The world as a will and a representation

The main part of the work, as stated at the beginning, involves a preliminary acquaintance with the theories of Immanuel Kant . Schopenhauer is considered by many as a more staunch supporter of Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism than any other of the subsequent German idealists . Be that as it may, the book contains an appendix entitled “A Critique of Kant's Philosophy,” which rejects Kantian ethics and much of Kantian epistemology and aesthetics. Schopenhauer requires reading his application before reading the book itself, although it is not contained in the book itself, but appeared earlier under the title "The Four-Root Root of the Principle of Sufficient Foundation". He also claims in the introduction that the reader will be sufficiently prepared for his theory if he is familiar with the Platonic school or Indian philosophy . Schopenhauer believed that Kant ignored inner experience, comprehended through the will , the most important form of experience. Schopenhauer sees human will as our only window into the world beyond representation; Kantian stuff in itself . He believed that gaining knowledge of a thing in himself was possible. Kant sometimes argued that this was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between the representation and the thing in itself can be understood by analogy with the relationship between the human will and body. According to Schopenhauer, the whole world is a representation of one Will, in which our individual wills are phenomena. Thus, his metaphysics goes beyond the limits established by Kant, but does not go as far as the founders of rationalism that preceded Kant. Schopenhauer also rejects eleven of Kant's twelve categories, arguing that only reason is important. Matter and causality are understood by him as the unity of time and space , and therefore are equivalent. Schopenhauer often relied on Plato in the development of his theory, in particular, in the context of aesthetics, he speaks of the Platonic eidos as existing on an intermediate ontological level between Representation and Will.

The beginning of the development of Schopenhauer's ideas dates back to the very beginning of his career (1814-1818) and culminated in the first book “Will and Representation” in 1819. The first book consisted of four volumes devoted to: epistemology , ontology , aesthetics and ethics . Much later, in 1844, Schopenhauer published the second edition in two volumes, the first volume is a reprint of the previous edition, and the second is a new work consisting of explanations and additional reflections on the first part. His views have not changed much. The belated fame after 1851 stimulated a new interest in his main work, which led to the third and final edition (more than 136 pages) in 1859, a year before his death. In the preface to the latest edition, Schopenhauer noted: “If I finally succeeded, got satisfaction at the end of my life, looking at the beginning of the influence of my ideas, it was only from the hope that this influence would increase the longer it was late beginning. " ^[2]

Schopenhauer used the word “ will ” as the most famous reference to the concept, which can also be denoted by the words “lust,” “desire,” “desire,” “effort,” “appeal.” Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is an expression of the insatiable " will to live ." It is because of this “desire to live” that humanity is suffering. Desire for more is the cause of even greater suffering.

He uses the word “representation” of Vorstellung in the meaning of the idea, image or any object experienced in the mind being produced as being outside the mind. It was translated as “idea” or “presentation”. The concept included the idea of ​​observing one's own body. Schopenhauer called the subject's body a “direct object”, due to its maximum proximity to the mind located in the brain.

Book 1 (Epistemology)

About the world as a representation. First reflection: a representation subordinate to the law of foundation: an object of experience and science

Schopenhauer's concept of “will” comes from the Kantian “thing-in-itself,” which Kant considered the fundamental reality behind the representation provided by a perception that lacks form. Kant believed that space, time, causality, and many other similar phenomena having certain forms given by the world, superimposed on the human mind, create a representation, and this imposition is excluded from the “thing in itself”. Schopenhauer pointed out that nothing but time and space can be determined, therefore the “thing in itself” should be one and all things that exist, including humanity, should be part of fundamental unity. Our inner experience should be a manifestation of the domain of noumenon , and the will is the inner core of every being. All knowledge received from objects refers to itself, so we recognize the same will in other things as within ourselves.

Book 2 (ontology)

About the world as a will. First Thought: The Objectification of the Will

In the second book, electricity and gravity are described as fundamental forces of “will." Knowledge is something invented to serve the "will" and it is represented both in humans and in animals. The fundamental nature of the universe and everything in it is seen as this will. Schopenhauer presents a pessimistic picture in which not fulfilled desires are painful, and pleasures are just sensations experienced at a certain moment when the pain goes away. One way or another, most desires are never fulfilled, and those that are fulfilled are immediately replaced by unfulfilled ones.

Book 3 (Aesthetics)

About the world as a representation. Second reflection: a representation independent of the law of foundation: the Platonic idea: an object of art

As with many other aesthetic theories, Schopenhauer focuses on the concept of genius . According to the philosopher, all people possess a genius to one degree or another, and it consists in the ability to aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience occurs when a person perceives an object, but does not understand the object itself, but its Platonic idea . A person becomes able to lose himself in the object of contemplation for a short time, break out of the vicious circle of unfulfilled desire, becoming "a pure subject of the will to know less." Those who have a high degree of genius can learn to communicate these aesthetic experiences to others, and the objects that communicate this experience are works of art. Based on this theory, Schopenhauer considered the Dutch still life to be the best type of painting, since it makes the viewer see the beautiful in ordinary, everyday objects. However, he sharply criticized the images of the naked female body and cooking, as stimulating desire and preventing the viewer from gaining aesthetic experience and becoming “a pure subject of the will to know less.” Music also occupied a privileged place in Schopenhauer's aesthetics, since he believed that it was related to will. Where other arts are imitations of perceived things, the world of music is a direct copy of the will.

Book 4 (Ethics)

About the world as a will. Second reflection: affirmation and denial of the will to live with self-knowledge

Schopenhauer proposed in this book to establish a purely descriptive part about human ethical behavior, in which he distinguished two types: affirmation and denial of will. According to Schopenhauer, Will (the great Will, which is a thing in itself , and not the individual wills of people and animals, which are phenomena of Will), conflicts with the egoism that every person or animal is endowed with. Compassion arises from the transcendence of this egoism (the penetration of the illusory perception of the person, through which one can empathize with another) and can serve as a key to the possibility of going beyond the limits of desire and will. Schopenhauer categorically rejected the existence of “free will” in the generally accepted sense, and only foreshadowed that will could be released or rejected, but could not be changed, but was the root of the causality chain of determinism . His praise of asceticism led to high reflections on Buddhism , Vedanta , some monastic orders and ascetic practice of Catholicism . He expressed contempt for Protestantism , Judaism and Islam , which he described as optimistic, devoid of metaphysics and cruel to animals. According to Schopenhauer, the deep truth is that in cases of excessive assertion of the Will (when one person shows his will not only for his own fulfillment, but for not properly dominating others), he does not understand that he is not really identical to that to the person who harms, that is, in this case, Will constantly harms itself, and justice triumphs when the crime is committed, since the metaphysical individual is both a victim and an executioner. Schopenhauer examines suicide in detail, noting that it does not destroy the Will or any part of it, since death is only the end of one specific phenomenon of Will, which is subsequently rebuilt. Asceticism , the end result of the weakening of the Will, can weaken the individual will, which, according to Schopenhauer, is much more significant than violent suicide, which is, in a sense, a statement of the will. In the final conclusion on how to lead a tolerable life without eliminating desire, as this leads to boredom, Schopenhauer suggests becoming an outside observer of one's own will and constantly understanding that most desires will remain unfulfilled.

At the end of the fourth book, Schopenhauer gives a detailed discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Kant's philosophy. Here, he argues that Kant's greatest mistake was the failure to distinguish between perception, intuitive knowledge, and conceptual, discursive knowledge. Kant's main contribution, in his opinion, was the distinction between a phenomenon and a thing in itself .

Volume II

The second volume consists of various essays that expand on the topics covered in the first. It contains thoughts about death and its theory of sexuality , which are seen as manifestations of a common Will, reporting that both death and sexuality deprive people of sanity in their longing for their loved ones. Schopenhauer speaks not only about the important role of sexuality in human life, but also offers his own assumption about genetics , in which he claims that people inherit their Will, and therefore character comes from fathers, and reason from mothers, giving examples from great biographies figures. ^[3]

The value of this work is widely debated. Some see Schopenhauer as one of the most original and inspiring philosophers, while others find him inconsistent and too pessimistic. ^[4] Schopenhauer had a tremendous influence on the psychoanalysis and work of Freud. ^[5] Some scholars even doubt Freud’s claim that he didn’t read Schopenhauer until he was old. Schopenhauer's “will” is present in the concept of the subconscious, and the theory of insanity is consistent with this. Schopenhauer's discussions about language and ethics had a huge impact on Ludwig Wittgenstein ^[6] . Some ^[7] consider the meaning of Will as close to the classical examples of monism . Schopenhauer also developed some ideas that can be found in the theory of evolution, before Darwin began to publish his works, for example, that life seeks to generate a new life, but he considered the species fixed. In the modern sense, we can say that he respected the rights of animals, including the problem of vivisection . Modern animal rights activists turn to his texts.

Schopenhauer in his work cites German folk songs (such as songs from the collection “ Boy ’s Magic Horn ”, in particular, “ Oh, Bremen, I must leave you ”), as an example of the work of “inspired from outside”, but in general “nothing especially unremarkable individuals. " As prof. Heinz Rölleke , in the case of the latter, the role of an “unknown and not particularly talented individual” was played by none other than Achim von Arnim , who created his work on the basis of two previously known songs. ^[8]