Schopenhauer amplifies suffering -- like a caricature-- to make his point. So, it is a skewed view. What he forgets is that humans have the capacity to bend and sway and adapt. We have a natural anti-dote for suffering, this is what Schopenhauer forgets or ignores. Darwin did not become a household name for spewing positive and uplifting notes -- but by pointing out facts of how humans have come a long way. Hope is also not a feel-good mantra. We have hope because there are variables available to us to exploit or take advantage of.Is the balance in existence really so skewed towards suffering as Schopenhauer claims? — aldreams
No. The good things in life can last a lifetime or forever. And they can be meaningful -- we erected civilization and learned compassion.Are the good things in life really as fleeting and inconsequential as he presents them? — aldreams
Yes, he is importing his own bias. But he is not giving a fair account of life. Point-counterpoint is not being exercised here. There is a pessimistic view, then there is maturity.Could S. be importing his own personal bias and presenting it as objective truth? — aldreams
Yes, as a polemical sociological critique. At least the Cynics understand the method of facts and acceptance of what can be changed and what are beyond our capacity to control. Schopenhauer makes a blanket denouncement of existence. Not the same.Even if there is a bias, could there still be value to Schopenhauer's pessimism, for example a pedagogical one? Could his work be an exercise in philosophical education? What kind of education would this be? — aldreams
Schopenhauer claims that the capacity for reflective thought amplifies our suffering as compared with the other animals. — aldreams
:strong: :cool:I used to be a Recon Team Leader in the Marines. One day, sitting around the squad bay, a peer said "I'm bored." I said "When life bores you, risk it." — James Riley
:100: :up:So, it's not the "capacity" for reflective thought that amplifies our suffering. It's what we do with our time, or what we perceive in reflection.
Really, what antidote is that? — baker
Important historical developments in bereavement research
Descriptions and theories of what happens in grief have largely come from psychiatry and psychology. From these domains, current grief research relies heavily on attachment theory and cognitive stress theory to understand the process of adapting after the death of a loved one, rather than the outdated and inaccurate five-stage model of grief(3). Acute grief, or the period immediately following a death, is often characterized by a loss of regulation. This can be observed as increased intensity and frequency of sadness, anger and/or anxiety, and also emotional numbness and difficulty concentrating, in addition to dysregulation in sleep and appetite.
There are wide individual differences in the adaptation process, but George Bonanno has demonstrated a small number of trajectories, using prospective data to examine adaptation after a death(4,5). One insight from this work, which disrupted the field of bereavement research, was that the vast majority of individuals are very resilient (approximately 60%). By six months, the resilient group shows no elevation in depressive symptoms or functional impairment. This does not mean that resilient people do not experience the intense short-term pangs of grief, but these emotional waves do not cause functional impairment. The realization that previous theories of grief were largely based on a treatment-seeking population forced the field to reconsider some of its assumptions. Consequently, a very influential model of grief, the dual process model of coping, was adopted to reflect the oscillation that occurs in typical grief(6). In day-to-day life during bereavement, healthy people oscillate between focusing on loss-related stressors (e.g., the pain of living without the person) and restoration-related stressors (e.g., engaging in new roles and identities due to the loss), and at other times are simply engaged in everyday life experience.
Importantly, Bonanno’s research demonstrated that the functioning of a person prior to the death event is also an important aspect of their trajectory of adaptation. ...
Is the balance in existence really so skewed towards suffering as Schopenhauer claims? Are the good things in life really as fleeting and inconsequential as he presents them? Could S. be importing his own personal bias and presenting it as objective truth?
Even if there is a bias, could there still be value to Schopenhauer's pessimism, for example a pedagogical one? Could his work be an exercise in philosophical education? What kind of education would this be?
Schopenhauer claims that the capacity for reflective thought amplifies our suffering as compared with the other animals. He also says that suffering originates in the passage of time. Is there some important connection between time and thinking here that links them both to the reality of suffering? — aldreams
I've no idea who has "reviled" Schop and who, other than mendacious nazis and academic p0m0s, has "praised" Freddy. They're both mostly misunderstood and complementary philosophical projects to one another: metaphysical pessimism (succumbed to by passive nihilism) and cultural pessimism (opposed by active nihilism), respectively – piano concertos, after all, are played best with both hands. Thus, each alone is fiercely one-sided and polemical as @Caldwell points out. I'm grateful to have outgrown their 'quasi-Wagnerian dialectic' years ago and also for their endlessly inspiring, often blackly hilarious, gorgeous writings.This is why much of Schopenhauer is reviled and folks like Nietzsche (and to a lesser extent nowadays, Hegel) is praised — schopenhauer1
metaphysical pessimism (succumbed to by passive nihilism) and cultural pessimism — 180 Proof
I'm grateful to have outgrown their 'quasi-Wagnerian dialectic' years ago and also for their endlessly inspiring, often blackly hilarious, gorgeous writings. — 180 Proof
Schop proposed ascetic living to cope with the ravages of "the will to live", which amounts to passivity (in N's sense) in the form of, in effect, withdrawal from most of social activities. — 180 Proof
And by all accounts, before the end, he was immensely pleased that the Maestro was a great admirer of his philosophy (though Schop wasn't much of fan of the "dbag's" operas). — 180 Proof
Maybe I misunderstood you when you claimed to disagree with what you quoted of me. Clarify, please. — 180 Proof
Or if they do, it's only for a very short duration. — Manuel
To our amazement we suddenly exist, after having for countless millennia not existed; in a short while we will again not exist, also for countless millennia. That cannot be right, says the heart: and even upon the crudest intelligence there must, when it considers such an idea, dawn a presentiment of the ideality of time. This however, together with that of space, is the key to all true metaphysics, because it makes room for a quite different order of things than that of nature. That is why Kant is so great.
between November 1815 and May 1816, as [Schopenhauer] worked his way through the first ten volumes of Asiatick Researches, he came to understand the Indian concept of Maya and “Kant’s ‘phenomenon’ as one and the same thing: this world in which we are living, we ourselves insofar as we belong to it” (HN1 #564 trans. App 2014, 241). One for whom “the veil of Maya has dropped from the eyes … recognizes himself in every being” (HN1 #626 trans. App 2014, 242). This is the state he takes to be denoted by the term Nirvāṇa, whereby one is driven to extreme compassion and empathy out of the realization that “the sufferer and the one who causes suffering are one” (HN1 #626 trans. App 2014, 243). The truth he sees conveyed allegorically is that we are painfully deceived by the apparent nature of phenomena, and overcoming this deception is concurrent with increased degrees of compassion, “the immediate participation, independent of all ulterior considerations, primarily in the suffering of another, and thus in the prevention or elimination of it” (On the Basis of Morality §16, original emphasis).
which amounts to passivity (in N's sense) in the form of, in effect, withdrawal from most of social activities. — 180 Proof
someone who is oppressed by the burdens of life, who certainly desires life and affirms it, but detests its sufferings and in particular does not want to put up with the difficult lot that has fallen to him any longer: a person like this cannot hope for liberation in death, and cannot save himself through suicide; the temptation of cool, dark Orcus as a haven of peace is just a false illusion. The earth turns from day into night; the individual dies: but the sun itself burns its eternal noontime without pause. For the will to life, life is a certainty: the form of life is the endless present; it does not matter how individuals, appearances of the Idea, come into existence in time and pass away like fleeting dreams. — Schopenhauer, §54 of WWR, Vol I
"So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. — Lotus Sutra
For the will to life, life is a certainty: the form of life is the endless present; it does not matter how individuals, appearances of the Idea, come into existence in time and pass away like fleeting dreams. — Schopenhauer, §54 of WWR, Vol I
nothing I have read by or about Schopenhauer have I ever encountered evidence that he believed in any afterlife. — Janus
Schopenhauer believes that a person who experiences the truth of human nature from a moral perspective — who appreciates how spatial and temporal forms of knowledge generate a constant passing away, continual suffering, vain striving and inner tension — will be so repulsed by the human condition, and by the pointlessly striving Will of which it is a manifestation, that he or she will lose the desire to affirm the objectified human situation in any of its manifestations. [Note: this attitude is called 'nibbida' in Pali Buddhism]. The result is an attitude of denial towards our will-to-live, that Schopenhauer identifies with an ascetic attitude of renunciation, resignation, and willessness, but also with composure and tranquillity. In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, he recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration, and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition. ....
...the ascetic’s struggle is none other than a supreme struggle against human nature. It is a struggle against the close-to-unavoidable tendency to apply the principle of sufficient reason for the purpose of attaining practical knowledge — an application that, for Schopenhauer, has the repulsive side-effect of creating the illusion, or nightmare, of a world permeated with endless conflict. From a related angle, the ascetic’s struggle is against the forces of violence and evil, that, owing to Schopenhauer’s acceptance and interpretation of Kant’s epistemology, locates these forces significantly within human nature itself. When the ascetic transcends human nature, the ascetic resolves the problem of evil: by removing the individuated and individuating human consciousness from the scene, the entire spatio-temporal situation within which daily violence occurs is removed.
In a way, then, the ascetic consciousness can be said symbolically to return Adam and Eve to Paradise, for it is the very quest for knowledge (i.e., the will to apply the principle of individuation to experience) that the ascetic overcomes. 1
Whether this amounts to a 'belief in the afterlife', and indeed whether the Buddhist Nirvāṇa can be conceived in those terms is, I think, a moot point. — Wayfarer
For the individual the prospect of Nirvana must be either some kind of afterlife of bliss or complete extinction, no? — Janus
"But, Master Gotama, the monk whose mind is thus released: Where does he reappear?"
"'Reappear,' Vaccha, doesn't apply."
"In that case, Master Gotama, he does not reappear."
"'Does not reappear,' Vaccha, doesn't apply."
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