People Ponderings: Arthur Schopenhauer

From Wikipedia (I know I've blown any academic cred utilising the great plebian knowledge cave but hey - therein lies revolution itself!)

Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788–September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher known for his atheistic pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the fundamental question of whether reason alone can unlock answers about the world. Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, emphasized the role of man's basic motivation, which Schopenhauer called will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fulfilled. Consequently, he favored a lifestyle of negating human desires, similar to the teachings of Buddhism and Vedanta.

I recently revisited the works and ideas of Schopenhauer on one of the various audios provided by various friends. In this case it is Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy". What I loved about Schopenhauer was his focus on the individual will as opposed to the collective will or more the subjugation of individual will to the will of the whole. His philosophies are inherently pessimistic as is anyone's that focus on the basic desires as the root motivater for human action. It can only be depressing to consider ourselves simple monkey's that react to basic, organic stimulus both internal and external. We want to be bigger than that, made in the image of gods, the highest form of evolved sentience, capable of great and noble things of universal significance. But what if anything outside of ourselves is simple illusion. The creation of willful monkeys, hell bent on not being simple willful monkeys. Schopenhauer's response was a withdrawal of sorts from earthly pleasures to a fairly austere existence. The theory being that to not partake in the pleasure/pain existence would free the mind to perhaps be more than simply will or desire.

He also had a combative discourse with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and any robust debate is a good thing I think... as long the competition is in the joy of discourse and not the eventual conquest and destruction of an opponent. An example verbiage from Schop - "If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right. ". Got to love it.

In a realm where death is a choice and to not die is a force of will I think Schopenhauer reigns supreme though he would not perhaps have accepted the hat.