Any Schopenhauer fans?

[Art Vandelay]

I'm interested in Schopenhauer's thoughts on philosophical pessimism, particularly his thoughts on the will to live and the fact that he's been seen as a historical thinker who was sympathetic to the act of suicide.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

so far I´ve read more about his philosophy than his actual works. I´ve been told his Essay On the Freedom of the Will is a good place to start.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I'm interested in Schopenhauer's thoughts on philosophical pessimism, particularly his thoughts on the will to live and the fact that he's been seen as a historical thinker who was sympathetic to the act of suicide.

It's been a while since I read him, but his basic metaphysical viewpoint, which he gets from his reading and mixing of Buddhism, Plato, Spinoza and Hinduism, is that the world of our being is an extension of our own will. In his view, our body is an extension of our will, and in turn the world is too insofar as there is no absolute differentiation between the two. This will is fundamentally subjective. However, it can also be realized objectively as "objective" things, which he argues are representation. Thus the parts of the body appear to us as particular things (like our bodily organs) as do the parts of the world (apples i want to eat, etc). There is no absolute difference between the two, so much as an apparent one.

He is a monist who wants to get beyond mind/body dualism. His pessimism comes in because if the world of our experience is essentially will, then the things which cause us to suffer are too. It is the boundless and ultimately unrealizable hope that our will will be realized which leads us to suffer. I'm always going to be willing new things to survive, better myself or realize some other kind of worldly end, however even as that is attained there is some new frustration for the will. This will also lead me into conflict with all the other subjects who are struggling, which will in turn create a different kind of suffering.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Phil has a good article on him.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

[Philosopher Jay]

Its been decades since I read him, but I remember enjoying him very much. As I recall, I thought his pessimism was more a pose when he was a young man, but he seemed to be much more in earnest when he was writing later in life. I did think him an excellent writer.

Ultimately, like Buddhists, he ends up blaming metaphysical forces for unhappiness in life. He does not subscribe to the Marxist idea that most unhappiness is caused by a screwed up economic system that gives some too much and many too little.

He has some very nice things to say about art and music. Art and music lifts us out of this world of misery and want. Unfortunately, as soon as the curtain comes down, we are back in the world of suffering.

[Dean]

His is the only rational viewpoint I've ever heard on the determinism / free will issue. Like so many issues, its not really that complicated, but if you want to make something "idealized" you can have some silly debate about it.

As I understand it, people have will that is free and determined materially because we exist as elements of the material world.

Look at it this way: an internal combustion engine is said to drive a car. You would not say that the engine ceases to drive the car because it is, in fact, chemical and physical reactions that move the car along. The car and chemical reactions are two different interpretations of the material world, not in any way precluding one another.

The same is true of free human will. We are free to do what is physically possible. Unless freedom means not being chained to the laws of physics, we have free will. Our free will exists within the framework of reality. "You can do what you will, but you cannot will what you will." -Schopenhauer.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Just read some of his stuff recently on the Will, and I have test on him, Comte & Mill on Wednesday.

From what my prof has told me of his response to the failed revolution in 1848 and his views on women, he seems like an interesting, reactionary sonofa*****.

Philosophically he wasn't a complete misanthrope, though, and he has a neat critique of Kant. As for will, correct me if I'm wrong but he seems to sort of equate will and existence, will being the instinct of survival and how we use sensory data to perceive the world.

That, and he scheduled his lectures specifically to conflict with Hegel...which didn't go so well for him. :grin:

[bifo_161]

He interestingly famously gave up philosophy to collect poodles in later life..

[Art Vandelay]

He interestingly famously gave up philosophy to collect poodles in later life..

Is this a serious statement?

[o well this is ok I guess]

Is this a serious statement? According to wikipedia, it was two poodles, and it was one after the other.
But I mean there's not a single famous philosopher who didn't do something eccentric. This is basically nothing.

[Blasphemous Apostate]

I've admired Schopenhauer's thought for a long time now, and consider him far wiser than Nietzsche, although in some ways my own thinking has formed in opposition to Nietszche's ideas as Nietzsche's was formed in opposition to Schopenhauer's.

Schopenhauer considered himself as a philosophical heir to Plato and Immanuel Kant, and was mercilessly critical of the German idealists of his day such as Fichte and especially Hegel.

For an introduction to Schopenhauer's thought it's best to start with his shorter essays, which are much more accessible. Best of all if you can find a copy is "The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, containing The Wisdom of Life and Other Essays", published by the Tudor Publishing Company back in the 1940s. If I'm not mistaken, the British socialist writer Ernest Belfort Bax was one of the translators of this compilation, an added bonus.

Schopenhauer's magnum opus was, of course, The World as Will and Representation, which it's hard to find unabridged copies of, and which makes for some pretty dense reading. Schopenhauer himself advised against attempting it without first having read his earlier work "On The Fourfold Root of The Principle of Sufficient Reason".

Hope this helps! :)