happiness principle. And yet, as my life slowly got screwed up, as I started to make mistakes that I normally don’t, as I got disillusioned with everything I believed on—particularly with myself—I sometimes said privately that perhaps this Schopenhauer guy is correct, that we live in the worst of all possible worlds. Yet I still projected a very optimistic character. I still made myself believe that something better is waiting for me and for everyone else in the future.

It all changed during the summer of 2012. It’s a very memorable summer and I think it’s the turning point of my life towards maturity. It divided a period of youth and innocence on the one hand, and the current period of adulthood and disillusionment on the other. I’ve lost many things in my personal life that summer, but I’ve gained a lot in my intellectual life. Among others, that’s when I first become acquainted with Scott Fitzgerald and Woody Allen. That’s also the time when I first seriously read Ernest Hemingway. And more importantly, I started studying Schopenhauer during the summer of 2012. My first formal meeting with him was through Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, and the first thing I’ve read from Schopenhauer was his infamous essay “On Women.”

And I wasn’t even able to finish Durant’s chapter on Schopenhauer. I was just too amazed to finish it. Schopenhauer’s philosophy—the negative way he sees things, his misanthropy, and the hope that lies in it—attracted me. It was what I needed. And because Durant quoted heavily from Schopenhauer, I had been provided a glimpse of Schopenhauer’s brilliant writing technique. I was used to reading complicated and boring philosophers, but when I’ve read passages from Schopenhauer, I realized philosophy could also be interesting and relaxing, like literature, while keeping its profundity. I’ve realized that I could really enjoy philosophy, and not just pretend to enjoy it, as I had been doing before I met Schopenhauer. I liked philosophy, I believed on it, but I never enjoyed it. It was painful for me to read all those complicated wanderings about things that don’t make sense. But with Schopenhauer, everything started to make sense.

But I only considered Schopenhauer seriously during the last days of 2012, after I read Irvin Yalom’s novel The Schopenhauer Cure. Reading that novel was one of the most profound literary experiences that I’ve had. Because of it, I realized many things about life my life, and Philip Slate, the solitary scientist-turned-philosopher, became a mirror of my own mad self. Although I didn’t like the novel’s ending, I nevertheless got its point—that Schopenhauer was a cure for those who are disillusioned, destroyed, and nearly-defeated. And that’s when I decided that my thesis would be about solitude—the novel’s central theme, one of the virtues glorified by Schopenhauer—and how solitude could lessen our sufferings. It would be about the solaces of solitude in light of Arthur Schopenhauer’s curative philosophy. And writing about that, I thought, would not only give me an undergraduate thesis, it will also provide me a philosophical guide for my life. A guide that I could use to go away and escape from the muck that has become of my life.

*

After reading The Schopenhauer Cure, I read articles and books about Schopenhauer to know more about him. I also read some of his essays—like “On Authorship and Style,” “The Emptiness of Existence,” and “Metaphysics of Love”—to learn more about his philosophy. But I only started to read his chief work The World as Will and Representation six months later. Perhaps it was because I was very busy last school year, and I was rather occupied this summer, so I only had the time to read his chief work during the start of the new school year last June. But albeit being relatively free this school year, I still felt that I didn’t have the time to read it. I just pressured myself to read the book because by that time I only had less than a year to write my thesis. I needed to read The World as Will and Representation already, even if I would read it slowly and a few pages at a time. That’s better compared to not reading it at all.

Aside from the academic necessity, I really wanted to read the book. I was then facing so much emotional stresses that I was in desperate need to be cured by Schopenhauer. Reading articles about him helps, reading his essays eases the pain, but I know that their curative effects are nothing compared to the cure itself that I could acquire only from reading The World as Will and Representation. As Schopenhauer himself pointed out, all else that Schopenhauer wrote are but footnotes to his chief work. If you really want to know Schopenhauer, you got to read the four books of The World as Will and Representation—there’s no shortcut, no easier way, no other way. And so, when the semester has started, whenever I’m free, I read ten and sometimes twenty pages at a time from the book. Sometimes I read fast, but sometimes, when the pages are heavily filled with wisdom, I read slowly to enjoy the philosophic experience. I took notes, I underlined Schopenhauer’s well-written passages, and I related his expositions about the nothingness of life to my own life.

I read the book on McDonald’s, on my dorm at Manila, on my room at Tarlac—everywhere. But there are days when I failed to read from the book, particularly when I’m busy with school and occupied reading other books or doing other things, so I didn’t finish the 400-paged book in a short period of time. In fact, after five months, when the semester has already ended, I still haven’t finished the book. I was just, then, on the fourth and last book of The World as Will and Representation.

But last 13 November 2013, while I was on our university’s library, alone, waiting for a meeting, I read from Schopenhauer that “for those in whom the will has turned and negated itself, this world of ours which is so very real with all its suns and galaxies is—nothing.” And that was the end of it. That was the last line of Schopenhauer’s chief work. Of course there was still the appendix which contained Schopenhauer’s critique to Kantian philosophy, and his supplements for the four books of The World as Will and Representation, but for my current purposes what I read was already enough. I had already grasped Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The rest, of course, are merely academic trifles, and there will be time in the future to read them. But right now, I had already read what I needed, I had already acquired a decent understanding of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and more than those, I had already consumed the curative Schopenhauerian pessimism. I’m only waiting for it to take effect.

*

And what did I learn from the book? Many things, of course. But each book from The World as Will and Representation contains one important concept from which other concepts would come from.

From the first book, I’ve learned that the world is divided between will (Wille), the thing in itself, and representation (Vorstellung), the appearance of the thing in itself. The world we perceive is the world of representation, and this world is in space and time, and it is governed by the principle of individuation and the principle of sufficient reason. But the world of representation is not real. It is just a copy world, an illusion. And that is why everything that we perceive in this world, particularly the individuality of everything—our differentiation from the world and everything in it—is just an illusion. This is because what is real is the will, which is just one, and everything else are but appearances and manifestations of the will.

The reality of the will is what I learned from the second book. The reality that you and me and everyone else, and everything else, is a manifestation of this ever hungry, ever striving will. And so, being manifestations of the will, its hunger and striving is also manifested on us. We feel a lack in our egos and in our bodies, we desire for many things, but because the will is never satisfied, we are also never satisfied. We have this hunger for material things, for fame and power, and sex, and our hunger could be satisfied once in a while, but never wholly, never totally. Our hunger is essentially insatiable. And so, we spend most of our lives dissatisfied and in pain. Sometimes, the pain could be negated and that is what we call happiness, but happiness lasts only for a while, only to be replaced by a new pain, or boredom. Because when we are always satisfied, we would still suffer from ennui—suffering is thus our constant state.

The third book gave me hope. It argued that our sufferings could stop once we stop being controlled by the will, once we free ourselves from the whims and caprices of the will, once we stop willing. But the third book didn’t give the cure itself—it just gave an appearance of the cure, which could be found in art, the clearest appearances of the will. According to Schopenhauer, works of art—paintings and sculptures, literary works, and musical pieces—has the ability to calm and silence the will. Because of their beauty, because of their almost accurate manifestation of the will, works of art gives us an aesthetic experience. And this aesthetic experience could make us, at least for a while, a pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of cognition. We forget about our own individuality when we perceive things aesthetically, we identify ourselves with everyone and everything else—albeit ephemerally—and we almost see the world as it really is. And this, for a while, relieves us from pain and boredom, from suffering.

But the path that would free us totally and wholly from the will, the path that will bring us to lasting peace, is discussed on the fourth book. Aside from discussing his ethics—his concept of egoism, malice, and compassion—Schopenhauer discussed on the fourth book of The World as Will and Representation his concept of the denial of the will. Once we deny the will, Schopenhauer argues, all of our sufferings would vanish. Because when we deny the will, we would lose our egos, our individuation from the world, and we would now see everyone as our fellow-sufferer and everything in the world as fellow-manifestations of the same will. We would understand the illusion that is the world of representation, and instead we would realize that “we are that.” As I see it, the denial of the will is the absolute acceptance of reality—of all the evils and hungers and ennuis of reality.

There are two ways how one could deny the will. The first is through ascetism, which is perfect chastity and intentional poverty, and this is how Eastern monks and Christian saints had denied the will. The second path is through experiencing a great amount of suffering and resigning from life because of it. The second path is the rarer path, and it only happens when the personal experience of suffering had broken one’s will, making one renounce everything that he had previously desired. Either way, Schopenhauer’s presentation is rather suggestive and Oriental—and very romantic—meaning his arguments does not rest on reason, but on intuition, and his emphasis is not on theory, but on application. But I, at least, understood what Schopenhauer wants to say. I had heard his suggestions. And through his philosophy, I saw the nothingness of life and the hope albeit that nothingness.

*

I couldn’t express how Schopenhauer’s philosophy is a cure. Perhaps it’s a rather personal experience and you just wait for it to happen. And I don’t even know if it would really cure me from my sufferings. Nevertheless, to truly feel Schopenhauer’s curative philosophy, you must read his chief work. You must read The World as Will and Representation, the four books of it, and you must not read Schopenhauer’s chief work critically, academically, and philosophically—because you will not get Schopenhauer’s point through that. To appreciate the curative effects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, you must read him innocently, romantically, and aesthetically. You must let Schopenhauer’s prose carry you away from the web of māyā (illusion) and into the bliss of nirvāṇa (enlightenment)—that’s the only way for you to appreciate Schopenhauer’s philosophy.

But there’s no guarantee that Schopenhauer’s philosophy would work for you. Like any other medicine, Schopenhauer’s curative philosophy is just for certain illnesses—it could not solve all pathologies. But I felt that it could solve mine, and I hope that it will, because the problem with me is my restlessness and madness—which are characteristic of the will. I don’t know if I have the fortitude to become an ascetic, but I had already experienced a personal suffering that almost led me to renouncing life. Perhaps I could take the second path, and I am trying to take that path, but it is not easy because Schopenhauer’s path to the denial of the will is like the Tao—it is paradoxical, elusive, and mystical.

Right now, I view this world, our world, as the worst of all possible worlds. Of course this doesn’t mean that the world really is the worst of all possible worlds. All that evil and suffering and boredom exists only in my world, in my perspective. But the world as it really is, the will itself, could neither be the best or the worst of all possibilities. This is because the will is the one and only possibility, and human concepts such as good and evil does not apply to it. Nothing applies to the will. And that is what the world itself, with all its philosophies and art and love, is—nothing. I could already see the nothingness of reality, and although my perspective is still vulnerable to the violent desires of the will, although it is still susceptible to the disturbances of circumstances, although I am still a servant of the past, I had already seen nothingness.

And I know I would one day get away from my entanglement in the web of māyā. I know I would eventually recognize the illusoriness of my many fears which brings me suffering, as I would accept the illusoriness of the few joys that causes me happiness. I’m very hopeful that that would happen, and having hope in this hopeless existence is the effect of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Mystical optimism is the cure hiding in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. And the paradox lies in making the worst of all possible worlds the best of all possible worlds. And you do that through art, not philosophy.

24 November 2013

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the middle of the nineteenth century, people were confused - BIG TIME.

For Science was setting all their treasured beliefs and values right On Their Head. The philosophers Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche Clarified their Perplexity for them.

Through their mottoes of Pure Reason (Hegel), Deconstructive Reason (Nietzsche), and Self-oriented Reason (Schopenhauer) they made it all Clear as Mud.

To simple me, they all just grasped the stick by the wrong end.

They used their schticks as bludgeons.

But sticks can be used as pointers, too, to correct our crazy mistakes...

So if you have a mental picture of such philosophers as grumpy old men, perpetually building tighter and tighter boxes for us and themselves, you'd probably be right.

Think OUTSIDE of the box, guys!

And we all know old Art Schopenhauer was so grumpy that he kicked his poor old landlady downstairs, when she was only quite rightfully reminding him of his overdue rent. Would you REALLY (be honest!) trust a guy like that to teach your kids the love of wisdom?

And, yes, we all know nowadays that the Veil of Maya makes us think the world of Newspeak is the Real World, and that nothing is as it seems (the world as representation). We citizens of the 21st century are true sophisticates.

But only the really rotten sophisticates kick a frail old woman around. Brahman not only disguises the world - he does so that we may learn the Wisdom of Compassion.

Sure, you knew how to throw your weight around (the world as will). But nowadays we have demagogues to do that.

I'll stick with less demanding teachers: animals, birds and trees. Blessed are the poor in spirit, such as these.

So -

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau -
Mock on, mock on - 'tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind throws it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the Beams Divine!

[Roy Lotz · Rating 3 out of 5]

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.

Arthur Schopenhauer is possibly the Western philosopher most admired by non-philosophers. Revered by figures as diverse as Richard Wagner, Albert Einstein, and Jorge Luis Borges, Schopenhauer’s influence within philosophy has been comparatively muted. True, Nietzsche absorbed and then repudiated Schopenhauer, while Wittgenstein and Ryle took kernels of thought and elements of style from him. Compared with Hegel, however—whom Schopenhauer detested—his influence has been somewhat limited.

For my part, I came to Schopenhauer fully prepared to fall under his spell. He has much to recommend him. A cosmopolitan polyglot, a lover of art, and a writer of clear prose (at a time when obscurity was the norm), Schopenhauer certainly cuts a more dashing and likable figure than the lifeless, professorial, and opaque Hegel. But I must admit, from the very start, that I was fairly disappointed in this book. Before I criticize it, however, I should offer a little summary.

Schopenhauer published The World as Will and Representation when he was only thirty, and held fast to the views expressed in this book for the rest of his life. Indeed, when he finally published a second edition, in 1844, he decided to leave the original just as it was, only writing another, supplementary volume. He was not a man of tentative conclusions.

He was also not a man of humility. One quickly gets a taste for his flamboyant arrogance, as Schopenhauer demands that his reader read his book twice (I declined), as well as to read several other essays of his (I took a rain check), in order to fully understand his system. He also, for good measure, berates Euclid for being a bad mathematician, Newton for being a bad physicist, Winckelmann for being a bad art critic, and has nothing but contempt for Fichte, Schlegel, and Hegel. Kant, his intellectual hero, is more abused than praised. But Schopenhauer would not be a true philosopher if he did not believe that all of his predecessors were wrong, and himself wholly right—about everything.

The quickest way into Schopenhauer’s system is through Kant, which means a detour through Hume.

David Hume threw a monkey wrench into the gears of the knowledge process with his problems of causation and induction. In a nutshell, Hume demonstrated that it was illogical either to assert that A caused B, or to conclude that B always accompanies A. As you might imagine, this makes science rather difficult. Kant’s response to this problem was rather complex, but it depended upon his dividing the world into noumena and phenomena. Everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell is phenomena—the world as we know it. This world, Kant said, is fundamentally shaped by our perception of it. And—crucially—our perception imposes upon this observed world causal relationships.

This way, Hume’s problems are overcome. We are, indeed, justified in deducing that A caused B, or that B always accompanies A, since that is how our perception shapes our phenomenal world. But he pays a steep price for this victory over Hume. For the world of the noumena—the world in-itself, as it exists unperceived and unperceivable—is, indeed, a world where causal thinking does not apply. In fact, none of our concepts apply, not even space and time. The fundamental reality is, in a word, unknowable. By the very fact of perceiving the world, we distort it so completely that we can never achieve true knowledge.

Schopenhauer begins right at this point, with the division of the world into phenomena and noumena. Kant’s phenomena become Schopenhauer’s representation, with only minimal modifications. Kant’s noumena undergo a more notable transformation, and become Schopenhauer’s will. Schopenhauer points out that, if space and time do not exist for the noumena, then plurality must also not exist. In other words, fundamental reality must be single and indivisible. And though Schopenhauer agrees that observation can never reveal anything of significance about this fundamental reality, he believes that our own private experience can. And when we look inside, what we find is will: the urge to move, to act, and to live.

Reality, then, is fundamentally will—a kind of vital urge that springs up out of nothingness. The reality we perceive, the world of space, time, taste, and touch, is merely a kind of collective hallucination, with nothing to tell us about the truly real.

Whereas another philosopher could have turned this ontology into a kind of joyous vitalism, celebrating the primitive urge that animates us all, Schopenhauer arrives at the exact opposite conclusion. The will, for him, is not something to be celebrated, but defeated; for willing leads to desiring, and desiring leads to suffering. All joy, he argues, is merely the absence of suffering. We always want something, and our desires are painful to us. But satisfying desires provides only a momentary relief. After that instant of satiety, desire creeps back in a thousand different forms, to torture us. And even if we do, somehow, manage to satisfy all of our many desires, boredom sets in, and we are no happier.

Schopenhauer’s ethics and aesthetics spring from this predicament. The only escape is to stop desiring, and art is valuable insofar as it allows us to do this. Beauty operates, therefore, by preventing us from seeing the world in terms of our desires, and encouraging us to see it as a detached observer. When we see a real mountain, for example, we may bemoan the fact that we have to climb it; but when we see a painting of a craggy peak, we can simply admire it for what it is. Art, then, has a deep importance in Schopenhauer’s system, since it helps us towards the wisdom and enlightenment. Similarly, ethics consists in denying the will-to-live—in a nutshell, asceticism. The more one overcomes one’s desires, the happier one will be.

So much for the summary; on to evaluation.

To most modern readers, I suspect, Schopenhauer’s metaphysics will be the toughest pill to swallow. Granted, his argument that Kant should not have spoken of ‘noumena’ in the plural, but rather of a single unknowable reality, is reasonable; and if we are to equate that deeper reality with something, then I suppose ‘will’ will do. But this is all just a refinement of Kant’s basic metaphysical premises, which I personally do not accept.

Now, it is valid to note that our experience of reality is shaped and molded by our modes of perception and thought. It is also true that our subjective representation of reality is, in essence, fundamentally different from the reality that is being represented. But it strikes me as unwarranted to thus conclude that reality is therefore unknowable. Consider a digital camera that sprung to life. The camera reasons: “The image I see is a two-dimensional representation of a world of light, shape, and color. But this is just a consequence of my lens and software. Therefore, fundamental reality must not have any of those qualities—it has no dimensions, no light, no shape, and no color! And if I were to stop perceiving this visible world, the world would simply cease to exist, since it is only a representation.”

I hope you can see that this line of reasoning is not sound. While it is true that a camera only detects certain portions of reality, and that a photo of a mountain is a fundamentally different sort of thing than a real mountain, it is also true that cameras use real data from the outside world to create representations—useful, pleasing, and accurate—of that world. If this were not true, we would not buy cameras. And if our senses were not doing something similar, they would not help us to navigate the world. In other words, we can acknowledge that the subjective world of our experience is a kind of interpretive representation of the world-in-itself, without concluding that the world-in-itself has no qualities in common with the world of our representation. Besides, it does seem a violence done to language to insist that the world of our senses is somehow ‘unreal’ while some unknowable shadow realm is ‘really real.’ What is ‘reality’ if not what we can know and experience?

I also think that there are grave problems with Schopenhauer’s ethics, at least as he presents it here. Schopenhauer prizes the ascetics who try to conquer their own will-to-live. Such a person, he thinks, would necessarily be kind to others, since goodness consists in making less distinction between oneself and others. Thus, Schopenhauer’s virtue results from a kind of ego death. However, if all reality, including us, is fundamentally the will to live, what can be gained from fighting it? Some respite from misery, one supposes. But in that case, why not simply commit suicide? Schopenhauer argues that suicide does not overcome the will, but capitulates to it, since it is an action that springs from the desire to be free from misery. Be that as it may, if there is no afterlife, and if life is only suffering punctuated by moments of relief, there does not seem to be a strong case against suicide. There is not even a strong case against murder, since a mass-murderer is arguably riding the world of more suffering than any sage ever could.

In short, it is difficult to have an ethics if one believes that life is necessarily miserable. But I would also like to criticize Schopenhauer’s argument about desires. It is true that some desires are experienced as painful, and their satisfaction is only a kind of relief. Reading the news is like that for me—mounting terror punctuated by sighs of relief. But this is certainly not true for all desires. Consider my desire for ice cream. There is absolutely nothing painful in it; indeed, I actually take pleasure in looking forward to eating the ice cream. The ice cream itself is not merely a relief but a positive joy, and afterwards I have feelings of delighted satisfaction. This is a silly example, but I think plenty of desires work this way—from seeing a loved one, to watching a good movie, to taking a trip. Indeed, I often find that I have just as much fun anticipating things as actually doing them.

The strongest part of Schopenhauer’s system, in my opinion, is his aesthetics. For I do think he captures something essential about art when he notes that art allows us to see the world as it is, as a detached observer, rather than through the windows of our desires. And I wholeheartedly agree with him when he notes that, when properly seen, anything can be beautiful. But, of course, I cannot agree with him that art merely provides moments of relief from an otherwise torturous life. I think it can be a positive joy.

As you can see, I found very little to agree with in these pages. But, of course, that is not all that unusual when reading a philosopher. Disagreement comes with the discipline. Still, I did think I was going to enjoy the book more. Schopenhauer has a reputation for being a strong writer, and indeed he is, especially compared to Kant or (have mercy!) Hegel. But his authorial personality—the defining spirit of his prose—is so misanthropic and narcissistic, so haughty and bitter, that it can be very difficult to enjoy. And even though Schopenhauer is not an obscure writer, I do think his writing has a kind of droning, disorganized quality that can make him hard to follow. His thoughts do not trail one another in a neat order, building arguments by series of logical steps, but flow in long paragraphs that bite off bits of the subject to chew on.

Despite all of my misgivings, however, I can pronounce Schopenhauer a bold and original thinker, who certainly made me think. For this reason, at least, I am happy to have read him.

[Peiman E iran · Rating 5 out of 5]

بی نظیر ... بی نظیر و باز هم بی نظیر
اگر از خوندن کلمات خسته کننده و غلمبه فلاسفه خسته شدید.. برای درک بهتر فلسفه و اخلاق، من شوپنهاور رو پیشنهاد میکنم. از دیدگاه من، شوپنهاور بزرگترین فیلسوفی بود که در حقش کم لطفی شد.شاید توجه زیادی به هگل یکی از دلایل باشه.. نمیدونم

[Zac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer rocks my world! This book blew me away. Its so good, I'm going to read it all again. Schopenhauer starts with Kantian notions of our limits of reason (that the in-itself of objects is unknown to us), mixes in some eastern philosophy, and finally tops it off with some platonic idealism. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer thinks we have access to the "in-itself" of the world. This in-itself is the will, the blind striving behind everything.

The best parts of this volume, however, are when he contemplates suffering. And he does so on a grand scale. Suffering has a central place in his philosophy, and his ethics (Deny the will-to-live) deal directly with this aspect of living.

Most importantly, on a personal note, this book is changing the direction i want to take my philosophy studies. Instead of analytic philosophy of mind, as I was leaning towards, I feel compelled instead to study continental philosophy. Never has a book so spoken to the philosophical problems that consume my being.

[Tom Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is fair to suggest that Schopenhauer recorded the first and still unsurpassed critigue of human nature. A hundred years ago, he was vastly influential. Joseph Conrad, Thomas Mann, Leo Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Freud had read him extensively. Today he is scarcely read because few modern thinkers realize the importance of his recorded thoughts. Schopenhauer maintained that we humans are at one with other animals in our inner-most essence. Some of us may think that we are separated as distinct individual beings, but this individual selfhood is an illusion. Rather, we are embodiments of universal will. He elaborated by pointing out that our actual experiences in the world are not of freely choosing the way we live but of being driven along by our mental drives and needs. Our intellects are not impartial observers of the world but active participants in it.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer is wrong when he says this is a difficult book, that it needs to be read twice, or it's necessary to have had read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" in order to follow his arguments. The author writes such that if you don't understand what he's saying just wait awhile and he'll explain it to you later on in another section of the Volume. When I read books like this, I long for today's writers to be as entertaining, informative, and as challenging to my current beliefs as this book is.

It's rare to find a primary philosophy book that gives a whole world view that's as accessible as this book. It takes a while to understand what the author is attempting to explain within this book, but when you do you start to realize the pure genius that is being explained by the author. The author is really writing four books and ties them together under his one big thought. He'll independently consider 1) knowledge, 2) being, 3) art and 4) ethics. Essentially all of philosophy. There's a sense that I got when he wrote these four 'books' that make this volume that he wrote them independently and ties them together in such a way that if you don't understand a concept in one section it will be restated in the next book in the terms of that book so that you will understand that original section upon reflection.

To really appreciate a great philosopher and their over all philosophy, I find it best to accept their premises and see where that leads. In book one Schopenhauer starts to tell the reader how he sees the world (universe). He'll say that Bishop George Berkeley is one of his primary models. Schopenhauer replaces Berkeley's 'all reality is in the mind of God' with the universe as will (to live). (If you don't remember who Berkeley is, I'll jog your memory. He's the guy who said that "if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound" and he would respond, 'of course it does because God hears everything". Also, 'to perceive is to be". As a follow-up to this book, I've started listening to his "Three Dialogs" available at audible).

Schopenhauer really didn't seem to like the Enlightenment thinkers except for Kant. He doesn't like the materialist (or positivist) and ultimately makes 'will' the ground of all being and by 'will' explains it in the terms of the Eleatics (his word, think Parmenides) and the Stoics as contrasted with the Epicureans. A stoic will accept the things he can not change and only be concerned with the things within his control. This is how he ends his first book and sets up the other books from what he means by 'will to live'. All things that exist have this will he speaks of.

He does appeal to Kant and the Kant's thing-in-itself, the thing that exist in itself and for itself that which remains after the categories of intuitions of space, time and cause are removed. That which remains is the will (Kant would call it noumena as opposed to the thing as it appears to us, the phenomenon). Within his second book he will tie Plato's Ideal with Kant's noumena as being basically the same thing and both point to the 'will to live'. He'll say that all forces in the world (e.g. Gravity and EM) are the "immediate objectivization of the will". Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure you can take Schopenhauer to be monist in the vain of Parmenides. Parmenides says there is no becoming as such there is only being and that there is no 'not being'. Schopenhauer seems to follow that kind of thought concerning 'Being' and if anything makes the dichotomy between 'being' with 'ought' because his unfolding of the universe as will is that the universe is meant to be one way due to 'fate' that is inherent within the world because of the world's will, and like Karma he tends take the cause and effect out of the world and for Schopenhauer he's going to replace them with will. At the very end of the Volume, he has one add-on to the story where he explicitly speaks of Grace (God's unearned mercy) in Augustinian terms and contrasts that with what he calls the obviously incorrect Pelagius belief in a person's ability to control their own destiny and he'll even give a special shout out to Martin Luther and the role that Grace must play (he even mentions at the end about the distinction between salvation by works verse by faith). I can say this was add-on because they really don't flow with how he dealt with Christianity anywhere else within the Volume.

He will describe life mostly in terms of our will (wishes, desires, wants) never being satisfied, and even when we get what we want that only leads to more wanting and more struggling. The one who cause suffering causes himself to suffer (he'll say). There is a repressed guilt that is within our unconscious that causes us just as much suffering as we created in others (even if Freud says he wasn't influenced by Schopenhauer a modern reader can see Freud within this text).

I just recently listened to Kierkegaard's "Anxiety" and Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals". There's no doubt that they take some of this book and makes it their own. Kierkegaard takes similar thoughts expressed in this book such as the nature of the "now", the particular to the general of a thing to the whole ("Adam is a man and all men make the race"). Kierkegaard uses the same kind of formation of which Schopenhauer used in book 2 and 4, and the nature of guilt and other items but makes them his own by having a passion for the now (Schopenhauer is definitely not passionate for the now, he puts us into the future in terms of will or even when we consider the past we extrapolate a will from today to our projection of the past, he says). Nietzsche will uses his passion for the now and inverts Schopenhauer's aesthetics and makes it about the artist not the art, and also takes the 'will to live' and changes it to 'will to power' a return to the primal instincts that are within all of us.

A couple of things, he really does a good job at integrating Eastern thought into Western thought. He explains the world in terms of Maya, Shiva and Brahman (creation, destruction and generation). He likes the mystics and saints and thinks they provide the role models for today (he's very positive towards asceticism ). There is definitely a strand of pessimism within his philosophy. Death is a good thing. Life is struggle. Better to have not been born at all. Everything is an illusion and our knowledge can only takes us so far and at the heart of all things is the will that acts as the ground for all being.

This book stands on its own and is definitely one of the easier original philosophy books to follow. I only wish that modern writers would write as well as this writer did and assume that their readers are as interested in learning about the world as Schopenhauer did for his potential readers.

[Griffin Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all philosophical systems (we may think of Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Fichte, Marx, etc.) that I have engaged with which modern philosophy produced, I must say that, so far, I am the most impressed and inspired by the system of Mr Arthur Schopenhauer -- this work will surely go into my favorites, and is one I plan to read again (as a whole or in sections) with great care.

Briefly summarized, the work proceeds as follows
Book I: Epistemology/ Metaphysics -- wherein Schopenhauer provides justification for the first sentence of the work "the world is my representation." This is done along Kantian lines, of course, but Schopenhauer has his own addendums and criticisms of Kant's First Critique, which he outlines here and in "The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason."
Book II: Ontology/ Metaphysics -- wherein the will-to-life, the kernel of all existence, is deduced from its universal objectification in our representation.
Book III: Aesthetics -- wherein the aesthetic (and perhaps some practical) implications of his system are expounded upon. Architecture, painting, poetry, and music all receive consideration.
Book IV: Ethics, or Practical Philosophy -- the dreadful implications of our innermost essence, the will-to-life, which was proven as characterized by incessant and insatiable striving, receives a thorough treatment. The 'path to salvation' (found in asceticism or, as elaborated in Book III, aesthetic contemplation, which lifts the subject into a state of will-less knowing) is considered, as well as ethics.
Appendix: A critique of the Kantian philosophy. The vast majority concerns the faults of Kant's Transcendental Analytic; however, most other works at least find some cursory polemics (or praises).

I consider Schopenhauer's prose unmatched; a great pleasure to read, so long as you can at least hang on by a fingernail to the main thrusts of this genius, which should not be too hard if you have an at least decent grounding in German Idealism.

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddhism, Western style.

Asceticism as renunciation of the will, our being-in-itself projected through objectification of the Idea in the world as representation; phenomena as forms of this representation in space and time—the vessel by which everything appears, existing a priori according to the principle of sufficient reason.

Whew. Not as challenging as it seems.

Plainly written, refreshingly so for a work of philosophy, and built upon step by step until the structure of whole stands clearly at the end, the number of cracks in the foundation dependent upon the eye of the observer.

For me Schopenhauer shines in his arrogance and at times vitriolic tone, especially when speaking about Hegel (which if philosophy is not your thing I urge you to at least read those parts), his discussion on the illusion of free will, and finally is at his very best when discussing the misery and suffering of existence. I am not generally one to include quotes in reviews, but some passages were so brilliant and beautifully rendered, I can’t resist.

“Ultimately death must triumph, for by birth it has already become our lot, and it plays with its prey only for a while before swallowing it up. However, we continue our life with great interest and much solicitude as long as possible, just as we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although with the perfect certainty that it will burst.”

“Life itself is a sea full of rocks and whirlpools that man avoids with the greatest caution and care, although he knows that, even when he succeeds with all his efforts and ingenuity in struggling through, at every step he comes nearer to the greatest, the total, the inevitable and irremediable shipwreck, indeed even steers right on to it, namely death. This is the final goal of the wearisome voyage, and is worse for him than all the rocks that he has avoided.”

“Accordingly, the shortness of life, so often lamented, may perhaps be the very best thing about it. If, finally, we were to bring to the sight of everyone the terrible suffering and afflictions to which his life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror. If we were to conduct the most hardened and callous optimist through hospitals, infirmaries, operating theatres, through prisons, torture-chambers, and slave-hovels, over battlefields and to places of execution; if we were to open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where it shuns the gaze of cold curiosity, and finally were to allow him to glance into the dungeon of Ugolino where prisoners starved to death, he too would certainly see in the end what kind of a world is this ‘best of all possible worlds.’”

On the negative side of things, a large portion of his aesthetics, covered in Book Three, has not aged well and becomes tedious. His rejection of materialism is the most fascinating to me, since it seems he had no great argument for why he rejected it other than it would do damage to his own philosophy. I wonder today, after having the electromagnetic spectrum (the idea of which he laughingly scoffed at), Einstein’s special and general relativity, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, quantum physics and string theory in general explained to him, if he would revise his philosophy accordingly. Because some of his premises are by no means affected by the acceptance of materialism. Something tells me he would not be receptive initially, but would ultimately grudgingly accept if his claim to his honest commitment to truth is genuine.


There is validity, however, to his assertion that there may be limitations on what science can ultimately explain about our existence, as it seems sometimes that the closer it gets, the farther away it gets. The ultimate question is whether or not these limits on our capacity for understanding will prevent us from a universal theory of everything. This doesn’t mean materialism should be rejected as Schopenhauer argues, only that we may not ever be able to fully comprehend and explain it if it is in fact the truth.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer’s philosophy presents features of embodiment as the solution to the problem Kant faced of explaining the relation between noumena and subject while avoiding causality. Representation, for Schopenhauer, is any object that appears in conscious experience. His theory of representation is largely a response to Kant. Schopenhauer first criticizes Kant for positing transcendental conditions that determine experience and knowledge as entirely independent of the latter, or as things-in-themselves. Kant’s theory that transcendental conditions determine phenomena already presupposes a relation of causality; transcendental conditions are defined by their causal role, and so the very notion of transcendental condition is already determined by the transcendental condition of the categories of pure understanding and cannot be a thing-in-itself. In other words, there is an inescapable circle that is entailed by defining transcendental conditions as things in themselves. This problematic situation, according to Schopenhauer, is only to be expected and is in fact predicted by Kant’s own crucial distinction between the regulative and constitutive uses of pure reason.

Schopenhauer offers a new route for us to identify something that is absolute and unconditioned. Rather than engage in reasoning according to Kant’s transcendental method, Schopenhauer presents inner bodily feeling as the most immediate phenomenal encounter possible for us. He believes this immediacy implies that the inner bodily feeling short-circuits the mediative processing of the application of the categories that thoughts and reasoning must go through. So, bodily feeling is genuinely transcendent from the categories and transcendental conditions that determine and constrain cognition and experience. According to Schopenhauer, this inner feeling is will, and it is shares identity with representation, or perceptions and cognitions. Will and representation are simply flipsides of the same coin. Inner bodily feeling is the generative source of all appearances in conscious experience, while all appearances also elicit and determine inner bodily feeling.

Furthermore, Schopenhauer shows that Kant’s categories and transcendental ideas can all be distilled into a single concept: the principle of sufficient reason. This principle arises from the will and can be employed in the synthesis of thought and experience in conjunction with the effects of the subject’s embodiment, or individual instantiation of will. Kant’s twelve categories of the understanding can be reduced to a single category causality, or the principle of sufficient reason, alone, in combination with effects of embodiment. For example, in the fourth chapter of The Fourfold Root of Sufficient Reason, Schopenhauer challenges Kant’s theory of perceptions of causality and simultaneity. Kant maintains that the perceptual difference between the two is an experience synthesized by the imagination in accordance with the various categories of the understanding. Causality involves an objective sequence of succession of appearances in time, whereas simultaneity involves a subjective sequence, which can be chosen. We experience a series of appearances as involving causality or simultaneity depending on the necessity of the sequence. Kant demonstrates this theory in the famous example of the perception of a house in contrast to the perception of a boat traveling downstream. In the former, the subject can choose to look at any part of the house in any particular order, and have the same perception of the house overall. In the latter, the subject can choose to look at any part of the event she wants, but still the temporal sequence of appearances of the boat moving downstream will remain. In the latter case, the sequence is non-negotiable, whereas in the former, it can be subjectively chosen.

Schopenhauer explains that reason can employ the principle of sufficient reason to enact meaning into the world. Past encounters with objects and situations lets a subject have familiarity with the significances of the elements involved and the bearing of it all on her life. Many experiences provide a subject a good sense of causality between objects and situations at a higher level, compared to the level of causality in application to the synthesis of any particular object in space and time. It is a sort of narrative causality, although Schopenhauer does not use such language. Any particular object as a meaning for a subject, and its meaning depends on preceding conditions that also carry forth meaning. So, as how space and time are constructed by the principle of sufficient reason applied onto sensory bits, a meaningful or information-laden world is constructed by this principle applied onto coherent objects.

We can see that according to Schopenhauer, the entire perceptual world originates in the embodied subject. The body provides an initial spatio-temporal situatedness that orientates the faculty of understanding to apply of the principle of sufficient reason on sensory data; this application enacts particular objects, the sense of space of the outer world, and the framing of successive temporality. Then the faculty of reason applies this principle to enact the meaning of objects and the experience of significant events that happen for reasons and that signify what must occur next. In other words, any coherent experience depends on the two conditions of embodiment and the principle of sufficient reason. Schopenhauer even explains perceptual constancy phenomena on the basis of these two conditions. The retina first receives light rays and random sensory bits, and then the understanding applies the law of causality to construct the relative spatial locations of objects in this scene. For example, we might see a tiny mountain on the horizon, and the objects mountain and horizon are visually perceived in their different sizes. However, reason applies the law of causality to present the meaning that the mountain is actually enormous in size, but just far away. Reason can add this meaning because in the past it has discovered distance between object and observer has a lawful effect on the relative size of objects. Essentially, reason can make corrections in meaning because it has faced such situations many times before, and we have a deep grasp of this causal knowledge.

Although there is no difference in the inner nature of our body and other objects, there is a difference in epistemological access. We can be and know our bodies, while we can only know and never be other objects. We are condemned to only encounter appearances in the world, but for the sole exception of our own body; the body is the only thing in all the universe that we can access directly, before the synthesized appearance of the empirical body.

However, when all the organisms and objects are divided off private compartments of Will, all strive to survive, and to do so all must grasp onto matter to sustain themselves, at the consequence of depriving others of this vital matter. Competition, struggle, and suffering are inherent consequences of the Will, since the Will is teleologically purposed to divide further and to have each divided piece strive to survive as much as any other. Schopenhauer compares this fundamental struggle that defines all the universe to the case of the bulldog ant. This special insect can be cut in half, and each half continues living for some time. The halves will each fight the other, as if they were separate enemies from the start, without any memory or impulse that complies with the fact that they were once the same, single creature. So, the Will is the original oneness of all the universe, but it is differentiated into separate parts that are all the organisms and objects that populate the universe, and all of them fight each other for survival.

It is a lot of fun to think about the universe in terms of this metaphor of the bulldog ant. I want to hold Schopenhauer's hand and give him a hug.

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Based on my very limited understanding)

Schopenhauer assumes your having knowledge of Kant's philosophical system (I had only read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) and his own doctoral thesis 'On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason' which I might read next time I want to give this philosopher a try.

It seems to me that philosophers are mostly at their best when (1) When they are criticizing other philosophers (2.) when they are criticizing the ways through which we can 'know' anything.

His argument that very rules of logic were created more out of the convention by Greeks rather than some beautiful epiphany spoke directly to me.

As much as Socrates' dialogues can be amusing and give you food for thought, if you think his use of syllogism to win debates shows he was always right, then you put too much value on logic and reason. The world doesn't have to stand by our rules of logic. Even syllogisms. Hydrogen is combustible, oxygen too - combine them and you get water which is used to fight the fire. syllogism and other such rules of logic are only useful in worlds entirely dependent on such systems like mathematics. And even in mathematics, they don't seem to tell us a lot of new things except the interconnection between different patterns.

As much as I liked maths in school it bothered me to no end that we should have to 'prove' a geometrical theory like that angles of a triangle always adds to 180 degrees because it could be discerned by eyes and often you could use the theory to prove what you had earlier assumed as given. Schopenhauer has some best (and also ironically logically sound) arguments against such reasoning after Kant.

Will and Representation

While I don't agree with the main theory itself which seemed to me like an exercise in creating an idea so minimal that you could use it to explain it everything; it is an interesting book.

You can understand the word 'will' in the same sense as it generally understood - desire, urge, etc. He says that the whole world has a single insatiable will - and it is basically what makes the world move. It is what makes birds create nests for offsprings they don't know yet they will have etc. Now if you know anything about Hindu philosophy, this assumption is important to them too. In fact, the Hindu word for God 'Paramatma' (figuratively 'prime soul') seems to mean as same thing as Schopenhauer's. Of course, you don't see the will in itself, only its representation - which in Hinduism is called 'Maya'. Yes, Schopenhauer was a big fan of Hinduism. Will is what operates behind the bird above and makes it act so (as far as I understand), representation is the bird you see. 'WIll' is me, 'representation' is my body.

Book 1

The representation is held in our mind by the principle of sufficient reason which is basically arguing if something is there / occurs, it must have a cause or reason - another silly convention if you ask me.

What might be interesting to me is the idea of comparing Schopenhauer's theory of will as it manifests itself in living things to theories of Evolution. What Schopenhauer seems to try to explain in the behavior of animals through his idea of that single all-encompassing 'will'; is now probably explained by evolutionary incentives (such as how does an animal know that falling from a height might cause it an injury?). Schopenhauer's treatment of Will as something we are not conscious can be linked to the unconscious in the fields of psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung too.

Book 2

Will is also what called the thing-in-itself (as against its representation in our mind). The whole world is one thing-in-itself and this unity (the one soul or Paramatma) is only seen as a number of entities because of time and space which are two forms of intuition and deceive us into seeing many differ Wills. Outside of time and space, we won't be able to differentiate among different things.

Add in here a lot of pessimism of religious philosophers. Since everything (including non-living things) have a will of itself, everything suffers too. And it must go on suffering till it wills which is why asceticism is awesome.

Not my favorite book.

Book 3

My favorite part.

Kant talks about aesthetics. Art is an improved 'representation' of will's 'representation' in nature - the play within the play. You take a part of the representation of Will - the platonic idea (for example lakes, love, etc) and you contemplate it individually so as to stop willing (lose consciousness of your own desires) for a moment which in turn reduces suffering causing what is called aesthetic pleasure.

We have different capacities for this aesthetic pleasure and having a high capacity of the same makes you 'genius'. A genius then tries to communicate the aesthetic experience by creating copies of these 'ideas'. These copies of ideas are called works of art.

The above theory holds true for all arts (Schopenhauer has interesting things to say about a lot of art forms) with the sole exception of music. Music is not a copy of an idea. It is the same level as the original representation of the 'one' Will itself and yet offering us pleasure. For example when you paint a leave - there is a (level 1) WIll behind leave which can't be seen, (level 2) an original leave (the representation), (level 3) the idea of it in your mind and (level 4) the work of art or the copy of that idea in form of the painting. All arts are at level 4 but music is at level 2 and so closer to will. Despite being so close to the will, it offers just as much pleasure as the other art forms which do so by distancing us from the will.

If something pleases us by being 'beautiful' then it pleases us by tempting and feeding our desires (nudes, chocolates, and artworks depicting them). Like every preacher of asceticism, Schopenhauer too thinks that world is full of suffering and things that satisfy our desires (beautiful things) only tempt stronger desires in us. A 'sublime' pleasure, on the other hand, is derived when we struggle with our natural hostility to the object and this pleasure is thus driven by our getting closer to Will.

Book 4

If you see things at the level of Representation (Maya), you develop egoism and egos clash and hence immoral actions, etc. To someone who sees beyond the representation of WIll, the whole world is One - his or her own suffering is not any different from that of any other; hence compassionate acts come naturally. Schopenhauer talks of suicide in detail which he thinks is basically running away from the problem manifestation of Will or its individual phenomena rather than fighting it which can only be done through asceticism. This book was boring too.

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading Kant and being impressed by his whole new philosophical system, there were some questions left open. I found Kant's system impressive, but it sounds just too convenient to postulate an extra - unknowable - world in which to place all the difficult philosophical issues (freedom, souls, god, etc.).

I read somewhere that Schopenhauer tried to improve Kant's system and that he created - in general - a more consistent and honest philosophical world system. I had read some loose material of Schopenhauer before (his essay on free will and some short texts), so I decided to read his magnum opus Die Welt as Wille und Vorstellung (1818).

To be blunt: I cannot recommend this work to anyone. In 1844 Schopenhauer decided to publish a second edition, now with an extra volume (!) of additional chapters, to elucidate the original material (which during his entire life, wasn't in need of any change at all, according to Schopenhauer himself). This means in effect: 1200 pages of dry, abstract material, which is repeated on and on and on. And to top it off, Schopenhauer's philosophy is interwoven with the science of his day; this means that his whole system is basically useless nowadays, since we have drastic new insights in biology, physics, physiology, etc.

But this might be a bit infair, since 1200 pages might contain some important thoughts. Does it? So let me quickly proceed to the book itself.

The main work (volume 1) is split into four parts. The first part deals with the phenomenal world - the world as representation (Vorstellung), which basically is Kant's epistemology, with some peculiar changes here and there. The second part deals with the noumenal world - the world as will (Wille), which basically is Kant's ontology, with some more peculiar changes here and there. The third part deals with the objectification of the phenomenal world as will (of which more later) - in short: genius and aesthetics - the roads to becoming one with the world. The last book, part 4, then completes the whole system by dealing with ethics. So, it is easy to see that Schopenhauer was a complete system-builder. This is also the main drawback for Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung: it takes two whole books - 1200 pages - to offer the reader this system, so this means the reader has to invest loads of time.

In part 1, Schopenhauer explains Kant's notions of the phenomenal world in his own terms. He claims that everything we experience in the world is a phenomenon. Where Schopenhauer differs from Kant, is that he only recognizes three forms by which we order the world around us: time, space and causality. The only object of unity (i.e. not dependent on either time or space) is the will it self; all the rest is phenomena. This means that our own bodies, nay, even our own intellect and motivation, are phenomena - objects in the phenomenal world. This is, in effect, 'the world as representation' (as mentioned in the book's title).

In part 2, Schopenhauer then explains the same topic of book 1, but then from the opposite route. He now explains what this 'will' is. The will is the only thing in itself, the only noumenon, according to Schopenhauer. This is a strange notion indeed. Does it mean that the whole world is just one will? Well, actually, it means exactly this. Schopenhauer claims that everything in the phenomenal world depends on processes of causation (i.e. time and space), but that the ultimate ground for all these causal processes is the Will. This means, strangely, that natural processes as gravity and electricity, are objectifications of the Will; the same with plants, animals and even humans - every phenomenon is, ultimately, an object of the Will. This Will strives to objectify itself, accomplishes this in various degrees of objectification (with humanity as highest objectification) and this strife of the Will creates the pain and suffering in the world around us. The Will feeds off of itself, leaving only drama in its path. It really is no wonder to see Schopenhauer's philosophy labeled as 'pessimism'.

So, now we have the one Will, which objectifies itself in nature in all the different phenomena that we see around us. Now what? Well in book 3, Schopenhauer claims that we have some lucky persons among us, called geniuses, who can 'transcend' the phenomenal world - ceasing to be subject, for a moment, and becoming fully an object, becoming one with nature. They then can translate these experiences for the masses by using art. In other words, the genius communicates his contemplative experiences of becoming one with nature by making art, and this enables the public to share in these experiences of the genius. Schopenhauer then goes on describing all the different forms of art available to the genius and mentioning the right and the wrong ways to communicate contemplations per art form.

So, we can use art (especially music) to lose, for a brief moment, our notion of being a subject and becoming a pure object with the rest of all the objects of nature - in other words: becoming one with nature and losing ourselves in this. Is this all? Of course not. As every great philosopher did before him, Schopenhauer has to come up with a system of ethics. This is the main subject of book 4 and it is entirely based on his pessimistic philosophy.

According to Schopenhauer, freedom rests entirely in the Will as thing in itself. And since this Will is one and unified, individual wills of human beings (or animals, for that matter) don't exist. There is only one Will, and each individual human being is an object of this will; only phenomena such as character and motivation differ between humans; these phenomena can only influence the Will (via knowledge), but they don't determine the Will in any way at all. The Will wills, and the character and motivation of the person make it possible to learn, to gain knowledge, and this might alter the way the Will objectifies itself in us. But this accumulation of knowledge - almost by definition - doesn't alter what the Will wills. If you don't understand the above, don't blame yourself: it is all very strange.

In running the risk of over-simplication, Schopenhauer's ethical system boils down to the following. Life is nothing more but the Will objectifying itself in phenomena. This Will has no aim or purpose, it just objectifies itself and does so in different degrees. Since we, as human beings, are phenomena ourselves, this continuous strife of the Will is in us as well. It makes us desire future things and fear future pains; therefore, we continually busy ourselves with becoming or attaining, and at the same time are never satisfied and always in pain. What we have, we want to keep and improve; what we don't have, we want to obtain Life is, therefore, nothing but pain and suffering.

Schopenhauer claims there is no escape to the Will's strife. When we have alleviated one pain, we suffer many more pains; so, life is an endless cycle of hurdles that we have to take and bullets that we have to dodge. The only escape plan, according to Schopenhauer, is to seize being a subject and become an object. In other words, we should try to stop being the Will objectifying itself in us, as phenomenon, and become a pure object, become one with nature. In still other words: we should deny our will to live. Only in this renunciation of the will to live, we find true peace of mind.

How can we reach this trainquil state of mind, this being in pure nothingness? Well, according to Schopenhauer, this can be reached momentarily by art (see my comments on book 3 above), but to reach this state of mind continuously, we have to improve our self knowledge. We should contemplate ourselves as subjects, and try to locate this Will inside us, see how it affects us as phenomenal object. Once we have this self knowledge, we know what we should deny outright; we should deny our own Will. This leaves us in a state of pure nothingness: the Will in us is abolished and we no longer suffer our pains or fear death, since these are just phenomenal objectifications of the Will. Deny the Will, and you deny all the nasty side effects of its continuous strife.

So, to summarize all of the above: the whole world that we experience, including our own bodies and mental faculties (intellect, motivation, time, space and causality) consists of phenomena, representations. These phenomena are all objectifications of the thing in itself: the Will. This Will strives to objectify itself in phenomena and does so in different degrees: matter, plants, animals and, the summum bonum: the human being. This is a gradual ladder of objectification, becoming more perfect the higher you climb. Incidentally, this means that animals have intellects and motivations as well (a position that not many philosophers took in those times). In order to overcome the worldly drama of the striving Will, which feeds off of itself, we have to reach a trascendental, tranquil state of mind, either by using art as a temporary vehicle or by reaching a contemplative state ourselves, in which we seize to be subject (i.e. Will) and become pure object, and thus, become one with nature.

Now, what should we think of all these strange notions and ideas? First, it is easy to see that Schopenhauer radically alters Kant's philosophy. Gone is the the noumenal world with God, the immaterial soul and freedom; there's only one, unified Will, which objectifies itself in all the different phenomena. We don't have souls, there's just a Will; even killing yourself doesn't alleviate your suffering. Schopenhauer was an atheist and scoffs a lot at religion (judaism, christianity and islam) it is easy to see why: there is simply no place for a God (let alone christianity, which, apart from Catholicism, preaches optimism - reward in the next life).

I have no real knowledge of oriental religions, but Schopenhauer remarks multiple times that his philosophy is almost similar to hinduism - for example, the notion of becoming one with nature and losing yourself (as subject) in the process. It seems to me, that Schopenhauer was the first (and up to today one of the few) philosopher(s) that radically broke with revealed monotheistic religion and offered an independent, and truly new system of philosophy. For this, he deserves our respect.

But the totality of his philosophy is at the same time its weakness. Schopenhauer was steeped in the science of his time and he chose to build a philosophical system that is intensely interwoven with the 19th century scientific knowledge. It is ironic that about the same time that Schopenhauer wrote an immense second volume (700 pages) with additional material, Charles Darwin took his first steps toward a new science of biology. We nowadays see evolutionary biology as one of the corner stones of scientific knowledge; this means that Schopenhauer's whole second book (of volume 1) on the Will, which is entirely based on the biological science of his time, becomes problematic.

To illustrate this with an example, Schopenhauer explains in the additional material in book 2, that the Will is the ultimate ground for the 'life force' contained in blood, which is in itself the first cause (via a long chain of cause and effect) of building bodies. In other words: Schopenhauer builds his biology on the notion of a life force, vis viva, which natural philosophers at the time used to explain how organisms became what they became. This is a sort of teleology, in which the Will strives to objectify itself in natural phenomena. Nowadays, we simply say: DNA contains the digital code by which proteins are synthesized and build, via long chains of proteins building proteins, bodies.

It is this last point, the fact that Schopenhauer's philosophy is clearly outdated, that makes him not really interesting to read. True, compared to Kant, Schopenhauer developed a more consistent and complete philosophy. And true, he assimilated epistemology, ontology, aesthetics and ethics into one great system. But he outlines all of this in 1200 pages, repeating himself many, many times (which becomes boring pretty quick), and meanwhile a modern day reader knows (on the basis of modern scientific insights) the whole system is doomed to failure to begin with. Therefore, even though Schopenhauer's philosophy is interesting in and of itself, it is tiring, long winded and outdated. Thus: not a recommendation for other readers.

Are there any insights that we can use in our daily lives? Well, personally I admire Schopenhauer's form of stoicism: life is suffering - pain always outweighs pleasure, if not in effect, at least in feeling, and is endless - so, we should try to find a way to deny ourselves our wills-to-live, in order to avoid the most (as possible) pains and sufferings. But this was a notion that was already developed in ancient Greece, so we shouldn't need to read 1200 pages of abstract philosophy to learn this. It seems, therefore, that these two books of Schopenhauer were just another hurdle in life that I had to take (pun intended).

As a last remark, I want to add two comments.

1) I find the whole idea of there being one, unified Will, objectified in all of nature in different degrees, a very strange notion. This means that the Will, of which I am a representation, and you too, is the same Will as the force that binds atoms together in molecules and the force that makes the planets revolve around the Sun. It is all Will, just in different (degrees) of objectification. I can see the beauty in this idea, since it lets us feel one with all of nature and makes us respect our fellow human beings as well as all organisms on this planet, but utility is not a criterium for truth. It seems to absurd for me to feel really convinced of the truth, even though the idea itself is useful - even pleasant. But then again, modern day particle physics tells us that the entire universe ultimately consists of energy fluctuations in fields, so is this not - in a metaphorical sense, at least - a vindication of Schopenhauer's key insight? Who knows.

2) Schopenhauer was openly atheistic and it is easy to see why. In Schopenhauer's world, there is just the Will, objectifying itself continuously in the phenomenal world and in perpetually striving without aim or purpose, causing endless suffering and pain. For Schopenhauer, there is basically just Will, nothing more. This means there is no room for a God, as a transcendental Being. But apart from this obvious fact, it is also plain to see that all the endless suffering and pain cannot be reconciled with most of the optimistic, monotheistic religious creeds.

Protestantism, Judaism and Islam are optimistic religions: they promise rewards after death; Schopenhauer has no room for optimism, since his whole world is, by definition, pessimistic. We only exist as objectified Will; death is not annihilation for Schopenhauer - hence his remarks on suicide; it being futile as an escape plan - but just us being annihilated as objects. We live on as Platonic Idea, as species. The best we can do is to seize to be subjects for the moment - by art and contemplation - and become pure objects ourselves. In other words: give up the will to live.

For Schopenhauer there are only two comparable creeds that teach us (the same) wisdom. (1) First, the asceticism of the Catholic faith, which teaches us to undergo all suffering and thereby transcend ourselves. For example, the early hermits of the church, who actively sought to starve themselves in deserts, in order to become one with God through their suffering and bodily ordeal. (2) And second, the Hindu and Buddhist teachings, which teach us to become one with the world (i.e. Schopenhauer's pure object/denial of the will to live). So asceticism, buddhism and certain forms of hinduism can help us to completely abolish the Will.

To end, let the master speak for himself:

"To those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours with all its suns and galaxies, is - nothing."


So 1200 pages about nothing. Amazing.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's address a few elephants in the room before I go into just how important this book is, and they all have to do with Schopenhauer the man, as opposed to Schopenhauer the philosopher.

First of all, he would have been very mad at me if he had known I read this book without following his advice. He rambles on that, before we read "The World Is Will and Representation," we must first not only read his dissertation "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," but also his treatise on colors. He gives this advice in not just one, but three prefaces. Then, by page 50, he has brought it up again about fifteen more times, all in long flowery paragraphs, and irritably says he doesn't want to repeat himself.

Well, not only did he repeat himself, but he could have easily given us a quick primer on these supposedly essential writings in all the space he used to harangue us into reading his other work.

He also thinks every great mind in history, other than himself of course, was an imbecile. Even his beloved Kant gets an entire section of this book dedicated to pointing out all Kant's errors. He hates Hegel with a passion. And Euclid gets picked on quite a bit. Schopenhauer says Euclid's proofs are conjuring tricks, that Euclid would chose arbitrarily chosen propositions to lay a groundwork for knowledge about a triangle without ever explaining the why--like a doctor who prescribes a remedy without really knowing how it works. Now, in some ways, I sympathize. I get the same kind of frustration reading some otaku's aspie walkthrough of a video game.

The last negative I would like to address is his antisemitism. Though it is not apparent in his philosophy, he makes a few off-hand comments throughout the book that betray his cultural dismissiveness towards Jews, such as when he says that Old Testament scenes are boring to paint because ancient Jewish culture was not grand like the ancient Romans or the Greeks.

So overall, you really get a sense that Schopenhauer was a grumpy, stubborn little bastard who would cut off his legs if it got into his head to walk with crutches. His own mother even dismissed him as a pain in the ass.

But you can't dismiss his genius. Madness does in fact come with brilliance, because the altered mind comes with different hardware, allowing for a look at reality through different lenses. Chess players see patterns, not pieces on a checkered board. Savants see shapes instead of numbers when solving complex equations in their head. In fact, Schopenhauer may be one of the first to articulate this.

He considered "The World As Will and Representation" to be the natural succession and correction of perhaps the most important work in modern philosophy, Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." But as narcissistic as that sounds, that's exactly what this book is.

Kant said that space and time are part of the very lenses through which we see the world, and thus are prerequisites to our understanding, but our understanding is not of reality as it truly is. He divided things into phenomena (what we perceive) and noumena (things in themselves). Therefore, Schopenhauer concludes that everything we experience is a representation of a thing in itself. A triangle may be imperfectly drawn, but we know it represents a right angle and that the other two angles also add up to that right angle. Space-relations are intuitively evident and knowable a priori. Intuitions or perceptions of space and time are different from empirical perception, and thus are not exposed to deception by the senses, which can cause error.

So Schopenhauer explains Kant's "phenomena" as representation, but we can know the what and why through intuition. What is, therefore, the thing in itself, the Kantian "noumena"? For Schopenhauer, it is Will, which he expounds upon in the second section of this volume.

Everything is a representation of the Will, whether it be the Will that we have direct knowledge of through our own individual bodies, which are both object and subject, or that which we perceive through nature. The Will is also active even where it seems to be unguided by knowledge, such as plants reaching for the sun, or the propagation and growth of crystals, or the seemingly intelligent processes of our immune system to foreign threats in our bodies. Though Schopenhauer was not a religious man, he purposefully does not use the term "force" instead of Will, because in German, the latter implies a consciousness that pervades all of nature. We have a taste of that consciousness from our own individual awareness of our own will, the only thing we can know immediately and completely. The Will lies completely outside the principle of sufficient reason, although each of its phenomena are subject to it. Thus, time, space, and causality (forms of the principle of sufficient reason) do not belong to Will as the thing-in-itself, but are the tools of our knowing it. Matter is only noticable if it can be moved in time and space. Plurality (having more than one of a thing) through coexistence and succession, change and duration, through the law of causality. That which is NOT be conditioned by time, space, and causality, or which can be referred by it, or be explained by it, is the indivisible and eternal thing-in-itself. Perhaps this Will is what we know as God!

And this is where we get into the good stuff, with implications about our fear of death and how to navigate life. For the last two centuries, all sorts of derivations of how the Will represents itself to us as the subject has also created an entire practical psychology that people have come to live by.

My own work in addiction psychiatry is based on the Will as well as Kohutian self-psychology. Thanks in part to Schopenhauer, the medical field no longer believes that addiction is a lack of "will-power," but that willfulness is what actually makes it hard to recover from addiction. Therefore, it is important to recognize and accept that one is powerless against the Will, as has been espoused in 12-step philosophy for almost a century. You can't supress the Will, as the Will lies outside of space and time. In fact, Schopenhauer believes your character is set in stone, consistent with Christian theology. But with knowledge and therapy, you can engage in a path of self-discovery, where you learn your defects as well as strengths and embrace it. With this knowledge, you can develop tools to alter your behavior so you are not so vulnerable to engage in harmful conduct. Schopenhauer agrees with Antisthenes that life is so full of "troubles and vexations" that we must learn to rise above it by changing our thinking, and the way to do this is by recognizing that suffering comes from the will--desiring that which you can't have which causes pain. And suicide is not an option for escape from pain, and Schopenhauer provides the "true reason" to reject suicide in this book. So my approach to such pain is to utilize the power of the Will in healthy ways.

His practical philosophy is so influential that everywhere I look I see Schopenhauer's sourpuss face! His work has forever colored ethics and the debate between free will and moral responsibility. My favorite literary psychologist, Dostoevsky, was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer's ideas. I saw this influence recently when I read Leo Tolystoy's "War and Peace," Bernard Haisch's "The God Theory," and Gustave Le Bon's social and political psychology. Even the music I tend to listen to, which is first-wave industrial and noise, is heavily influenced by Schopenhauer's ingenious discussion of the Sublime, which you can read about in his section on art and music as media which captures the Platonic Idea.

If you are a newcomer to this book, I don't think you need to read his thoughts on "Sufficient Reason" first. You'll get the gist soon enough, or a quick trip over to Wikipedia will give you enough context. In a nutshell, it states that for any object in relation to a subject, there must be a cause--for any representation, there is a "why." It is the law of necessity. In his typical fashion, Schopenhauer says that Plato and Kant both would agree that the principle of sufficient reason is the rule by which all philosophy and science should be built.

But I do agree with Schopenhauer that you need to be familiar with Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." Schopenhauer also insists that you read "Will and Representation" at least twice, and that is certainly true. This seminal work is truly an extension of Kant, and both books are worth careful study, even if you never read any other philosophy.

So yes, Schopenhauer was probably not the guy you'd want to have over for dinner, but I think everyone should spend time with him through the pages of this book. And people do. Schopenhauer's mom certainly had her reasons to be annoyed with her son, but she was wrong about one thing. She said no one would ever read his stuff. He evidently countered that not only would he be read for years to come, but that no one would remember her own writing, as she was quite a popular novelist in her day.

He was right again.

SCORE: 5 phenomena out of 5

WORD OF THE DAY: Eudaemonism

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favours.”

Tucked inside these wise, few lines is the sine qua non of any pursuit in this world: The necessity of absolute devotion; and the humility that even such allegiance does not entitle one to any recompense whatsoever. History shows that even the most powerful minds are undermined by ignorance of this. The example unavoidable in the work of Schopenhauer is Kant.

Critique of Pure Kantianism
Don’t mistake Schopenhauer’s alternation between acclaim: “the most important phenomenon which has appeared in philosophy for two thousand years,” and criticism: “the apparent depth of thought and difficulty of the discussion merely serve to conceal from the reader the fact that its content remains an entirely undemonstrable and merely arbitrary assumption,” of the Kantian philosophy as anything but the consequence of said devotion to the truth. Truth and ignorance are never mutually exclusive of one another and the Kantian philosophy is perhaps one of the most severe expressions of this fact.

In my all-too-limited estimation, it is always an impoverishment of the spirit of philosophy when its participants pervert its purpose into a sport of originality; as if, as long as a certain threshold of truth-seeming is met, history should set its worshipping eye on s/he whom has accomplished it most contrastingly against the theretofore prevailing dogma. Schopenhauer stands as a way out such poverty. Acquainting with his brilliance helps return philosophy to the primacy of truth and away from the ego and sectarianism that ubiquitously plagues the social animal in question. Indeed, even before acquiring the sense to follow suit ourselves, many of us have benefited for such minds as Campbell, Jung, Borges, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Mann, Einstein having found their way to Schopenhauer.

It is no small or meaningless thing that Schopenhauer was remarkably consistent in his thought throughout his life. However his philosophy corresponds to reality, he at least knew what he was saying. Kant, by contrast, was maddened by his own vacillations, and thus burdened the world with a prolific output of contradiction. This is to say that without a sturdy grasp on his/her own understanding, a philosopher can be neither consistent nor clear. Which brings us to Schopenhauer’s equally remarkable lucidity–something rather foreign to the wonted operations of philosophy. Wherever his prose is to be paused over, it is not for any lack of clarity but for the profundity that that clarity exposes. How much more thrilling is the necessity of a slow read when the time served is due to the wonders revealed behind miles of the clearest water, as opposed to the labor of having to slog through the murk–which, even if it does reach similar depths, cannot even provide a functional trace of what we seek. “We find philosophy to be a monster with many heads, each of which speaks a different language.”

Schopenhauer is My Spirit Animal
During this reading I penned some 12,000 words of definitions, notes, and mostly quotes–each of which spins off, as I read them back, into an essay of its own. I.e. I cannot even approximate a justice to the brilliance of this book in a review short of another entire book. So I’ll just leave you with a few samples, and to what they may provoke you:

“no truth is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, namely that everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word, representation.”

“That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject. It is accordingly the supporter of the world, the universal condition of all that appears, of all objects, and it is always presupposed; for whatever exists, exists only for the subject.”

“This world is the succession of the representations of this consciousness, the form of its knowing, and apart from this loses all meaning, and is nothing at all.”

“This will constitutes what is most immediate in his (man’s) consciousness, but as such it has not wholly entered into the form of representation, in which object and subject stand over against each other; on the contrary, it makes itself known in a immediate way in which subject and object are not quite clearly distinguished,”

“Therefore, in a certain sense, it can also be said that the will is knowledge a priori of the body, and that the body is knowledge a posterior of the will.”

“it is a consequence of the scientific form, namely subordination of everything particular under something general, and then under something more and more general, that the truth of many propositions is established only logically, namely through their dependence on other propositions, and hence through syllogisms which appear simultaneously as proofs. But we should never forget that this entire form is a means only to facilitating knowledge, not to greater certainty.”

“In respect of this withdrawal into reflection, he (man) is like an actor who has played his part in one scene, and takes his place in the audience until he must appear again. In the audience he quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation of his own death; but then he again goes on stage, and acts and suffers as he must.”

“It is an error as great as it is common that the most frequent, universal and simple phenomena are those we best understand;”

“If we lose ourselves in contemplation of the infinite greatness of the universe in space and time, meditate on the past millennia and on those to come; or if the heavens at night actually bring innumerable worlds before our eyes and so impress on our consciousness the immensity of the universe, we feel ourselves reduced to nothing; we feel ourselves as individuals, as living bodies, as transient phenomena of will, like drops in the ocean, dwindling and dissolving into nothing. But against such a ghost of our own nothingness, against such a lying impossibility, there arises the immediate consciousness that all these worlds exist only in our representation, only as modifications of the eternal subject of pure knowing. This we find ourselves to be, as soon as we forget individuality; it is the necessary, conditional supporter of all worlds and of all periods of time. The vastness of the world, which previously disturbed our peace of mind, now rests within us; our dependence on it is now annulled by its dependence on us.”

“Therefore, in this sense, the old philosophical argument about the freedom of the will, constantly contested and constantly maintained, is not without ground, and the Church dogma of the effect of grace and the new birth is also not without meaning and significance. But now we unexpectedly see both coincide into one, and can understand in what sense the admirable Malebranche could say: ‘Freedom is a mystery’.”

“Our philosophical attempts can go only so far as to interpret and explain man’s action, and the very different and even opposite maxims of which it is the living expression, according to their innermost nature and content. … It will not, in opposition to Kant’s great teaching, attempt to use as a jumping pole the forms of the phenomenon, whose general expression is the principle of sufficient reason, in order to leap over the phenomenon itself, which alone gives those forms meaning, and to land in the boundless sphere of empty fictions. This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration. It is a world so rich in content that not even the profoundest investigation of which the human mind is capable could exhaust it. Now since the real, knowable world will never fail to afford material and reality to our ethical observations any more than it will to our previous observations, nothing will be less necessary than for us to take refuge in negative concepts devoid of content, and then somehow to make even ourselves believe that we were saying something when we spoke with raised eyebrows about the ‘absolute,’ the ‘infinite,’ the ‘supersensuous’ and whatever other mere negations of the sort there may be.”

A few last comments:
1 - If you’re only going to read three more books, read this one three times.
2 - For those whom it may interest, know that this is remarkably congruous with the Buddhist cosmology, which imparts a practice (see Vipassana) equally brilliant to what Schopenhauer does to theory.
3 - Finally, if you happen to be interested in my review of another translation/edition click here:

my link text

[C. Quabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

To begin, I’ve never been a big fan of Kant. The way in which he subordinates thought to universals and imperatives has always come off as repugnant to me. Nevertheless his fundamental of the phenomenal and noumenal have struck me as just right. I could never really reconcile my aversion to him though. Schopenhauer’s critique of Kant, for this reason, I found as liberating. Schopenhauer does away with all that which I had found objectionable in such an elegant and compelling manner, his accusation of Kant’s fetish for “architectonic symmetry” (in other words outdated Aristotelian logic) was quite simply masterful and I loved that whole appendix.

As a whole, this work is beautiful. He is lucid and poetic throughout, without ever losing sight of the human aspect, which I feel is what Kant essentially killed through his faith in pure reason. Schopenhauer’s justification for the human condition as a pre-rational, intuitive constitution is quite simply liberating – and is justifiably why he is so often cast aside in academic philosophy. This book is fully worth the read. Frankly it’s a piece of literature, intimately concerned with the human condition and devoid of equivocal abstractions. Everything that he sets out to do is by means of applying a few fundamental and clear principles from which he deals solely with existence. The very fact that he spends the whole of the third book on art is enough to captivate any reader.

Nevertheless, his is not an entirely solid philosophy. My biggest problem with his philosophy is his bringing into the thing-in-itself the Platonic Idea. Now granted, his re-evaluation of said Idea’s is very compelling in and of them self. He basically lays out a epistemological elegance that prevents the scholastic philosophy’s attempt to explain the why of things to merely the how. I simply though could not accept the assimilation of those basic ideas into the noumenal world. There is no justification for them being there and it is for that reason that I have never been able to swallow and philosophical “idealism.” Of greatest value though is his conviction that any attempt at conceiving of some form of ‘teleology’ is “charlatanism.” He gives the individual his due worth in this respect, and gives precedence to the significance of the individual as the primary role of philosophical thought – without any appeal to anything but man himself.

I look forward to continuing his thought in the second volume. His is a truly unique mind that despite some questionable fundamentals offers some purely inspiring insights (too many of which to list). The main reason I wanted to attempt Schopenhauer in full is that I wanted to give a thorough re-reading of Nietzsche, who was himself a proponent of Schopenhauer in his early career. I can see why.

A truly moving philosophy. Something that one does not come across very often.

[Ilias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever you feel happy and think the world is all rainbows and unicorns, I suggest reading something from Arthur Schopenhauer to get a reality p*mp slap. While you are at it, I suggest doing it with a reader's guide.

[Theo Austin-Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

The proudest I’ve been about actually finishing a fat ol’ tome since Gravity’s Rainbow. The philosophy in here is batshit, but the writing is incredible.

[Said · Rating 2 out of 5]

تلخ مثل شوپنهاور

کتاب اول جهان چون تصور و اراده از چهار دفتر تشکیل شده که دفتر چهارمش خیلی خوب بود (در دفتر چهار شوپنهاور مثل رندی که دنیا را سال ها دریده است سخن می گوید از نقاب رنگارنگ دنیا پرده بر میدارد) این دفتر دیدگاه حکیمانه ی نویسنده به زندگی رو نشون میده ولی سه دفتر اول کتاب یه سری مقدمات از هرچیزی رو گفته که پیشنیازدرک آن ها در جای جای کتاب، کتاب دیگر نویسنده به نام

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason

می باشد که نویسنده مثل ریگ خواننده رو به سمت خوانندن این اثر پرت میکنه

بعد از خوندن کتاب بالا لازم شد که به سمت کانت بروم و به مطالعه ی کتاب های زیر بپردازم

Critique of Pure Reason
Critique of Practical Reason
Critique of Judgment

و در حوزه ی اخلاق
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

شاید بعد از خواندن این کتب بتونم بفهمم ک سه دفتر اول کتاب شوپنهاور چی میخواسته بگه


همین رو بگم که شوپنهاور معتقد است که جهانی که به واسطه ی ذهن دریافت میشود یک تصوراست که به واسطه ی اراده عینت پیدا میکند. به عبارت دیگر یعنی عینت همان تصور است و تصور همان واقعیت

به واقع او می گوید که جهان یک چیز است. تصوری در هم تنیده در واقعیت
----------------------
چیزی در مایه ی فیلم اینسپشن
:)

[Ivva Tadiashvili · Rating 5 out of 5]

დამატებანს სხვა დროს წავიკითხავ და ამჯერად ჩავთვალოთ რომ დავამთავრე წიგნი.

თავი IV
მეოთხე თავში სრული სიგიჟე გაიჩითა. წინა სამი თავის შეჯამებაა მეოთხე თავი, და შოპენჰაუერისეული განთავისუფლების რეცეპტი.
რატომ აღარ იწერება ასეთი ფილოსოფიური ნაშრომები? მშვენიერია მთლიანი სამყაროს გადააზრება და ასეთ დიდებული წიგნის შექმნა. აღარ იქმნება ასეთი წიგნები, ფილოსოფიის მოდიდან გადავიდა. მაგრამ კარგია რომ არსებობდნენ ასეთი ხალხი და თითქმის ყველაფერზე ფიქრობდნენ და საუბრობდნენ.
წინა სამი თავი შოპენჰაუერის პესიმიზმს საერთოდ ვერ ვამუღამდი. აი მეოთხე თავში კი პესიმიზმსაც მივხვდი რაშიც მდგომარეობდა.
კითხვა დიდი ხანიც გამიგრძელდა და ასეთი წიგნების კითხვა ვფიქრობ ასე ჯობია. ნიცშე გიჟივით მიყვარს და ამ პერიოდში ნიცშე ცოტათი გადავივიწყე. თავიდან შოპენჰაუერმა თითქოს პესიმიზმი კი არა ოპტიმიზმი გამოიწვია ჩემში და რაღაცნაირად რწმენა დამიბრუნა და დამავიწყა ნიცშეს არსებობა. ხოლო აი ბოლოსკენ ნებისგან და წარმოდგენებისგან სრული განთავისუფლების იდეა უკვე აღარ მომეწონა და დავუბრუნდი ისევ ნიცშეს.
შოპენჰაუერი ფიქრობს რომ ყველაფერი რასაც ვხედავთ და ხელშესახებია არის ნების ობიექტივაცია, და ადამიანი არის ნების სრულყოფილი გამოვლინება, რადგან მას საკუთარი თავის შეცნობა შეუძლია და მზერის მიტრიალება სამყაროსკენ და ღმერთისკენ. ოდესღაც როცა ღმერთს ვუყურებდით და მისგან მზერა შემოვატრიალეთ საგნების სამყაროსკენ, მაშინ დაიბადა ტანჯვაც. ანუ ის ფიქრობს რომ ამ სამყაროში გაჩენა უკვე ტანჯვაა და საჭიროებს ხსნას.
შოპენჰაუერი ამბობს რომ ნებისგან განთავისუფლება თითქმის შეუძლებელია. ის ფიქრობს რომ წმინდანებმა და წმინდანების მსგავსმა ხალხმა მოახერხეს ეს ტანჯვით. ისინი იტანჯებოდნენ არა მხოლოდ თავიანთი განცდებით არამედ სამყაროს განცდებით, ანუ გააქრეს საკუთარი ნება და თითქოს სამყაროს ნებას შეუერთდნენ. მაგრამ მე ვფიქრობ რომ ის წმინდანებიც მაინც ვერ აცდნენ ნების დამორჩილებას, რადგან როცა კვდებოდნენ ეს წმინდანები და მიწად იქცეოდნენ ისინი მაინც ნებას მორჩილებდნენ. და ნებისგან განთავისუფლებაში შოპენჰაუერი გულისხმობს რომ საერთოდ უნდა გაქრე, წაიშალო ამ სამყაროდან. რა საჭიროა ასეთი განთავისუფლება და ხსნა?
მე მომწონს ამ ნებას მივუყვებოდე, ამ სამყაროს ნაწილი ვიყო და არასდროს გავქრე. აქამდეც ეს იდეა მომწონდა: ყველა ამ სამყაროს ნაწილი ვართ და თუ უბრალოდ გავქრებით, ეს სამყარო აღარ იქნება სრულყოფილი, რაღაც დააკლდება. თუ მოვკვდებით ისევ ამ სამყაროს ნაწილად დავრჩებით, რომც დაგვმარხონ და რომც დაგვწვან, მაინც შეუძლებელია ნებისგან სრულიად განთავისუფლება.
ტანჯვა ალბათ მართლაც ეხმარება ადამიანს საკუთარი ნება გადადოს და მთლიანად სამყაროს მდგოამრეობაზე იღელვოს, მაგრამ ეს მედიტაციები და ნებისგან განთავისუფლებაზე ჩალიჩი, თავისთავად უკვე ეგოისტური თამაშია. შენ გინდა რომ შენი თავი გაასხივოსნო და აღარ ქონდეს შენს თავს ეგო.
მე მაინც ასე სრულიად გაქრობა არ მომწონს, ჩემთვის პესიმისტურია ზუსტად ეგრე გაქრობა. დავუბრუნდი ისევ ნიცშეს. მირჩევნია აქ მიწაზე ვიყო და გავყვე ქარს თუ მოისურვებს ჩემს წაყვანას.
თუმცა სოკრატე, ლაო ძი, იესო ამ ადამიანებმა მოახერხეს ის რომ დღეს მათი არსებობა-არ არსებობა ეჭვის ქვეშ დგას, მაგრამ მაინც მიუყვებიან ნებას.
ტანჯვა! ტანჯვა! ტანჯვა!
რა საჭიროა ამდენი ტანჯვა. ალბათ ბატონი არტურიკო სულ სახლში იჯდა და იქიდან სწუხდა სამყაროზე წმინდანივით. ვფიქობ ��აკმარისი იქნებოდა მისთვის პუდელის მაგივრად, გვერდით მეგობარი ქალი ყოლოდა, რომ დაივიწყებდა წმინდანობაზე ფიქრს და ნებას მიეცემოდა. მაგრამ თვითონ ასე არ ფიქრობდა. ცხოველური სურვილებისგან სრულიად განთავისუფლებაზე ბაზრობს.
მეოთხე თავის ბოლოს, თვითონაც ამბობს რომ ეს სრულიად შეუძლებელია, და სამყარო უბრალოდ არარაობაა, და თითქოს ისე ამთავრებს რომ ამდენ საუბარსაც აზრი არ ქონდა. რაც ერთის მხრივ თითქოს ნიჰილისტურად ჟღერს, მაგრამ მე ეგ აბსურდულობა მომწონდა ყოველთვის და ეგ აბსურდულობა მაყენებდა ზუსტადაც ოპტიმისტურ განწყობაზე.
ჩემი ძენბუდიზმი ხელშეუხებელია. ეს პრობლემები რასაც ეს ფილოსოფოსები ბაზრობენ, ამ ყველაფერზე მოგვარების გზა და პასუხი ძენ ბუდიზმია, ძალიან მარტივად და თან ძალიან რთულად.
მეოთხე თავის ბოლოს კანტზეც საკაიფოდ დამაინტრიგა, დამატებანისთვის. მაგრამ დამატებანს მგონი ცოტახნით გადავდებ და ჯერ შევეცდები კანტის ცოტა რამე წავიკითხო.
ისე შოპენჰაუერი ბევრი რამის გადააზრებაში დამეხმარა. ეს კითხვის პროცესი საკმაოდ დიდხანს გაგრძელდა, თითქმის 1 წელი და ძალიან სასიამოვნო იყო, ცოტ ცოტა კითხვა და მასთან ერთად სამყაროს გადააზრება.




თავი III
უფ რამდენი ხანია უკვე ამ წიგნს ვუტრიალებ. დიდი წიგნია და თითო თავს ვუწერ ხოლმე რევიუს. ამ ნაწილში შოპი ზოგადად ხელოვნების არსზე, კონკრეტულად სხვადასხვა დარგებზე, ხელოვანზე და გენიაზე საუბრობდა. დიდი ხანია სიტყვა გენიოსმა ჩემთვის მნიშვნელობა დაკარგა. დიდი ხანია არავინ დამიხასიათებია მაგ სიტყვით, და სხვებიც როცა იყენებენ ამ სიტყვას არასდროს მომწონს. ამ დახასიათების სხვების მხრიდან არასწორ ადამიანებზე, არასწორად გამოყენებამ ჩემ თვალში ფასი დააკარგვინა. დიდი ხანია აღარ მჯერა გენიოსების. მაგრამ თუ დავუშვებდი რომ მაინც შეიძლება არსებობდნენ გენიოსები, მათემატიკურ გენიოსებს მოვიაზრებდი ხოლმე. მაგრამ შოპენჰაუერი ასე არ ფიქრობს, გენიოსი მხოლოდ ხელოვანი შეიძლება იყოს, და მათემატიკასთან არანაირი კავშირი არ აქვს. ვფიქრობ ყველას შეუძლია გახდეს გენიოსი. ამ პერიოდში როცა გენიოსები და გენია დავივიწყე, ის რასაც შოპენჰაუერი გენიოსის თვისებებს მიაწერს, მე იგივეს ვითხოვდი ხელოვანისგან და იმის გაცნობიერებაში დამეხმარა არტურა რომ არსებობენ დიადი ხელოვანები და არსებობენ ხელოვანი ადამიანები ვინც მასების დაკრულზე ცეკვავენ.
ცოტათი შემეცვალე ამ სიტყვის გაგება, მაგრამ მაინც სადღა არიან გენიოსები. ან ალბათ თუ არიან ჯობია არც გაერიონ ამ სიბინძურეში. არც არის საჭირო რომ ვინმე გენიოსმა იცოდეს რომ გენიოსია. ვფიქრობ ეს პირიქით ხელს შეუშლის მას.
არტურამ ასევე ხუროთმოძღვრება როგორც ხელოვნება საერთოდ ახლებურად დამანახა და უფრო მეტად დამაფასებინა.
„თავისთავად გასაგებია, რომ მე ყველგან ვსაუბრობ განსაკუთრებით იშვიათ, დიდ ჭეშმარიტ პოეტებზე და სულაც არ მყავს მხედველობაში ის მდაბალი ხალხი მდარე პოეტებისა, რითმის მჭედლებისა და ზრაპრების შემთხზველებისა, რომლებიც დღესდღეობით გერმანიაში ასე ზალზე არიან მოდებულნი და რომლებსაც ყველა მხრიდან განუწყვეტლივ უნდა ჩასძახოდნენ ყურებში: არც ღმერთები, არც ადამიანები, არც სააფიშო ბოძები, ნებას არ ძლევენ პოეტს იყოს მდარე.
ღირს სერიოზული დაფიქრება იმაზე, თუ საკუთარი და სხვისი დროის და ქაღალდის რამხელა მასას ნთქავს ეს ბრბო მდარე პოეტებისა და რა ზიანისი მომტანია მათიი ზეგავლენა, განსაკუთრებით მაშინ, როდესაც პუბლიკა ბუნებით ასე მიდრეკიილია ერთი მხრივ, ყოველივე ახლისადმი და მეორე მხრივ, თვით სიმახინჯისა და ბანალურისადმი, როგორც მათთვის უფრო მახლობლისადმი. ამიტომ მდარეთა ის ნაწარმოებები განიზიდავენ პუბლიკას ჭეშმარიიტი ოსტატების ქმნილებებისაგან, აკავებენ მათი განათლების ზრდას, შედეგად - ეწინააღმდეგებიან გენიოსების კეთილგანწყობილ ზეგავლენას, გემოვნებას სულ უფრო აფუჭებენ და ამგავარად აბრკოლებენ ეპოქის წინსვლას. ამიტომ კრიტიკას და სატირას მართებთ მდარე პოეტების დაუნდობელი და შეუბრალებელი გამათრახება იქამდე, სანამ მათდა სასიკეთოდ მათ იმას არ გააგებინებენ, რომ უკეთესია თავისუფალი დრო იმაში გამოიყენონ, რათა იკითხონ კარგი, ვიდრე წერონ ცუდი.“
ბევრს დისაობს და ეს ძაან მომწონს არტურაში.





თავი I-II

შოპენჰაუერი მიმაჩნდა რომ სხვა ფილოსოფოსებისგან განსხვავებით ადვილად იკითხება, წყალივით მიდის. ეს რაღაცნაირი თარგმანია, თარგმანს ვაბრალებ. მეორე წიგნი უკეთესი თარგმანიაო ამბობენ.
არ ვიცი გუდრიდსზე რა ვიბაზრო, ისე ბევრ რამეზე ბაზრობს არტურა, წიგნს კი სულ ფანქარ მომარჯვებული ვკითხულობ. კარგი გასაკრიტიკებელი წიგნია. გინდა არ გინდა გეკრიტიკება. სულ ირაცინალურობას ვაწვებოდი და ამ ბოლო დროს თითქოს რაციონალური რაღაცეები მევასება.
რავი არტურა უკვე ბევრჯერ ნაბაზრებ რაღაცეებს ბაზრობს, ეხლა მე ჯერჯერობით მხოლოდ "სამყარო როგორც წარმოდგენა" წავიკითხე წინ კიდევ 3 თავია. და ამ პატარა თავშიც თითქმის ყველაფერზე მოახერხა საუბარი არტურამ. იუმორი აქვს საოცარი, ისეთი შედარებები მოყავს, ხან თახვებზე, ხან ილუზიონისტებზე, ხან მეძავ ქალებზე, რაც იმას ადასტურებს რომ არტურას შეეძლო ეყურებინა ვაშლისთვის და ამ ვაშლში დაენახა თავისი თავი. ჭეშმარიტების შესაცნობად ორი რამ მოსწონს არტურას ჭეშმარიტი მეცნიერება და ჭეშმარიტი ინტუიტიური ხელოვნება.
ამასწინათ ჩემმა მეგობარმა თქვა რა საჭიროა მეტაფორები როცა არსებობს მეცნიერებაო, და აი არტურას კითხვის დროს მივხვდი რომ მეცნიერება რთულია გასაგებად, ჯერ მაშინ თავად მეცნიერებაში უნდა ერკვეოდე რომ მერე ისევ მეცნიერებაში გარკვევა განაგრძო, არ ვიცი ალბათ მინიმუმ მათემატიკის ცოდნა მაინც საჭიროა. და ხელოვნება ყველასთვის ხელმისაწვდომია. შოპენჰაუერი რასაც 10 გვერდს უთმობს შეიძლება ეს ერთი პატარა ლექსით გადმოსცე. და ამას თუ გავითვალისწინებთ გამოდის რომ მეცნიერება კვებას ხელოვნებასაც. მაგრამ შოპენჰაუერი ინტუიტიურ ხელოვნებას წმინდა ჭვრეტით ხელოვნებას უწოდებს, მხილველურს. და შემდეგ ამბობს რომ მეცნიერებაშიც როცა საქმე თეორიულ მეცნიერებას ეხება, საჭიროა ჭვრეტის უნარი, ჯერ უნდა განჭვრიტო და შემდეგ დაასაბუთო. და რა არის ჭვრეტა თუ არა ხელოვნება. ანუ გამოდის რომ მეცნიერება და ხელოვნება თითქმის ერთი და იგივე რამეა და ერთმანეთით იკვებებიან. მეცნიერებაზე იასნია რომ მეცნიერება ჭეშმარიტია, მაგრამ ხელოვნებაში რაც ხდება? ვინ გაარკვევს რომელია ჭეშმარიტი ხელოვნება?
არ ვიცი კიდევ ბევრ რამეზე შეიძლება ლაპარაკი მარა გუდრიდსია რა. :დდ

[Michael Kress · Rating 5 out of 5]

To date I have read many works on philosophy (although I have yet to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason), so I have some reference points to the comparative greatness of this volume. If you are interested in metaphysics, this is the book for you. Arthur Schopenhauer had an encyclopedic knowledge on this topic and The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1 leaves no stone unturned. The scope of this volume is enormous. After reading only a small portion of it, I had gained so much knowledge on metaphysics that it was hard to imagine how he could elaborate further. But he does elaborate, and in a way greater than I have seen done by any other philosopher. There is no filler in this lengthy volume. It’s a damn shame this is not more popular than it is.

This volume is divided into four books. Book One deals with “representation.” As all philosophers who followed Kant were influenced by him, so was Schopenhauer, but his views are somewhat different. Kant argued that we have a limited perception of reality, and that we can never perceive an object as the “thing in itself.” Schopenhauer believes that “The world is representation.” This means that an object cannot exist without a subject, and that our perception is what the world is. He goes on to lecture more about the nature of subjects and objects. This was something discussed by Descartes as well, but Schopenhauer adds to Descartes’s metaphysics and is more interesting to read.

Book Two deals with “will.” I had heard lectures on “free will” by contemporary philosophers like Sam Harris, but Schopenhauer puts Harris to shame, because he has a more nuanced view. He lectures in this book on how the will relates to the body. The subject feels that he is “willing” the body (object) to take action. Therefore action (object) and will (subject) exist separately and simultaneously. We view others as objects, but we can view ourselves as both objects and subjects. Therefore, the subject is the "thing in itself.”

Book Three returns to the topic of representation by discussing how the will of objects are represented to the subject. The universe is perpetuated through the will. It expresses itself through individuals, be they inorganic, plants, animals, or humans. It is the will of the rock that has been thrown to fly through the air, just like it is the will of a human to make the choices he makes. A human has more “freedom” than a lower form of life, and a lower form of life has more freedom than inorganic matter.

Book Four gets ethical and spiritual in its return to the topic of the will. One can become familiar with the idea of “oneness” through meditation, and there are many great books throughout the ages that cover it. Tao Te Ching is a great example. But I have yet to find one as thorough and articulate as this book. The “will-to-life” is what drives us and our ever-demanding desires can never be met; the only way to escape misery is to acknowledge the illusion of our separateness and that the will of the world is One. My review has only scratched the surface of this volume. If you care about philosophy, you’ve got to check out this masterpiece by the greatest metaphysician of all time!

[Prash · Rating 5 out of 5]

a book to be digested. in the preface the author "boasts" that he couldn't convey his solitary idea in fewer words. i was forever looking for a superfluous word or sentence while reading the book to point out . could find none so far. the style is beautiful and majestic. he is a seer. for example he repudiates the concept of an "ether" almost a century before it was actually disproved by the michelson-morley experiment. he also tells of the impossibility of a "theory of everything" to which we seem to be reconciling ourselves now. have completed reading only a third of it. the prospect of further riches is enticing.

[Shannon McCue · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm interested in schopenhauer.


i don't buy everything (that would be scary) but... i like it.

sorry i'm so inarticulate

[Jimena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acojonante.

[Sir Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the young philosopher below concisely put it, you can think of Schop’s will as Kant’s noumena and his representation as Kant’s phenomena. Will and representation has analogues in Plato as well, the former being what is, the latter being what we see. So Schop places himself in the long line of canonical metaphysicians. As usual with philosophy, it’s okay if you miss one of his points because he’ll repeat the exact same idea at least fifteen more times (along with prolix, meandering examples).

Schop wrote this in his late twenties and it’s clear that often when discoursing on Will he’s really going on about lust. “Through the casual connexion of things, most desires remain unfulfilled, and the will is more often crossed than satisfied.” (p.363). Or earlier: “Desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity; fulfillment is short and meted out sparingly.” (p.196). “Meted out sparingly”: well put!

Similar to Wittgenstein sometimes in his investigation of solipsism in relation to the world. Schop concludes that the world needs us as much as we need it (so, the tree didn’t fall).

His prose is pretty readable, about 6 times more so than Hegel and 13 times more so than Kant (it took a lot of mental effort to come up with these numbers; doing long division on the level of paragraph turgidity is no walk in the park). He’s not the stylist Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are, but you still get the sense that he’s actually trying to communicate with you.

Departing from Kant, his thoughts on Will veer towards animism and monism, Will as a force that acts in all things, from a thrown stone to a person making a decision. In Kant, the noumena is a separate realm, largely unknowable in existence. With Schop, the Will, the thing-in-itself, is in you as much as it is in anything else. Since the Will is present in all things equally, the “principium individuationis” is an illusion (a stuffy way of saying that the stark division between you and others and you and phenomena is illusory) (you can see here the influence on Wittgenstein, like when Witt says that if x thinks y, it’s just similar to saying that y thinks y). Happiness, according to Schop, can come from realizing our connectedness with the world around us and losing ourselves in this contemplation (kind of like Mahayana Buddhism’s goal of becoming one with an object, like pure water poured into water).

What’s pretty indicative of Schop’s temperament is that the World as Will and Rep. was published when he was thirty(!); twenty years later, he wrote that there was not one sentence in the book he felt should be retracted; and he reaffirmed this again when he was seventy! Having figured out the world when he was thirty, I wonder what he did with the rest of his time.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schopenhauer offers a surprisingly coherent philosophical worldview and a perfect example of German idealism from 19th century. He takes most of the Kantian philosophy - including the world as our representation - and then adds “Will” as the thing-in-itself about which he says a lot, Plato's ideas, Indian and Buddhist philosophies, romanticism, pessimism, Goethe, dislike of Hegel, and so on, and creates the “worst of possible worlds”.
To me Schopenhauer represents the transition from Kant to Nietzsche. The young Nietzsche was deeply impressed by Schopenhauer when he discovered him by chance. Even if not exactly the same, the “Will” transforms into “Will to Power”, the cyclical/reincarnation into the “eternal return of the same”, and pessimism into nihilism. On the other side, it seems that Schopenhauer's approach to Plato and Kant, along with some positivism, also passed to Nietzsche.
This book is an easy and a nice read. It offers an interesting, tempting, and coherent worldview for anyone interested in philosophical ideas and a practical treaty on how to live one's life.

[k. · Rating 5 out of 5]

La voluntad parte del concepto kantiano que existe un Noúmeno (la esencia de la realidad, la cual no conocemos, desconocemos su naturaleza). Schopenhauer afirma que ésta es la voluntad, detrás de la realidad, existe la voluntad. ¿Qué es? Es una fuerza. Ciega e irracional, quiere porque quiere. Se reafirma en sí, desea para desear y es imparable.
Deseamos cosas y sufrimos al no tenerla. Pero al conseguirlo, queremos más y volvemos a sufrir. Es un círculo vicioso en el cual sufrimos, pero estos objetos son sólo una representación de la Voluntad.
Por lo tanto, la vida es absurda: constante dolor y sufrimiento sin sentido, porque nunca podemos ser saciados.
¿Cuál es la solución?
1. Arte, contemplación del arte. Aquieta, es momentáneo.
2. Compasión. Ver todo el dolor del mundo y dejar de desear estar en él.
3. Dejar de desear y fundirnos en el Nirvana.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’ai lu ce livre parce que j’avais compris qu’il contenait des arguments pour les religions Hindou et le Bouddhiste. Ce que l’on trouve est un seul plaidoyer pour deux religions ce qui m’a beaucoup surpris. Son attaque contre le Christianisme est finalement plus vigoureuse que sa défense du mysticisme orientale.
Je n’avais rien lu de Kant avant d’avoir commencer ce livre malgré le fait que Schopenhauer a clairement dit dans sont introduction qu’il fallait absolument faire. J’ai procédé quand même et j’ai payé le prix.

[نیکزاد نورپناه · Rating 5 out of 5]

دواى شكست خوردگان

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't buy the "Schopenhauer is a pessimist" narrative.

[Maxwell Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually managed to get this done before the end of October, nice.

Sitting down to write a review for this book is a pretty daunting task, given the immense scope of the work. But I guess this holds true for most philosophy texts. Really, these should be texts that are studied over the course of many months to years, so take with a grain of salt that, having read this in the span of a few weeks, the flaws that I identify here may have already been addressed.

Also, I should probably note that yes, indeed this is only labelled as 'Vol. 1', but the second volume was released decades after the original text and merely contains supplementary essays that Schopenhauer refers the reader to in various aspects of the text. This second volume is also longer than the first, so I don't think I'll be tackling it any time soon.

Actually, going down that route, Schopenhauer is a particularly demanding philosophical author. To tackle this text, you really should be quite familiar with Kant's main works, as well as Plato's, and should also have some familiarity with Eastern religions. Schopenhauer will also tell you in the preface that you ought to read his other book, 'On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,' which he treats as an introductory essay. He also expects you to read 'The World as Will and Representation' front to back twice, as the earlier parts expect some familiarity with later parts. Really, it's all quite confusing.

But anyways, onto the text I guess. Gonna be a long review.

Schopenhauer splits the text into four books:
1. The world as representation, first consideration
2. The world as will, first consideration
3. The world as representation, second consideration
4. The world as will, second consideration

He also includes a lengthy appendix critiquing Kant's philosophy.

In book 1, Schopenhauer lays out a view of the world quite similar to Kant's. Namely, he lays out how the world we experience around us necessarily conforms to our a priori concepts of space and time, which condition all existence. In fact, he takes this a step further, and claims that there is 'no object without subject,' which is really a quite succinct way of summing up transcendental idealism in a single phrase. He goes on to state more about the principle of sufficient reason (i.e., causation) as well as laying out what he deems to be a neater separation of the mental faculties. Some parts of this felt antiquated, other parts got very bogged down in technicalities. I largely struggled through these parts, but somehow managed.

In book 2, things really start flying off the rails and getting interesting. To begin with, Schopenhauer claims that the world presented as representation is unsatisfying, as it doesn't tell us anything about what we ourselves are (as thing in itself, not representation) as well as what anything around us actually is in itself. Schopenhauer's solution to this comes from looking inwards, and experiencing our own essence intuitively. He claims that there is a certain essence present in everything; in ourselves, in animals, in plants, even in inanimate objects. He dubs this essence "will". This is where the influence of Eastern religions comes in. To be sure, Schopenhauer doesn't attribute any sort of divine nature to this will of his; rather, he himself identified as a staunch atheist, something apparent in his various attacks on religion scattered throughout this work. Instead, he describes the nature of this will that pervades all things as one of "striving". He uses examples of how objects strive towards Earth in the case of gravity, or how life forms strive towards more life through survival and reproduction, etc. etc.

Now, of course, there are major problems with this view on the world. First off, if we ourselves are merely representation, how on earth are we supposed to be able to get a notion of the thing-in-itself of objects that aren't us? I mean, sure, we can look inward and try to get a grasp on our own consciousness and faculties etc., but how exactly can we attribute whatever we discover here to things totally separate from ourselves? Really, this notion of the will and striving seems to be merely a tidy way to wrap up all of our representations into one abstract concept, done through apparent personification of everything around us, i.e. by attributing the will Schopenhauer recognizes in the human being to being present in everything. I think this is something Kant himself, even with his own flaws, would recognize here as a gross overstep of reason.

But anyways, continuing onwards to book 3. This is primarily concerned with how we can escape our usual existence as a striving, "will"-ful being and instead enter a state of contemplation of the Platonic Ideas. The thought here is that, when we enter into a contemplation of these Ideas that are present across space and time throughout nature, we ourselves begin to see the universal that is threaded throughout everything. Schopenhauer examines how this contemplation can occur through media such as physical beauty, various forms of art, nature. Here there are also some quite antiquated concepts, such as physiognomy, the beautiful vs. the sublime, etc. etc. He also advocates for attacking bad artists: "Critics and satirists should pitilessly and mercilessly castigate the mediocre poets." Maybe a bit extreme.

Finally, in book 4, Schopenhauer considers the world as will again. Here, he lays out his systems of ethics and virtue under the framework of the world as will. Simply, this can be summarized as empathy and the golden rule, with some slight tweaks and worded using more philosophical language. He also lays out his thought that we, as human beings with reason, can actually overcome the will in ourselves. Again, this is an idea seemingly taken right out of Eastern religion (Schopenhauer acknowledges Eastern religions throughout). Namely, by identifying all desiring with all suffering, we can learn to let go of all desires and attain a state of perfect empathy, essentially, through seeing the one will that is present in everyone. Notably, Schopenhauer is not advocating for suicide here, as that would be an assertion of the will. He does, however, state that one who dies by simply forgetting to eat, i.e. suicide by starvation, is something that he would essentially admire. Now, of course, there is the slight problem that one must will to become will-less in order to become will-less, and hence we have a conundrum. And then there are other small problems with the notion of becoming an ascetic in general, but which I think I laid out in my review of the Pali Canon previously, so will not harp on here.

Finally, there is the Appendix, critiquing Kant's philosophy. This runs ~100 pages and is quite lengthy and technical. Essentially, Schopenhauer praises Kant for identifying space and time as a priori conditions for all experience, but lambasts Kant's architectonic tendencies and obsession with symmetry in his presentation of ideas, things which he believes hindered Kant's philosophy and all who followed after him, as they introduced various errors into an otherwise groundbreaking and error-free system (If you're familiar with Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason', this refers to most everything in that volume besides the Transcendental Aesthetic).

So yeah. Schopenhauer had some pretty nuts ideas. He also was a very aggressive critic: of religions, universities, Hegel, Kant, contemporaries, philistines. Really, pretty much everyone to a certain extent. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment here is his cleaning up of some Kantian ideas. As for the whole idea of world as will, I personally think it's pretty unconvincing and effectively spirituality without religion. But I also would probably need a few more reads to be certain. To quote Schopenhauer himself: "It is much easier to indicate errors and mistakes in the work of a great mind than to give a clear and complete account of its value."

If you've made it this far, you're a real one. I appreciate you.