“The world is my idea:”—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this...
No, it's more to do with his style and curmudgeonly charming wit and the potent way he braids together Kantianism and (philosophical strands of) Hinduism. He certainly offers a lot of idealist/antirealist/subjectivist philosophical grist for the 'bourgeois New Age' mill (though it might not be apparent to most). Schopenhauer is also, IMO, a more intelligible alternative 'philosopher of being' to Heidegger and other p0m0 sophists which is why his thought has long been so influential (second only to Nietzsche?) on various, great literary and musical artists throughout the late great Twentieth century.... in your opinion, is his enduring influence to this day due to him being right? — Shawn
Now, given that the maladies of human beings…. — Shawn
in your opinion, is his enduring influence to this day due to him being right? — Shawn
Now, given that the maladies of human beings is not only boredom; but, rather stuff like depression and anxiety and hopelessness, then what would one be able to say about the human condition according to Schopenhauer, in the present? — Shawn
He makes an interesting distinction between positive and negative properties. He argues that what we call "happiness" is a negative property, as it is really the pursuit of a desire for a change of state. Happiness is not what is intrinsic, but rather dissatisfaction is. What follows is a desire for change, which temporarily puts "relief" on the dissatisfaction, only for the ever-gushing willing nature of our existence to go back to another desire for a change of state. Boredom is seen as the ultimate revealer of a ground-state of dissatisfaction as he argues this to be the "proof" that we are not simply satisfied existing, but always rather dissatisfied. We are always struggling and looking for ways out of our dissatisfaction. We chase flow states, hedonistic ends, entertainment, chit-chatting, and all of it as a result of the dissatisfaction.
Much of life is maintenance, the upkeep of one's lifestyle, not even getting to the game of satisfaction-fulfilling.. Just maintaining the lifestyle to get there.
Then there are contingent externalities that puts people in a deficit. People with various diseases, or unfortunate situations happen to them, might put them at a perpetual deficit in their baseline of what they must contend with while overcoming the dissatisfaction.
Birth puts us on this dissatisfaction trajectory.
Perhaps it seems that way because N's assessment was Dionysian and not as Apollionian as S's assessment.
6 hours ago — 180 Proof
Don’t confuse apathy Stoic ‘apathia’ with mere indifference or ennui. — Wayfarer
I don't think an emotion or rather passion, which was once called apathia, which is nowadays called 'apathy', really could have changed all that much. The only thing that changed was our perception of such a passion... In my opinion, reification happened to the term in the context of socioeconomic systems and tidbits of rationalizations about psychologizing the term away. — Shawn
I think compared to our inherited bourgous and egological way of life, stocism and other such doctrines were very austere. And indeed Schopenhaur praises asceticism as the solution to the problem of human willfulness. Easy to say, but very hard to do, unless it's inculcated during your formative years. (I speak from experience.) — Wayfarer
the avoidance of pain will lead to being content in life — Shawn
I think disposition has much to do with it. I'm not a fan of owning too many things. I feel better with less. Just sold my car. — Tom Storm
Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things,veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemistry, to polarity (i.e. electricity), to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom.
And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it.
Thus the tremendous petitio principii (begged question) reveals itself unexpectedly; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like Baron Münchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and himself also by his cue. The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or, after it has taken form, as empirically given—that is to say, as substance, the chemical elements with their primary relations. Some such thing it takes as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away.
Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction (i.e. physics)).
But we have shown that all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea. Yet the aim and ideal of all natural science is at bottom a consistent materialism. — WWR page 35
But we have shown that all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time. — WWR page 35
This actually goes back to Schopenhauer's notion that subject and object are always intertwined. Your thought of a dead, lifeless universe, is still a thought. And even if it is a representation of some "reality", that reality will never be YOUR reality, which is NOT simply "lifeless universe" but a psychologically embodied being THINKING of the lifeless universe, and projecting it, Signifying it, as you might say.
ignorance is bliss — Outlander
and it is derived concomitantly from his resistance to the "True" locus of "bliss," the Organic Being undisturbed by Mind; untempted by its striving and attachments. — ENOAH
t is saying living without clinging to the activity of boredom and its cessation (impossible), but rather attuning to the do-ings of [your] nature, body hungry/body eat-ing; body tired/body rest-ing etc., is already bliss. — ENOAH
the mad god Dionysus
— Ciceronianus
i.e. life-affirming ("ja-sagen") — 180 Proof
This sounds like the fadd-ish distillation of Buddhist practices of "mindfulness". — schopenhauer1
Yes, definitely. Except we are not the projections, albeit, seemingly captive by them.It is projections all the way down, — schopenhauer1
Originally (unwittingly) derived therefrom. The difference (which is essential) being that it is exactly not in mindfulness (at least not in mindfulness as theory) that "one" attains "relief" from the "predicament" which Schopenhauer (correctly) observed. There is nothing "spiritual", nor "idealist[ic]" in it. It is exactly in "realism". That is the Body is already "relieved" from both boredom (yes, the body can be restless, a presumed evolved mechanism for survival; but boredom is the "projected" "version" displacing restlessness** ) and the "resulting/associated" suffering/dissatisfaction/desire.
I submit animals "suffer" pain and struggle; but it is our "words" alone which construct "suffering" for us. And relief from suffering is not in the four noble truths, the eightfold path, jnana, bhakti, karma, or katha yogis: it is not in any form of practicing ascetism. The relief is already there in the living being's natural and real nature, as a being, undisturbed by becoming. — ENOAH
Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".[5]
Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness".[5] The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal to consistently focus their attention on. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society and stated that "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future"[5] are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions".[5] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe
But I see this idea of "already there" a kind of version of "mindfulness". "I am not this.." "My evaluation of the pain is not the pain".. Etc. etc. The thing itself, is not the thing I interpret. And so you convince yourself through a sort of repeated mantra that the pain you think you are feeling is not what is real. — schopenhauer1
Humans, due to the "projections" (using your terms), cannot help but be who they are- self-reflective beings. There is no "going back to Eden". Self-reflection is baked into the human condition. — schopenhauer1
Also, I think you slightly misconstrue Boredom here as a secondary trait, when BECAUSE of its foundation in the HUMAN condition, — schopenhauer1
This actually goes back to Schopenhauer's notion that subject and object are always intertwined. Your thought of a dead, lifeless universe, is still a thought. And even if it is a representation of some "reality", that reality will never be YOUR reality, which is NOT simply "lifeless universe" but a psychologically embodied being THINKING of the lifeless universe, and projecting it, Signifying it, as you might say. — schopenhauer1
He failed to take the Vedanta/Mahayana wisdom far enough. (In that regard, a victim of his age. Bless him for how far he got!) — ENOAH
There is nothing controversial in saying that of the major figures in Western philosophy Schopenhauer is the one who has most in common with Eastern thought. Less adequately pondered is the fact that much of what it is that the two have in common was taken by Schopenhauer from Kant. To suppose that Schopenhauer's philosophy was formed to any decisive degree under the influence of Eastern thought is not only a mistake, but misses the crucial point that in Kant and Schopenhauer the mainstream of Western philosophy threw up conclusions about the nature of reality* which are strikingly similar to some of those propounded by the more mystically oriented religions or philosophies of the East, yet arrived at by an entirely different path.
It would be an error, though one characteristic of Western intellectual provincialism, to suppose that the Oriental doctrines in question were not supported by rational argument: in the case of Buddhist philosophy, in particular, they conspicuously are. But the Kantian-Schopenhauerian conclusions were reached by processes internal to a tradition of thought which is fundamentally rooted in the development of mathematical physics, and this is something with which Buddhist philosophy has been little concerned until the twentieth century. Incidentally, both the Kantian and Schopenhauerian philosophy and the more sophisticated of the mysticisms of the East have received, and continue to receive, extensive corroboration from the revolutionary developments of the twentieth century in the natural sciences. (There is a growing literature on this in the case of Eastern mysticism - a good introduction is The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, which also contains a useful bibliography.) The Eastern religion most congruent with contemporary science is Buddhism. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy
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