BothAndBlog Forum

Was Schopenhauer right?

The only reason I am hesitant to say, in a very light manner, that I don't agree with him because of his denial of the will to live. ___ Shawn

I still think the opening few sentences of WWR are among the immortal utterances of philosophy:
“The world is my idea”. — Wayfarer

I can see why Kastrup might endorse Schopenhauer's analytical Idealism, and why you could appreciate his notion of a Mind Created World. But I have never been able to get on board with his Debbie Downer*1 "wanh, wanh, wah" Pessimism and Roseanne Rosannadana "it's always something" Cynicism. Hence, I've never attempted to actually read any of his "succinct" prose. All I know of his work is limited to his aphorisms. One of which inspired my latest contrarian blog entry*2.

Was Schopenhauer right : that the world is a sh*thole, and human sh*t is the worst kind? So, abandon all hope, ye who enter this hell on Earth? Or was the Buddha right : that the world is a sh*thole, but willful humans can look up at the holy seat and follow the light to get out of nastiness, and into Nirvana? It may be true that sentience is the ability to suffer, but it's also the ability to know and to enjoy.

Is it true that optimistic Idealism is self-refuting? Leibniz said this sh*thole is the best possible world --- considering the compromised circumstance : that God & Satan are competing to run this defiled paradise. But his hopeful Idealism was ridiculed by Voltaire's cynical sarcasm*3. If this imperfect world is "my idea" why is it far less than ideal?

In the OP, ↪Shawn found Schopenhauer's "denial of the will to live" --- what 180 labeled Antinatalism*4 ---off-putting. Since he was influenced by Buddhism, why didn't Schop find inner peace? Why didn't he follow the eightfold path to Nirvana? Schop's ironic Idealism seems to imply that he & we project our dismal depression onto our mind-made worldview. That's contrary to a traditional notion of "Ideal" as perfect and all good. Like Voltaire, he derided Leibniz's Theodicy , that this is the best possible world. But, unlike the Stoics, he didn't advise that we create the best possible life from an imperfect world.

Schopenhauer's assessment of the human condition seemed to be similar to that of the Buddha : "the cause of suffering is Desire" ; and of Stoicism : "Stoicism teaches that we should discern our desires carefully"*5. But both of those philosophies offered a way to a more positive outlook. Yet Schop took a darker branch of the Buddha's path of enlightenment*6. One commentator observed : "If he was indeed depressed, it was depression as an intellectual disposition, not the usual sense of the word "depressed" {see Carlin quote below}. Consequently, I find his harsh intellectual analytical Realistic Idealism to be depressing --- intellectually of course, not emotionally. :worry:


*1. Debbie & Roseanna are Saturday Night Live characters

*2. Schopenhauer’s Will as Intention :
In his 1818 book, The World as Will and Representation, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer “identifies the thing-in-itself — the inner essence of everything — as will: a blind, unconscious, aimless striving devoid of knowledge”. Hence the material world, as represented in a conscious mind, is more like a challenging ever-changing dynamic system than an inert material object. For most humans though, Willpower is presumed to be both self-control and control over the environment. Hence, neither “aimless” nor “devoid of knowledge”. Will is intentional in the sense that an idea ─ a desire, need, goal ─ in the metaphysical mind is directed out into the physical world, as-if the immaterial mind had some ability to affect material objects. I’m not talking about mind-over-matter magic, but about human technology, the application of knowledge (information) for practical physical purposes : i.e. Science.
http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page19.html

*3. Voltaire is a cynic (someone who believes people are selfish) and a misanthrope (someone who dislikes humanity)
https://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl_258/le ... andide.htm

*4. Side note : the Wiki entry on Antinatalism has a picture of Schopenhauer.

*5. Desire is want --- lack of something needed --- but it's also the motivation (Will) to acquire something to fill that need.

*6. The dark philosophy :
"Schopenhauer developed a distrust of people in general, a depressed view of the world, an inability to maintain close relationships with anyone ..."
https://eternalisedofficial.com/2022/03 ... osophy-of-



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This is extremely uncharitable... This is dismissive, trivializing, mocking, etc. all with admittedly not reading much of his ideas. This is a transparent smear campaign! — schopenhauer1

I wasn't talking about ↪schopenhauer1, but about a dismal worldview that is not amenable to my own. From comments by other philosophers, I concluded long ago that "his ideas" were not conducive to rational philosophy*1*2*3. As depressed Hamlet said, "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me, it is a prison". He wishes that his “thinking” would allow him to live out his life in ignorance, insentient of the tragedies of his polarized political world, in which fatherly kings can be slain, by a treacherous mother. The Will of the world may seem "aimless", in that it is not aimed at yours truly. But, the Will of a human is aim-able by intention.

Sure, sh*t happens, but I don't have to sit sourly in the stinky sh*thouse, breathing its stench, after the bad stuff has been "eradicated" from my person. On a more positive note, I found the Buddha-like quote below, about not dwelling on depressive thoughts. A more balanced worldview does not have to be "deluded". The Carlin quote above, echoes the Buddha, in that desire for an unattainable perfect world can be the cause of psychological suffering. Maybe Schop should heed his own advice. Compared to images of the serene Buddha, Schop's portraits as an old man look pretty grim.

If Schop's absurd, perverse, strife-filled world is "Idealism", I prefer the imperfect Real one, where I can sit quietly in my little relatively strife-free zone of willful ignorance, and read a book, without thinking tragic thoughts. I apologize if I indirectly offended you in my post to Wayfarer. It was not a critique of Schop's corpus of work, but of his gloomy opinion of cosmic Will, especially as it manifests in human behavior.



*1. Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first 19th century philosophers to contend that at its core, the universe is not a rational place. Inspired by Plato and Kant, both of whom regarded the world as being more amenable to reason,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

*2. In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
___ Arthur Schopenhauer

*3. As a man thinketh, so is his worldview
“Do not eat the bread of a miser,
Nor desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."
___ Proverbs 23:7

arthur-schopenhauer-439585.jpg

I have never been able to get on board with his Debbie Downer*1 "wanh, wanh, wah" Pessimism and Roseanne Rosannadana "it's always something" — Gnomon
Grow up mate. Schopenhauer is for Big School, not kindy. — Wayfarer

OK. I'll leave the grown-up philosophy to those who are able to gnaw on tough gristly meat. But his fatalistic worldview (amor fati) is not for me. Although Siddhartha was also moved by the suffering of his huddled masses of countrymen --- several thousand years before Schopenhauer's insight --- at least he proposed a self-help attitude that might make the toughness more palatable. Other than a few quotes & wiki articles, I know little about scowling Schop, and I'm content to leave it that way.

I'm currently reading a historical novel, Hawaii, by James Michener. He doesn't pull any punches, as he describes innumerable instances of "man's inhumanity to man" over many centuries. In a scene on a Leper's Island --- where those infected, through no fault of their own, were banished to suffer & die, out of sight & touch of the unaffected fat & happy Hawaiians --- an uninfected Chinese woman, who volunteered to go to the miserable colony with her leprous husband, years later asked about a missionary who had died of the disfiguring disease, "did he suffer?". The reply was, "here everybody suffers". To me, that sounds like Schop's world. But I prefer the world of the stubborn stoic woman, who was the heroine of this episode. She didn't wallow in misery & self-pity, but -- with low expectations --she got to work and made a good life out of the bad hand she was dealt. I suspect that Schop's idealistic expectations of life were too high, out of his reach.

Optimism is not about looking the other way, but focusing on what's within arm's reach. "Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power." — William James.

Schopenhauer ended up saying that the meaning of life is to deny it . . . .
When Schopenhauer explicitly asks the question (in On Human Nature), it is this sense of it he appears to have in mind. His answer is depressing. The point or purpose of life is to suffer. We are being punished for the crime of being born, punished for who we are, namely, the nasty thoroughly egoistic will. https://iep.utm.edu/mean-ear/


If Schop's world is inherently irrational, how can we find enobling meaning in suffering?
friedrichnietzsche1.jpg

In other words, it's not suffering all the way down - suffering has a cause and an end. I wouldn't look to Nietzsche for insight on that, however. — Wayfarer

Yes. I don't project a sunny Pollyanna view onto our imperfect world. But I also can't subscribe to Schop's gloomy-give-up outlook. I wouldn't want to model my personal worldview on his example of analytical intellectual critical methodology*1. His scientific approach to criticism is reductive, but I look to philosophy for a more holistic & creative big picture, including both the bad and the good stuff. Since I am a sentient creature, I can experience pain & suffering for myself. I don't need Schop's help to touch it where it hurts, to feel the exquisite agony of physical & psychological trauma. But I could benefit from a longer-broader view that envisions some "end" of suffering, preferably in the here & now world.

I suspect that Schop, as a young man, was an Idealist, taught to expect a more perfect world. But, as cynical comic-commentator George Carlin noted, a cynic is a disappointed idealist. When I was young, I too was indoctrinated with an idealistic worldview, in which a loving father in heaven was there to sooth my suffering. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that divine succor was an ideal concept, not to be found in this real life, but in some remote angel-harp-cloud-world. Instead, I realized that practical succoring is found in your fellow sufferers, and in your own inner fortitude. So, instead of descending into angry Atheism, I became a Stoic Agnostic, and looked to human-authored philosophy, rather than cleric-authorized religion, to inform my pragmatic self-dependent positive forward-looking worldview.

If I found the world to be completely irrational & absurd, then my rational self-help plan of action would be insane. In the OP, ↪Shawn found Schop's "denial of the will to live" unacceptable. But that sad state of mind would be sane, if the "Will" running the world had no inherent Logic or direction. And, if the world is a creation of my own mind, its absurdity would be a reflection of my own state of mind. Schop, like other European intellectuals of his era, was impressed by the "Eastern" holistic, non-dogmatic philosophies that contrasted with his own dualistic, legalistic religious heritage. Yet, I suspect that he failed to find any reason for living, other than fear of death, in a godless directionless life.

But, enough of this sober serious "Big School" stuff. As my teasing about Debbie Downer should indicate, I don't take Schop's worldview so seriously. It's not an ideal model for me to emulate. I prefer to filter the bad stuff through a sense of humor. That said, I can see that his notion of a "mind created world" would resonate with your own. But don't take it too literally. The imperfect real world will still be following its own internal logic (natural laws) into the uncertain future, long after your personal Mind has graduated to Nirvana.

PS___ My answer to the OP question is that Schop may be right about the imperfections of the not-yet-complete world process, and about our human ability to create a world-model of personally experienced & selected facts, but wrong about the hopelessness of the whole enterprise, which is not about little ole me.



*1. Why does negativity seem more intelligent than positively?
Negativity deals with the analytical while positivity is more creative.
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-negativi ... positively

PLATO
Forms(X)-->Particulars(Y)
KANT
Noumena(X)-->Phenomena(Y)
SCHOPENHAUR
Will(X)-->Representation(Y)

ALTERNATIVELY
Being(X)-->Becoming(Y)
[Body]-->[Mind]*
[Living]-->[knowing]* — ENOAH

Interesting summary of general philosophical principles, extracted from real-world details. Forms are the essential idea of a thing that is instantiated in actual real things. The Noumenal ding an sich is also the idea of a Phenomenal object, as represented in a mind. The World-Will concept has been represented both as an unstoppable destructive tidal wave, and as an ongoing creative process, suitable for the evolution of thinking & willing & adapting beings. We are all in the same world, but we can choose to look at the dark side, or the brighter side of the same cloud.

Schopenhauer's pointless power of natural Will, may describe a snapshot of "Being" similar to Einstein's frozen Block Universe, going nowhere. But a "Becoming" world would offer more opportunities for growth & learning & evolution. Your notion of Living, as an opportunity for Knowing, is also more optimistic about the human condition. Instead of helplessly chained to the whipping wall, we are able to devise (represent) ways to escape, in reality (plan) or ideality (hope).

Schopenhauer’s Will as Intention :
For most humans though, Willpower is presumed to be both self-control and control over the environment. Hence, neither “aimless” nor “devoid of knowledge”.
http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page19.html

67564f72bed66836142a3d4a7ad2a268.jpg
18 hours ago

In the OP, ↪Shawn found Schop's "denial of the will to live" unacceptable. — Gnomon
Yes, I would like to elaborate on why I find it unacceptable. How is one to deny the will to live? Doesn't this imbue a persons life or deny their adaptability to the environment they are in?
Compare and contrast the Darwinian notion of the survival of the fittest with Schopenhauer's notion of the denial of the will to live? — Shawn

I'm not a Schopenhauer scholar, so I'm just shooting in the dark here. His description of WILL --- "a blind, unconscious, aimless striving {random erratic motion?} devoid of knowledge {unintentional ; indeterminate?}, outside of space and time {supernatural?}, and free of all multiplicity {singular ; monistic?} " --- sounds like a natural mechanical energetic force, except for the "outside" and "monistic" modifiers, which sound more like a deity. Yet it's not an individual object or person, but more like an impersonal energy field or Causal Essence.

For example, Aristotle's Prime Mover kicks-off the world in a certain direction, then innate mass/velocity Momentum keeps it going. Ironically, Schop's term "Striving" makes it sound like a goal-directed, self-directing (cybernetic) mechanism/organism. Or perhaps like Plato's intentional First Cause/Logos.

In any case Schop's mechanical "Will" may be only distantly related to the animal "will to live". In Darwinian terms, the latter is merely an instinct to avoid death, in terms of pleasure vs pain motivations. Hence, animals are unconsciously goal-directed organisms. But Schop could be interpreted to generalize that selective avoidance-of-pain into a cosmic drive-to-survive that propels the animate & inanimate world to evolve from a fetal state into a more mature system. He seems to think humans are merely sentient animals with only short-term emotional goals.

Could Schop really imagine that the evolutionary world system was internally motivated by an ultimate goal of perfection to "strive" (expend Energy) against Entropy? If so, I would think he'd be more sanguine about the world's prospects for a better future. And wouldn't be associated with "toxic" Antinatalism.


Will to live :
The will to live (German: Wille zum Leben) is a concept developed by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, representing an irrational "blind incessant impulse without knowledge" that drives instinctive behaviors, causing an endless insatiable striving in human existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_live

All his works are freely available online. Granted, a fair amount of reading, but the World as Will and Representation Vol 1 is a good start. In respect of the nature of the will, and why everything should be seen as its manifestation, read the paragraphs beginning here. Not easy reading, but then which of the German idealist were? — Wayfarer

Thanks. But it's a bit late in life for me to begin a scholastic study of "German idealists". I have a pretty good foundation in the pioneering Greeks. But I've never read any of Kant or Hegel or Schop --- other than popular quotes, Wiki articles and Wayfarer posts. So, all those famous philosophers are, for me, mainly symbols of specific concepts (Hegelian Dialectic) or general worldviews (Transcendental Idealism) that I may, or may not, want to use in what's left of my own real life.