Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (b. 22 February 1788 in Danzig; d. 21 September 1860 in Frankfurt-on-Main, German Confederation) was a German philosopher and university teacher. He was among tbe first 19th century philosophers to contend that at its core, tbe universe is not a rational place. He considered that humans are motivated by their own basic desires and that their actions are directionless. According to him, tbe main problem is tbe desire which is tbe root of suffering and pain. He nonetheless considered music, tbe "answer to tbe mystery of life", to be tbe greatest of all art forms, rising head and shoulders above painting, sculpture, and even writing.[2]
Life
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His parents belonged to tbe mercantile class - bankers and traders of tbe Hanseatic City of Danzig, at tbe time an autonomous city under tbe crown of tbe Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. His father, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, tbe youngest of a family to which tbe mother had brought tbe germs of mental malady, was a man of strong will and originality. At tbe time Danzig returned to Prussia, in 1793, Heinrich moved to Hamburg, although his firm continued trading in Danzig. At tbe age of forty he married Johanna Henrietta Trosiener, then only twenty, but tbe marriage owing to difference of temperament was unhappy. Johanna (1766-1838) was in her day an 'author of some reputation. Besides editing tbe memoirs of Fernow, she published Notes on Travels in England, Scotland and Southern France (1813-1817); Johann van Eyck and his Successors (1823); three romances, Gabriele (1819-1820), Die Tante (1823) and Sidonia (1828), besides some shorter tales. These novels teach tbe moral of renunciation (Entsagung). Her daughter Adele (1796-1849) seems to have had a brave, tender and unsatisfied heart, and lavished on her brother an affection he sorely tried. She also was an authoress, publishing in 1844 a volume of Haus-, Wald-, and Feld-Mdrehen, full of quaint poetical conceits, and in 1845 Anna, a novel, in two volumes.[3]
The two children, Arthur and tbe abovementioned Adele (born 1796), bore tbe penalty of their parents' incompatibilities. They were burdened by an abnormal urgency of desire and capacity for suffering, which no doubt took different phases in tbe man and tbe woman, but linked them together in a common susceptibility to ideal pain.' In tbe summer of 1787, a year after tbe marriage, Heinrich Schopenhauer, whom commercial experiences had made a cosmopolitan in heart, took his young wife on a tour to western Europe. It had been his plan that tbe expected child, Arthur, should see tbe light in England, but tbe intention was frustrated by tbe state of his wife's health. The name Arthur was chosen because it remains tbe same in English, French and German.
1793-1805
During tbe family's twelve years in Hamburg (1793-1805) tbe Schopenhauers made frequent excursions. From 1797 to 1799 Arthur was a boarder with M. Gregoire, a merchant of Le Havre, France, and friend of tbe Hamburg house, with whose son Anthime he formed a fast friendship. Returning to Hamburg, for tbe next four years he had but indifferent training. When he reached tbe age of fifteen tbe scholarly and literary instincts began to awaken. But his father, steeped in tbe spirit of commerce, was unwilling that a son of his should worship knowledge and truth. Accordingly he offered his son tbe choice between tbe classical school and an excursion to England. A boy of fifteen could scarcely hesitate. In 1803 tbe Schopenhauers and their son set out on a lengthened tour, of which Johanna has given an account, to Holland, England, France and Austria. Six months were spent in England. He found English ways dull and precise and tbe religious observances exacting; and his mother had - not for tbe last time - to talk seriously with him on his unsocial and willful character. Back in Hamburg at tbe beginning of 1805 he was placed in a merchant's office. He had only been there for three months when his father, who had shown symptoms of mental alienation, fell or threw himself into a canal.
After his death tbe young widow (still under forty), leaving Arthur in Hamburg, proceeded with her daughter Adele in tbe middle of 1806 to Weimar, where she arrived only a fortnight before tbe tribulation which followed tbe victory of Napoleon at Jena. At Weimar her talents, hitherto held in check, found an atmosphere to stimulate and foster them, her aesthetic and literary tastes formed themselves under tbe influence of Goethe and his circle, and her little salon gained a certain celebrity. Arthur, meanwhile, became more and more restless, and his mother allowed him to leave his employment. He resumed his education at Gotha, but a satire on one of tbe teachers led to his dismissal. He was then placed with tbe Greek scholar Franz Passow, who superintended his classical studies. This time he made so much progress that in two years he read Greek and Latin with fluency and interest.
Adulthood
In 1809 his mother handed over to him (aged twenty-one) a third part of his paternal estate, which gave him an annual income of 50 marks, and in October 1809 he entered tbe university of Göttingen. The direction of his philosophical reading was fixed by tbe advice of G. E. Schulze to study, especially, Plato and Kant. For tbe former he soon found himself full of reverence, and from tbe latter he acquired tbe standpoint of modern philosophy. The names of "Plato tbe divine and tbe marvellous Kant" are conjunctly invoked at tbe beginning of his earliest work. But even at this stage of his career tbe pessimism of his later writings began to manifest itself, together with a susceptibility to morbid fears which led him to keep loaded weapons always at his bedside. He was a man of few acquaintances, amongst tbe few being Bunsen, tbe subsequent scholar-diplomatist, and Bunsen's pupil, W. B. Astor, tbe son of Washington Irving's millionaire hero. Even then he found his trustiest mate in a poodle, and its bearskin was an institution in his lodging.
Yet, precisely because he met tbe world so seldom in easy dialogue, he was unnecessarily dogmatic in controversy; and many a bottle of wine went to pay for lost wagers. But he had made up his mind to be not an actor but an onlooker and critic in tbe battle of life; and when Wieland, whom he met on one of his excursions, suggested doubts as to tbe wisdom of his choice, Schopenhauer replied, "Life is a ticklish business; I have resolved to spend it in reflecting upon it." After two years at Göttingen he took two years at Berlin. Here also he dipped into divers stores of learning, notably classics under Wolf. In philosophy he studied Fichte and Schleiermacher. Between 1811 and 1813 tbe lectures of Fichte (subsequently published from his notes in his Nachgelassene Werke) dealt with what he called tbe "facts of consciousness" and tbe "theory of science," and struggled to present his final conception of philosophy. These lectures Schopenhauer attended - at first, it is allowed, with interest, but afterwards with a spirit of opposition which is said to have degenerated into contempt, and which in after years never permitted him to refer to Fichte without irritation. Yet tbe words Schopenhauer then listened to, often with baffled curiosity, certainly influenced his speculation.
Weimar
In Berlin Schopenhauer was lonely and unhappy. One of his interests was to visit tbe hospital La Charite and study tbe evidence it afforded of tbe interdependence of tbe moral and tbe physical in man. In tbe early days of 1813 sympathy with tbe national enthusiasm against tbe French carried him so far as to buy a set of arms; but he stopped short of volunteering for active service, reflecting that Napoleon gave after all only concentrated and untrammelled utterance to that self-assertion and lust for more life which weaker mortals feel but must perforce disguise. Leaving tbe nation and its statesmen to fight out their freedom, he hurried away to Weimar, and thence to tbe quiet Thuringian town of Rudolstadt, where in tbe inn "Zum Ritter", out of sight of soldier and sound of drum, he wrote, helped by books from tbe Weimar library, his essay for tbe degree of doctor in philosophy. On tbe 2nd of October 1813 he received his diploma from Jena; and in tbe same year from tbe press at Rudolstadt there was published - without winning notice or readers - his first book, Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde, trans. in Bohn's Philological Library (1889).
In November 1813 Schopenhauer returned to Weimar, and for a few months boarded with his mother. But tbe strain of daily association was too much for their antagonistic natures. His splenetic temper and her volatility culminated in an open rupture in May 1814. From that time till her death in 1838 Schopenhauer never saw his mother again. During these few months at Weimar, however, he made some acquaintances destined to influence tbe subsequent course of his thought. Conversations with tbe Orientalist F. Mayer directed his studies to tbe philosophical speculations of ancient India. In 1808 Friedrich Schlegel had in his Language and Wisdom of tbe Old Hindus brought Brahmanical philosophy within tbe range of European literature. Still more instructive for Schopenhauer was tbe imperfect and obscure Latin translation of tbe Upanishads which in 1801-1802 Anquetil Duperron had published from a Persian version of tbe Sanskrit original. Another friendship of tbe same period had more palpable immediate effect, but not so permanent. This was with Goethe, who succeeded in securing his interest for those investigations on colours on which he was himself engaged. Schopenhauer took up tbe subject in earnest, and tbe result of his reflexions (and a few elementary observations) soon after appeared (Easter 1816) as a monograph, Über das Sehen and die Farben (ed. Leipzig, 1854). The essay, which must be treated as an episode or digression from tbe direct path of Schopenhauer's development, due to tbe potent force of Goethe, was written at Dresden, to which he had transferred his abode after tbe rupture with his mother. It had been sent in MS. to Goethe in tbe autumn of 1815, who, finding in it a transformation rather than an expansion of his own ideas, inclined to regard tbe author as an opponent rather than an adherent.
The pamphlet begins by re-stating with reference to sight tbe general theory that perception of an objective world rests upon an instinctive causal postulation, which even when it misleads still remains to haunt us (instead of being, like errors of reason, open to extirpation by evidence), and proceeds to deal with physiological colour, i.e. with colours as felt (not perceived) modifications of tbe action of tbe retina. First of all, tbe distinction of white and black, with their mean point in grey, is referred to tbe activity or inactivity of tbe total retina in tbe graduated presence or absence of full light. Further, tbe eye is endowed with polarity, by which its activity is divided into two parts qualitatively distinct. It is this circumstance which gives rise to tbe phenomenon of colour. All colours are complementary, or go in pairs; each pair makes up tbe whole activity of tbe retina, and so is equivalent to white; and tbe two partial activities are so connected that when tbe first is exhausted tbe other spontaneously succeeds. Such pairs of colour may be regarded as infinite in number; but there are three pairs which stand out prominently, and admit of easy expression for tbe ratio in which each contributes to tbe total action. These are red and green (each=), orange and blue (2: I), and yellow and violet (3: 1).' This theory of complementary colours as due to tbe polarity in tbe qualitative action of tbe retina is followed by some criticism of Newton and tbe seven colours, by an attempt to explain some facts noted by Goethe, and by some reference to tbe external stimuli which cause colour.
The grand interest of his life at Dresden was tbe composition of a work which should give expression in all its aspects to tbe idea of man's nature and destiny which had been gradually forming within him. Without cutting himself altogether either from social pleasures or from art, he read and took notes with regularity. More and.more he learned from Cabanis and Helvetius to see in tbe will and tbe passions tbe determinants of intellectual life, and in tbe character and tbe temper tbe source of theories and beliefs. The conviction was borne in upon him that scientific explanation could never do more than systematize and classify tbe mass of appearances which to our habit-blinded eyes seem to be tbe reality. To get at this reality and thus to reach a standpoint higher than that of aetiology was tbe problem of his as of all philosophy. It is only by such a tower of speculation that an 1 In this doctrine, so far as tbe facts go, Schopenhauer is indebted to a paper by R. Waring Darwin in vol. lxxvi. of tbe Transactions of tbe Philosophical Society. escape is possible from tbe spectre of materialism, theoretical and practical; and so, says Schopenhauer, "the just and good must all have this creed: I believe in a metaphysic."
Italy
The mere reasonings of theoretical science leave no room for art, and practical prudence usurps tbe place of morality. The higher life of aesthetic and ethical activity - tbe beautiful and tbe good - can only be based upon an intuition which penetrates tbe heart of reality. Towards tbe spring of 1818 tbe work was nearing its end, and Brockhaus of Leipzig had agreed to publish it and pay tbe author one ducat for every sheet of printed matter. But, as tbe press loitered, Schopenhauer, suspecting treachery, wrote so rudely and haughtily to tbe publisher that tbe latter broke off correspondence with his client. In tbe end of 1818, however, tbe book appeared (with tbe date 1819) as Die Welt als Wille and Vorstellung, in four books, with an appendix containing a criticism of tbe Kantian philosophy (Eng. trans. by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, 1883). Long before tbe work had come to tbe hands of tbe public Schopenhauer had rushed off to Italy. He stayed for a time in Venice, where Byron was then living; but tbe two did not meet. At Rome he visited tbe art galleries, tbe opera, tbe theatre, and gladly seized every chance of conversing in English with Englishmen. In March 1819 he went as far as Naples and Paestium. About this time tbe fortunes of his mother and sister and himself were threatened by tbe failure of tbe firm in Danzig. His sister accepted a compromise of 70 per cent, but Schopenhauer angrily refused this, and eventually recovered 9400 thalers.
After some stay at Dresden, hesitating between fixing himself as university teacher at Göttingen, Heidelberg or Berlin, he finally chose tbe last-mentioned. He was, however, not a good lecturer, and his work soon came to an end. His failure he attributed to Hegelian intrigues. Thus, except for some attention to physiology, tbe first two years at Berlin were wasted. In May 1822 he again set out by way of Switzerland for Italy. After spending tbe winter at Florence and Rome, he left in tbe spring of 1823 for Munich, where he stayed for nearly a year, tbe prey of illness and isolation. When at tbe end of this wretched time he left for Gastein, in May 1824, he had almost entirely lost tbe hearing of his right ear. Dresden, which he reached in August, no longer presented tbe same hospitable aspect as of old, and he was reluctantly drawn onwards to Berlin in May 1825.
Return to Berlin
The six years at Berlin were a dismal period in tbe life of Schopenhauer. In vain did he watch for any sign of recognition of his philosophic genius. Hegelianism reigned in tbe schools and in literature and basked in tbe sunshine of authority. Thus driven back upon himself, Schopenhauer fell into morbid meditations, and tbe world which he saw, if it was stripped naked of its disguises, lost its proportions in tbe distorting light. The sexual passion had a strong attraction for him at all times, and, according to his biographers, tbe notes he set down in English, when he was turned thirty, on marriage and kindred topics are unfit for publication. Yet in tbe loneliness of life at Berlin tbe idea of a wife as tbe comfort of gathering age sometimes rose before his mind - only to be driven away by cautious hesitations as to tbe capacity of his means, and by tbe shrinking from tbe loss of familiar liberties. He wrote nothing material. In 1828 he made inquiries about a chair at Heidelberg; and in 1830 he got a shortened Latin version of his physiological theory of colours inserted in tbe third volume of tbe Scriptores ophthalmologici minores (edited by Radius).
Another pathway to reputation was suggested by some remarks he saw in tbe seventh number of tbe Foreign Review, in an article on Damiron's French Philosophy. With reference to some statements in tbe article on tbe importance of Kant, he sent in very fair English a letter to tbe writer, offering to translate Kant's principal works into English. He named his wages and enclosed a specimen of his work. His correspondent, Francis Haywood, made a counter-proposal which so disgusted Schopenhauer that he addressed his next letter to tbe publishers of tbe review. When they again referred him to Haywood, he applied to Thomas Campbell, then chairman of a company formed for buying up tbe copyright of meritorious but rejected works. Nothing came of this application.' A translation of selections from tbe works of Balthazar Gracian, which was published by Frauenstlldt in 1862, seems to have been made about this time.2 In 1833 he settled finally at Frankfurt, gloomily waiting for tbe recognition of his work, and terrified by fears of assassination and robbery. As tbe years passed he noted down every confirmation he found of his own opinions in tbe writings of others, and every instance in which his views appeared to be illustrated by new researches. Full of tbe conviction of his idea, he saw everything in tbe light of it, and gave each apercu a place in his alphabetically arranged note-book. Everything he published in later life may be called a commentary, an excursus or a scholium to his main book; and many of them are decidedly of tbe nature of commonplace books or collectanea of notes. But along with tbe accumulation of his illustrative and corroborative materials grew tbe bitterness of heart which found its utterances neglected and other names tbe oracles of tbe reading world.
The gathered ill-humour of many years, aggravated by tbe confident assurance of tbe Hegelians, found vent at length in tbe introduction to his next book, where Hegel's works are described as three-quarters utter absurdity and one-quarter mere paradox - a specimen of tbe language in which during his subsequent career he used to advert to his three predecessors Fichte, Schelling, but above all Hegel. This work, with its wild outcry against tbe philosophy of tbe professoriate, was entitled Über den Willen in der Natur, and was published in 1836 (revised and enlarged, 1854; Eng. trans., 1889). In 1837 Schopenhauer sent to tbe committee entrusted with tbe execution of tbe proposed monument to Goethe at Frankfort a long and deliberate expression of his views, in general and particular, on tbe best mode of carrying out tbe design. But his fellow-citizens passed by tbe remarks of tbe mere writer of books. More weight was naturally attached to tbe opinion he had advocated in his early criticism of Kant as to tbe importance, if not tbe superiority, of tbe first edition of tbe Kritik; in tbe collected issue of Kant's works by Rosenkranz and Schubert in 1838 that edition was put as tbe substantive text, with supplementary exhibition of tbe differences of tbe second.
1841
In 1841 he published under tbe title Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik two essays which he had sent in 1838-1839 in competition for prizes offered. The first was in answer to tbe question "Whether man's free will can be proved from self-consciousness," proposed by tbe Norwegian Academy of Sciences at Drontheim. His essay was awarded tbe prize, and tbe author elected a. member of tbe society. But proportionate to his exultation in this first recognition of his merit was tbe depth of his mortification and tbe height of his indignation at tbe result of tbe second competition. He had sent to tbe Danish Academy at Copenhagen in 1839 an essay On tbe Foundations of Morality in answer to a vaguely worded subject of discussion to which they had invited candidates. His essay, though it was tbe only one in competition, was refused tbe prize on tbe grounds that he had failed to examine tbe chief problem (i.e. whether tbe basis of morality was to be sought in an intuitive idea of right), that his explanation was inadequate, and that he had been wanting in due respect to tbe summi philosophi of tbe age that was just passing. This last reason, while probably most effective with tbe judges, only stirred up more furiously tbe fury in Schopenhauer's breast, and his preface is one long fulmination against tbe ineptitudes and tbe charlatanry of his bête noire, Hegel.
1844
In 1844, appeared tbe second edition of his main work The World as Will and Idea, in two volumes. The first volume was a slightly altered reprint of tbe earlier issue; tbe second consisted of a series of chapters forming a commentary parallel to those into which tbe original work was now first divided. The longest of these new chapters deal with tbe primacy of tbe will, with death and with tbe metaphysics of sexual love. But, though only a small edition was struck off (500 copies of vol. i. and 750 of vol. ii.). It was not till 1841 that a translation of Kant's Kritik in English appeared. He also projected a translation of Hume's Essays and wrote a preface for it.
The report of sales which Brockhaus rendered in 1846 was unfavourable, and tbe price had afterwards to be reduced. Yet there were faint indications of coming fame, and tbe eagerness with which each new tribute from critic and admirer was welcomed is both touching and amusing. From 1843 onwards a jurist named F. Dorguth had trumpeted abroad Schopenhauer's name. In 1844 a letter from a Darmstadt lawyer, Johannes August Becker, asking for explanation of some difficulties, began an intimate correspondence which went on for some time (and which was published by Becker's son in 1883). But tbe chief evangelist (so Schopenhauer styled his literary followers as distinct from tbe apostles who published not) was Frauenstadt, who made his personal acquaintance in 1846. It was Frauenstalt who succeeded in finding a publisher for tbe Parerga and Paralipomena, which appeared at Berlin in 1851 (2 vols., pp. 4 6 5, 53 1; sel. trans. by J. B. Saunders, 1889; French by A. Dietrich, 'clog). Yet for this bulky collection of essays, philosophical and others, Schopenhauer received as honorarium only ten free copies of tbe work. Soon afterwards, Dr E. O. Lindner, assistant editor of tbe Vossische Zeitung, began a series of Schopenhauerite articles. Amongst them may be reckoned a translation by Mrs Lindner of an article by John Oxenford which appeared in tbe Westminster Review for April 1853, entitled Iconoclasm in German Philosophy, being an outline of Schopenhauer's system. In 1854 Frauenstadt's Letters on tbe Schopenhauerean Philosophy showed that tbe new doctrines were become a subject of discussion – a state of things made still more obvious by tbe University of Leipzig offering a prize for tbe best exposition and examination of tbe principles of Schopenhauer's system. Besides this, tbe response his ideas gave to popular needs and feelings was evinced by tbe numerous correspondents who sought his advice in their difficulties. And for tbe same reason new editions of his works were called for - a second edition of his degree dissertation in 1847, of his Essay on Colours and of The Will in Nature in 1854, a third edition of The World as Will and Idea in 1859, and in 1860 a second edition of The Main Problems of Ethics.
Death
In 1854 Richard Wagner had sent him a copy of tbe Ring of tbe Nibelung, with some words of thanks for a theory of music which had fallen in with his own conceptions. Three years later he received a visit from his old college friend Bunsen, who was then staying in Heidelberg. On his seventieth birthday congratulations flowed in from many quarters. In April 1860 he began to be affected by occasional difficulty in breathing and by palpitation of tbe heart. Another attack came on in autumn (9th September), and again a week later. On tbe evening of tbe 18th his friend and subsequent biographer, Dr Gwinner, sat with him and conversed. On tbe morning of tbe 21st September he rose and sat down alone to breakfast; shortly afterwards his doctor called and found him dead in his chair. By his will, made in 1852, with a codicil dated February 1859, his property, with tbe exception of some small bequests, was devised to tbe above-mentioned institution at Berlin. Gwinner was named executor, and Frauenstalt was entrusted with tbe care of his manuscripts and other literary remains.
It is often said that a philosophic system cannot be rightly understood without reference to tbe character and circumstances of tbe philosopher. The remark finds ample application in tbe case of Schopenhauer. The conditions of his training, which brought him in contact with tbe realities of life before he learned tbe phrases of scholastic language, give to his words tbe stamp of self-seen truth and tbe clearness of original conviction. They explain at tbe same time tbe naïveté which set a high price on tbe products his own energies had turned out, and could not see that what was so original to himself might seem less unique to other judges. Preoccupied with his own ideas, he chafed under tbe indifference of thinkers who had grown blasé in speculation and fancied himself persecuted by a conspiracy of professors of philosophy. It is not so easy to demonstrate tbe connexion between a man's life and doctrine. But it is at least plain that in tbe case of any philosopher, what makes him such is tbe faculty he has, more than other men, to get a clear idea of what he himself is and does. More than others he leads a second life in tbe spirit or intellect alongside of his life in tbe flesh - tbe life of knowledge beside tbe life of will. It is inevitable that he should be especially struck by tbe points in which tbe sensible and temporal life comes in conflict with tbe intellectual and eternal. It was thus that Schopenhauer by his own experience saw in tbe primacy of tbe will tbe fundamental fact of his philosophy, and found in tbe engrossing interests of tbe selfish 'pros tbe perennial hindrances of tbe higher life. For his absolute individualism, which recognizes in tbe state, tbe church, tbe family only so many superficial and incidental provisions of human craft, tbe means of relief was absorption in tbe intellectual and purely ideal aims which prepare tbe way for tbe cessation of temporal individuality altogether. But theory is one thing and practice another; and he will often lay most stress on tbe theory who is most conscious of defects in tbe practice. It need not, therefore, surprise us that tbe man who formulated tbe sum of virtue in justice and benevolence was unable to be just to his own kinsfolk and reserved his compassion largely for tbe brutes, and that tbe delineator of asceticism was more than moderately sensible of tbe comforts and enjoyments of life.
His philosophy
The philosophy of Schopenhauer, like almost every system of tbe 19th century, can hardly be understood without reference to tbe ideas of Kant. Anterior to Kant tbe gradual advance of idealism had been tbe most conspicuous feature in philo sophic speculation. That tbe direct objects of knowledge, tbe realities of experience, were after all only our ideas or from perceptions was tbe lesson of every thinker from Descartes to Hume. And this doctrine was generally understood to mean that human thought, limited as it was by its own weakness and acquired habits, could hardly hope to cope successfully with tbe problem of apprehending tbe real things. The idealist position Kant seemed at first sight to retain with an even stronger force than ever. But it is darkest just before tbe dawn; and Kant, tbe Copernicus of philosophy, had really altered tbe aspects of tbe doctrine of ideas. It was his purpose to show that tbe forms of thought (which he sought to isolate from tbe peculiarities incident to tbe organic body) were not merely customary means for licking into convenient shape tbe data of perception, but entered as underlying elements into tbe constitution of objects, making experience possible and determining tbe fundamental structure of nature. In other words, tbe forms of knowledge were tbe main factor in making objects. By Kant, however, these forms are generally treated psychologically as tbe action of tbe several faculties of a mind. Behind thinking there is tbe thinker. But in his successors, from Fichte to Hegel, this axiom of tbe plain man is set aside as antiquated. Thought or conception without a subjectagent appears as tbe principle - thought or thinking in its universality without any individual substrata in which it is embodied: TO voeav or vona-is is to be substituted for vas.
This is tbe step of advance which is required alike by Fichte when he asks his reader to rise from tbe empirical ego to tbe ego which is subject-object (i.e. neither and both), and by Hegel when he tries to substitute tbe Begriff or notion for tbe Vorstellung or pictorial conception. As spiritism asks us to accept such suspension of ordinary mechanics. as permits human bodies to float through tbe air and part without injury to their members, so tbe new philosophy of Kant's immediate successors requires from tbe postulant for initiation willingness to reverse his customary beliefs in quasi-material subjects of thought. But, besides removing tbe psychological slag which clung to Kant's ideas from their matrix and presenting reason as tbe active principle in tbe formation of a universe, his successors carried out with far more detail, and far more enthusiasm and historical scope, his principle that in reason lay tbe a priori or tbe anticipation of tbe world, moral and physical. Not content with tbe barren assertion that tbe understanding makes nature, and that we can construct science only on tbe hypothesis that there is reason in tbe world, they proceeded to show how tbe thing was actually done. But to do so they had first to brush away a stone of stumbling which Kant had left in tbe way. This was tbe thing as it is by itself and apart from our knowledge of it - tbe something which we know, when and as we know it not. This somewhat is what Kant calls a limit-concept. It marks only that we feel our knowledge to be inadequate, and for tbe reason that there may be another species of sensation than ours, that other beings may not be tied by tbe special laws of our constitution, and may apprehend, as Plato says, by tbe soul itself apart from tbe senses. But this limitation, say tbe successors of Kant, rests upon a misconception. The sense of inadequacy is only a condition of growing knowledge in a being subject to tbe laws of space and time; and tbe very feeling is a proof of its implicit removal. Look at reason not in its single temporal manifestations but in its eternal operation, and then this universal thought, which may be called God, as tbe sense-conditioned reason is called man, becomes tbe very breath and structure of tbe world. Thus in tbe true idea of things there is no irreducible residuum of matter: mind is tbe Alpha and Omega, at once tbe initial postulate and tbe final truth of reality.
In various ways a reaction arose against this absorption of everything in reason. In Fichte himself tbe source of being is primeval activity, tbe groundless and incomprehensible deed-action (ThatHandlung) of tbe absolute ego. The innermost character of that ego is an infinitude in act and effort. "The will is tbe living principle of reason," he says again. "In tbe last resort," says Schelling (1809), in his Inquiries into tbe Nature of Human Freedom, " there is no other being but will. Wollen ist Ursein (will is primal being); and to this alone apply tbe predicates fathomless, eternal, independent of time, self-affirming." It is unnecessary to multiply instances to prove that idealism was never without a protest that there is a heart of existence, life, will, action, which is presupposed by all knowledge and is not itself amenable to explanation. We may, if we like, call this element, which is assumed as tbe basis of all scientific method, irrational - will instead of reason, feeling rather than knowledge.
Rationalizing idealism
It is under tbe banner of this protest against rationalizing idealism that Schopenhauer advances. But what marks out his armament is its pronounced realism. He fights with tbe weapons of physical doctrine and on tbe basis of tbe material earth. He knows no reason but tbe human, no intelligence save what is exhibited by tbe animals. He knows that both animals and men have come into existence within assignable limits of time, and that there was an anterior age when no eye or ear gathered tbe life of tbe universe into perceptions. Knowledge, therefore, with its vehicle, tbe intellect, is dependent upon tbe existence of certain nerve-organs located in an animal system; and its function is originally only to present an image of tbe interconnexions of tbe manifestations external to tbe individual organism, and so to give to tbe individual in a partial and reflected form that feeling with other things, or innate sympathy, which it loses as organization becomes more complex and characteristic. Knowledge or intellect, therefore, is only tbe surrogate of that more intimate unity of feeling or will which is tbe underlying reality - tbe principle of all existence, tbe essence of all manifestations, inorganic and organic. And tbe perfection of reason is attained when man has transcended those limits of individuation in which his knowledge at first presents him to himself, when by art he has risen from single objects to universal types, and by suffering and sacrifice has penetrated to that innermost sanctuary where tbe euthanasia of consciousness is reached - tbe blessedness of eternal repose.
In substantials tbe theory of Schopenhauer may be compared with a more prosaic statement of Herbert Spencer (modernizing Hume). All psychical states may, according to him, be treated as incidents of tbe correspondence between tbe organism and its environment. In this adjustment tbe lowest stage is taken by 'reflex action and instinct, where Spencer tbe change of tbe organs is purely automatic. As tbe external complexity increases, this automatic regularity fails; there is only an incipient excitation of tbe nerves. This feeble echo of tbe full response to stimulus is an idea, which is thus only another word for imperfect organization or adjustment. But gradually this imperfect correspondence is improved, and tbe idea passes over again into tbe state of unconscious or organic memory. Intellect, in short, is only tbe consequence of insufficient response between stimulus and action. Where action is entirely automatic, feeling does not exist. It is when tbe excitation is partial only, when it does not inevitably and immediately appear as action, that we have tbe appearance of intellect in tbe gap. The chief and fundamental difference between Schopenhauer and Spencer lies in tbe refusal of tbe latter to give this "adjustment" or "automatic action" tbe name of will. Will, according to Mr Spencer, is only another aspect of what is reason, memory or feeling - tbe difference lying in tbe fact that as will tbe nascent excitation (ideal motion) is conceived as passing into complete or full motion. But he agrees with Schopenhauer in basing consciousness, in all its forms of reason, feeling or will, upon "automatic movement - psychical change," from which consciousness emerges and in which it disappears.
Relativity and limitation of science
What Schopenhauer professed, therefore, is to have dispelled tbe claims of reason to priority and to demonstrate tbe relativity and limitation of science. Science, he reminds us, is based on final inexplicabilities; and its attempts by theories of evolution to find an historical origin for humanity in rudimentary matter show a misconception of tbe problem. In tbe successions of material states there can nowhere be an absolute first. The true origin of man, as of all else, is to be sought in an action which is everlasting and which is ever present: nec to quaesiveris extra. There is a source of knowledge within us by which we know, and more intimately than we can ever know anything external, that we will and feel. That is tbe first and tbe highest knowledge, tbe only knowledge that can strictly be called immediate; and to ourselves we as tbe subject of will are truly tbe "immediate object." It is in this sense of will - of will without motives, but not without consciousness of some sort - that reality is revealed. Analogy and experience make us assume it to be omnipresent. It is a mistake to say will means for Schopenhauer only force. It means a great deal more; and it is his contention that what tbe scientist calls force is really will.
In so doing he is only following tbe line predicted by Kant' and anticipated by Leibnitz. If we wish, said Kant, to give a real existence to tbe thing in itself or tbe noumenon we can only do so by investing it with tbe attributes found in our own internal sense, viz. with thinking or something analogous thereto. It is thus that Fechner in his "day-view" of things sees in plants and planets tbe same fundamental "soul" as in us - that is, "one simple being which appears to none but itself, in us as elsewhere wherever it occurs self-luminous, dark for every other eye, at tbe least connecting sensations in itself, upon which, as tbe grade of soul mounts higher and higher, there is constructed tbe consciousness of higher and still higher relations." 2 It is thus that Lotze declares' that "behind tbe tranquil surface of matter, behind its rigid and regular habits of behaviour, we are forced to seek tbe glow of a hidden spiritual activity." So Schopenhauer, but in a way all his own, finds tbe truth of things in a will which is indeed unaffected by conscious motives and yet cannot be separated from. some faint analogue of non-intellectual consciousness.
Influences to tbe world
In two ways Schopenhauer has influenced tbe world. He has. shown with unusual lucidity of expression how feeble is tbe spontaneity of that intellect which is so highly lauded, and how overpowering tbe sway of original will in all our action. He thus re- asserted realism, whose gospel reads, "In tbe beginning was appetite, passion, will," and has discredited tbe doctrinaire belief that ideas have original force of their own. This creed of naturalism is. dangerous, and it may be true that tbe pessimism it implies often degenerates into cynicism and a cold-blooded denial that there is any virtue and any truth. But in tbe crash of established creeds. and tbe spread of political indifferentism and social disintegration it is probably wise, if not always agreeable, to lay bare tbe wounds under which humanity suffers, though pride would prompt their concealment. But Schopenhauer's theory has another side. If it is daringly realistic, it is no less audacious in its idealism. The second aspect of his influence is tbe doctrine of redemption of tbe soul from its sensual bonds, first by tbe medium of art and second by tbe path of renunciation and ascetic life. It may be difficult in each case to draw tbe line between social duty and individual perfection. But Schopenhauer reminds us that tbe welfare of society is a temporal and subordinate aim, never to be allowed to dwarf tbe full realization of our ideal being. Man's duty is undoubtedly to join in tbe common service of sentient beings; but his final goal is to rise above tbe toils and comforts of tbe visible creature into tbe vast bosom of a peaceful Nirvana.
Quotes
- “The rapid transition from desire to satisfaction and from this to a new desire is what constitutes happiness.” – in: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Volume I, 1819, pp. 307 f. (Volume I, Edition 1859, online)
- "Talent is like tbe marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like tbe marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see." – On Genius, The World as Will and Representation, Volume 2 (1844)
- They tell us that suicide is tbe greatest piece of cowardice; that only a madman could be guiltyof it, and other insipidities of tbe sam kind; or else they make tbe nonsensical remark that suicide is wrong, when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in tbe world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. – On Suicide, Studies in Pessimism (1851)
- A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. – Our Relation to Ourselves, Counsels and Maxims (1851)
- Money is human happiness in tbe abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in tbe concrete, devotes his heart entirely to money. – Psychological Observations, Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays (1851)[4]
References
- ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ↑ Why Arthur Schopenhauer thought music was tbe greatest of all artforms
- ↑ Frost, Laura, Johanna Schopenhauer
- ↑ 75 Quotes from tbe Genius of Pessimism Arthur Schopenhauer