We are the universe's self-reflecting strivers. Pursuing due to the unrecognized underlying principle of entropy. We must work, work, work.. — schopenhauer1
How are the Schopenhauerean conclusions overwrought though? — schopenhauer1
So the more schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about. — Banno
Schopenhauer disagreed with Kant's critics and stated that it is absurd to assume that phenomena have no basis. Schopenhauer proposed that we cannot know the thing in itself as though it is a cause of phenomena. Instead, he said that we can know it by knowing our own body, which is the only thing that we can know at the same time as both a phenomenon and a thing in itself.
When we become conscious of ourself, we realize that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. These are characteristics of that which we call our will. Schopenhauer affirmed that we can legitimately think that all other phenomena are also essentially and basically will. According to him, will "is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man…."[8] Schopenhauer said that his predecessors mistakenly thought that the will depends on knowledge. According to him, though, the will is primary and uses knowledge in order to find an object that will satisfy its craving. That which, in us, we call will is Kant's "thing in itself", according to Schopenhauer.
The point that life involves a sort of striving is well-made.
There remains a logical issue here. The more schopenhauer1 shows that the Will is like entropy, the less the Will involves intent.
And yet, intent would appear to be intrinsic to will.
So the more @schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about. — Banno
Now urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring are for something... they have an objective, and reaching that objective becomes a purpose. I understand from what you said that Schopenhauer wants to, in a fashion, universalise this; so it make no difference what the object of striving is, it will always be there. In removing the object of desire, he derives a type of striving that has no object, and hence no intent....a main conclusion from Schopenhauer's Will is the part in the quote where it says that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. — schopenhauer1
So he goes from willing (a) and willing (b) and willing (c) and so on to Willing ( ), where there is no object.
Then he goes from Willing ( ) back to willing (a), so that what (a) is, is the willing of (a).
Doubtless this is oversimplified, so finesse it if you must; but remember that I have to understand what he is saying from my own Stoa. In the end I am not interested in an exegesis of Schopenhauer but in what there is in his thought that can be useful. — Banno
This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.
The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality. — Banno
I think maybe the conversation is foundering on 'will' which has been nicely domesticated in one quarter, has been assigned another function by others — csalisbury
This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.
The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality.
Folk tried to leave it behind by calling it being-in-itself, but it has a nasty stubbornness.
So Schopenhauer's story is fun, but ultimately misguided. — Banno
People (some?) bring up the notion of entropy to describe some fatalistic notions of the futility of the human will contra Nature's Will. I find that as a gross overgeneralization due to the fact that humans can adapt at a rate faster than what Nature imposes through superfluous notions of 'entropy'.
I find that idiotic to say the least. I hope that's not happening here. — Posty McPostface
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