The World as Will and Representation, Volume II in Philosophy

Feb 09, 2010 Rhonda rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy

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

I read this, I think, the summer after I had completed a graduate course in Hegel's Phenomenology. Schopenhauer was not much studied and there wasn't a course which It has been a long time since I read Schopenhauer, but I remember I used to laugh at some of his aphorisms. His comments about women notwithstanding, The World as Will and Idea (sic) is a truly important book in the history of modern thought. Modern philosophy should take it more seriously simply because of all the problems it raises.

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

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

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

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