Mostly Schopenhauer and pessimism, and a poetic reply

1. Arthur Schopenhauer...
But first a little Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, &
Marx, followed by a poetic response to pessimism.

2. The later Hegel (in saying that
“the Owl of Minerva flies only at
twilight”) implied that philosophic
understanding comes only when
historical events have already
transpired...
(Nietzsche slides in SchopNietzsche.odp)
calling into question the ability of
philosophers to change the world
rather than merely comment on it.

3. ”Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
His chief target was Hegel, whose
philosophical system was seen by
many in the mid nineteenth century
as able to explain virtually everything.
Hegel thought that wherever there
appeared to be a contradiction, a thesis and antithesis, it
would be possible to reach rational harmony by means of a
synthesis between the two... Kierkegaard disagreed: no matter
how rigorous your logical system, there will always be gaps
that can only be breached by a leap of faith. Faith is by
definition that which cannot be proven or disproved. That is
why a leap of faith is undertaken in 'fear and trembling".
In moral terms, that meant, for Kierkegaard at least,
embracing the religious life...

4. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872)
Feuerbach is best known for his criticism of Idealism and
religion, especially Christianity, written in the early forties. He
believed that any progress in human culture and civilization
required the repudiation of both. His later writings were
concerned with developing a materialistic humanism and an
ethics of human solidarity. These writings have been more or
less ignored until recently because most scholars have regarded
him primarily as the bridge between Hegel and Marx... SEP
* 'man is what he
eats'.
"Der Mensch ist, was er ißt.”*

5. Karl Marx (1818-1883) is best known not as a philosopher but as
a revolutionary communist, whose works inspired the foundation
of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is hard to
think of many who have had as much influence in the creation of
the modern world... SEP

6. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
"Life is so short, questionable and evanescent that it is not worth the trouble
of any major effort... no man is ever very far from [suicide]... Life has no
genuine intrinsic worth... Human life must be a kind of error, [as is] the
notion that we exist in order to be happy."
Goethe's view was otherwise: "If you wish to draw pleasure out of life you must
attach value to the world.”
Schopenhauer attached value to some parts of the world, such as his
succession of dogs - with whom he regularly took long daily walks. (179) He
also loved Venetian salami, theatre, the opera, the concert hall, novels,
philosophy, poetry, and at least one or two women.
So: why didn't he have a more positive experience of life? Or do you think he
did, after all, enjoy living - and complaining about it? Would he have had a
better life if he had learned to be more optimistic, more grateful, less critical? Is
our personal disposition something we can work on and change?

7. Schopenhauer on love
"The conscious mind is a partially sighted servant of a dominant, child-
obsessed will-to-life... we would not reliably assent to reproduce unless we
first had lost our minds." (187) And we would not be sexually or romantically
attracted to another person if we weren't under the domination of that
inexorable, insatiable Will... "Love is nothing but the conscious
manifestation of the will-to-life's discovery of an ideal co-parent..."
But "the pursuit of personal happiness and the production of healthy children
are two radically contrasting projects."
"We pursue love affairs, chat in cafes with prospective partners and have
children with as much choice in the matter as moles and ants - and are rarely
any happier." (197)
So: those of us who think our marriages and the subsequent births of our
children were transcendently-joyous events are just deluded. Do you agree?

8. Are there good philosophical reasons for being a pessimist? Does
anything in your experience support the claim that “the glass is
half empty,” that the world is ultimately just a mass of pointless
striving?
Is philosophic pessimism something different than temperamental
pessimism? Or is it just an attempt to rationalize one's personal state
of mind, and to justify it in metaphysical terms?
Is it possible to be neither an optimist nor a
pessimist?

9. Young Schopenhauer became a
hero to the youthful “romantics” of
his time who were so committed to
feeling (as opposed to reason). He
fell in love but “had no wish to
formalize the arrangement”deB176 - a
classic case of reluctance to
commit.
His refusal to marry his
mistress and mother of his
child at a time when this
would deeply damage her
social and economic status is
hardly the behavior of a
loving spirit. TPM

10. Old Schopenhauer is more
a picture of exhausted
energy and curmudgeonly
feeling.

11. Philosopher of the Month: Arthur Schopenhauer
...Explicitly following Kant, Schopenhauer believed that our
world of space and time was merely the ‘phenomenal’ world of
appearances and that the world as it really is outside of the way
we represent it to ourselves is timeless and spaceless.
We subjectively add space and time to the world just as – to re-use a
well-known metaphor – in wearing red-lensed glasses we add the
colour red to all our (visual) experience. Because time and space are
the way that we necessarily picture things, however, we cannot see
the way the world really is in itself (in terms of the earlier metaphor:
we cannot take the glasses off)....TPM

12. Schopenhauer admired
Goethe because he had
turned so many of the
pains of love into
knowledge...
The essence of art is that
its one case applies to
thousands...no longer one
man suffering alone, he is
part of the vast body of
human beings who have
throughout time fallen in
love in the agonizing drive
to propagate the species. DeB
201

13. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Schopenhauer was an
anti-Hegelian who
returned to Kant with the
intention of determining
the nature of the "thing in
itself" by analyzing
experience. But
Schopenhauer was a son
of Idealism; consequently
he conceived reality
monistically. For him the
world was a phenomenal
representation...

14. Kant began with experience and remained there, declaring that it is
impossible to attain knowledge of the thing in itself. Schopenhauer
also began with experience, but he believed that it is possible to
pass beyond experience and to know the thing in itself. According
to him, if we were merely rational beings, endowed with sense and
intellect but devoid of volition, we would never be able to answer
the question:
"What is the external cause of our
representations?" The world would
be for us a dream, a mere
representation, a mysterious signal
devoid of meaning. But each one of
us is also a body, and the corporeal
life reveals itself as tendency,
effort, activity, or in a word, as
will. Will, therefore, is our
reality. RA

15. Schopenhauer departed from Kant by denying the rationality of the
Will... it is ultimately without purpose:
An animal is born. It struggles to survive. It mates, reproduces, and
dies. Its offspring do the same, and the cycle repeats itself generation
after generation. What could be the point of all this?
Like the Buddhists, he
recommended asceticism and
the blunting of desire. Like
Nietzsche, he thought art and
aesthetic experience were
redemptive.

16. “The things in civilization we
most prize are not of
ourselves. They exist by
virtue of the doings and
sufferings of the continuous
human community in which
we are a link...”
It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I would give the name "God."
John Dewey (1859-1952)
This was Dewey's epitaph.

17. Among 19th century philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer was
among the first 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,
Schopenhauer developed their philosophies into an instinct-
recognizing and ultimately ascetic outlook, emphasizing that in
the face of a world filled with endless strife, we ought to
minimize our natural desires to achieve a more tranquil frame
of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence. Often
considered to be a thoroughgoing pessimist, Schopenhauer in fact
advocated ways — via artistic, moral and ascetic forms of
awareness — to overcome a frustration-filled and fundamentally
painful human condition... SEP

18. Schopenhauer became the young romantics’ hero,
championing “the whole person” against pure and abstract
reason, emphasizing the importance of the irrational
(foreshadowing Kierkegaard, “the melancholy Dane”).
Nietzsche was briefly smitten by him. He was one of
Wittgenstein's favorite philosophers.

19. The Condensed Edition of
Arthur Schopenhauer's
The World as Will and Idea
"We can surely never arrive
at the nature of things from
without."
The World as Will and Idea (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung),
1819- ...the sole essential reality in the universe is the will, and all
visible and tangible phenomena are merely subjective
representations of that 'will which is the only thing-in-itself' that
actually exists. The defect of his system is its tendency to a sombre
pessimism... (Squashed Ph'ers)

20. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). The World as Will and
Representation: Volition (“will”) stands outside space & time,
but following its dictates leads to misery... Ultimate reality is
will–ceaseless, unconscious striving that leads invariably to
suffering. Better never to have existed than to suffer.
Had a notoriously difficult rel’ship w/mom. Famous for trying,
failing to dislodge Hegel, whom he regarded as a sophist and
charlatan. Sought refuge in Indian philosophy.

21. “His antipathy toward Hegel” and his optimism led him to
embrace the Buddhist conviction that life is suffering, driven
by an irrational will that takes many form in humans
including violent aggression, instinct, intellectual ambition,
and philosophical hubris (“how’s the system coming?”)...

22. Schopenhauer hated Hegel
and described him as ‘that
clumsy and nauseating
charlatan, that pernicious
person, who completely
disorganized and ruined the
minds of a whole
generation.’
-Bryan Magee
His 1820 Berlin lectures
drew five students,
while Hegel packed in
300. deB 176
They're in the same boat now.

23. Six Questions for Arthur Schopenhauer
Harper's
1. Professor Doktor Schopenhauer, some
of your critics say that your core writings
are not much more than a transposition of
Buddhist religious texts into the language
of the Western philosophical tradition.
Can you respond?
Well, what was left? Moses Mendelssohn had already turned Judaism into a
philosophical system; Immanuel Kant had extracted a comprehensive system
of moral philosophy from Christianity...
The obvious next project was Buddhism. It worked beautifully, didn’t it? And
what is Western metaphysics compared to the Buddhist tradition? An anemic
imitation.

24. 2. In his Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, Friedrich Nietzsche
praised you and described you as his mentor. But then later he
described you, together with Christianity, as the “enemies of his
life.” What led to this falling out between yourself and
Nietzsche?
There are two explanations, really. The simple one is that the
Nietzsche who was filled with praise and admiration was the
mentally healthy Nietzsche, and the late phase Nietzsche was in the
midst of syphilitic delusions. I mean—who in his right mind would
name me in the same breath as Christianity? But then of course I
can’t avoid coming to some conflicts in our thinking...
He was a science fiction writer in the end, that Fritz, it’s no wonder
that they made a cartoon character out of his major contribution...

25. ...The will finds thousands of pretexts for perpetuating this
unsatisfied hunger of the will to live. These pretexts only
perpetuate the misery of life.
• One such pretext and deceit is love. The will of the
species masks itself under the pleasures of love with the
purpose of perpetuating the desire for life in others. In so
doing, it satisfies its own will to live.
• Another pretext and deceit is egoism, which impels us to
increase the pains of others in the hope of gaining some
advantage in our own miserable life.
• Still another deceit and illusion is progress which, in
actuating itself, only makes more acute the sense of distress...
Radical Academy

26. He may have been a grinch, a sourpuss, a misanthrope, and a
misogynist, but as W.C. Fields said: no one who lives children
or animals is all bad. Schopenhauer loved dogs and loathed the
restriction of their freedom by man. DeB 177
You would think that a philosopher who named his pet poodle “Atma” would have the
ability to see the Self in all beings; yet Arthur Schopenhauer’s love of wisdom did not seem
to extend to a general love of humanity. In fact whenever the poodle misbehaved
Schopenhauer would refer to it as “You Human”. -R.Udovicich, The Poodle Named Atman

27. Schopenhauer was puzzled by previous philosophers' neglect of
the topic of love, a pompous denial of a side of life which
violated man's rational self-image. DeB 185
But Socrates did not neglect
it, nor did Plato -
Plato's idea of “higher love,”
though, is a big Idea... a Form,
not very warm or tangible.

28. Schopenhauer's theory of the will invites us to adopt a more
forgiving stance towards the eccentric behavior to which love
so often makes us subject... (Love is nothing but irrational,
impersonal will...) 188-9 It offers the consolation of knowing that
our pain is normal. 194
The lover overlooks everything, misjudges everything, and in
consummating his/her passion elicits “devilish” laughter. 192
Love could not induce us to take on the burden of propagating
the species without promising us the greatest happiness we could
imagine. 194

29. “The greatest burden?” The pursuit of personal happiness and the
production of healthy children are two radially contrasting
projects - !!?? Schopenhauer was a life-long, childless bachelor.
He did not know the joys that can compensate for, even make
trivial, the “burdens” of parenthood.

30. An inborn error: the notion that we exist in order to be happy...
the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer. 198
And by this dark thought
we are supposed to be
cheered?

31. And yet... Schopenhauer finally transcends pessimism, at least on
paper. By assigning the absurdities of existence to an implacable,
impersonal force of will, he comes to look less at his own
individual lot than at that of humanity as a whole. He conducts
himself more as a knower than as a sufferer.
But of course we can't really
know that the world is nothing
but will. That's Schopenhauer's
peculiar interpretation and
perspective. In an odd way,
though, it reconciled him to a life
he claimed to find intolerable –
and seems even to have made it
worth living, from that
perspective.

32. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently
opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. [But even if true, it does not follow
that every ridiculous idea is a strong candidate for truth.]
Compassion is the basis of all morality.
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
[Compare Wittgenstein: the limits of my language...]
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would
be able to endure it.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
The amount of noise which anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his
mental capacity.
The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most
tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care
and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

33. Sometimes
by David Budbill
Sometimes when day after day we have cloudless blue skies,
warm temperatures, colorful trees and brilliant sun, when
it seems like all this will go on forever,
when I harvest vegetables from the garden all day,
then drink tea and doze in the late afternoon sun,
and in the evening one night make pickled beets
and green tomato chutney, the next red tomato chutney,
and the day after that pick the fruits of my arbor
and make grape jam,
when we walk in the woods every evening over fallen leaves,
through yellow light, when nights are cool, and days warm,
when I am so happy I am afraid I might explode or disappear
or somehow be taken away from all this,
at those times when I feel so happy, so good, so alive, so in love
with the world, with my own sensuous, beautiful life, suddenly
I think about all the suffering and pain in the world, the agony
and dying. I think about all those people being tortured, right now,
in my name. But I still feel happy and good, alive and in love with
the world and with my lucky, guilty, sensuous, beautiful life because,
I know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be
taken from me, and therefore I've got to say, right now,
what I feel and know and see, I've got to say, right now,
how beautiful and sweet this world can be. WA 11.17.08