As you know, I generally look to Buddhist principles as a source of guidance, and they proclaim that there is indeed 'an end to suffering', even if it's not something we're likely able to grasp in this life. I concede that is something like religious faith, but one that Schopenhauer himself expressed, even despite his distaste for mainstream religions and rejection of the idea of God. In other words, it's not suffering all the way down - suffering has a cause and an end. I wouldn't look to Nietzsche for insight on that, however.

If we deny-the-will to the point of getting beyond our own subject-object nature, we can perhaps escape. — schopenhauer1

hence the motif of divine union, merging with the divine, etc. There's a theme I'm exploring in medieval philosophy, 'the union of knower and known'. Too large a digression for this thread.

hence the motif of divine union, merging with the divine, etc. There's a theme I'm exploring in medieval philosophy, 'the union of knower and known'. Too large a digression for this thread. — Wayfarer

Interesting! Thread?

It turns out to be more like a book. It's related to the theme I keep returning to. See this chat.

Sorry if 'm not directly addressing anyone who referenced my OP, as impolite; but, took a break for a while and had some questions about Schopenhauer.

Namely, since Schopenhauer was influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism, especially, I had a question regarding compassion and empathy in the landscape of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Whether Schopenhauer mentioned it or not; but, the philosophy of Schopenhauer is rife with the notion of empathy or compassion being a prerequisite for entertaining his notions of pessimism. I see it as such;

Without compassion or empathy, how would one become pessimistic without noticing the sadness of the world without compassion or empathy, which are needed to feel out or empathize with one another's suffering. If you agree, please let me know.

I think this thread has been one of my better threads. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. They are appreciated even if I have nothing to say, since I wouldn't know how to respond.

I think this has a lot of influence for Schopenhauer, especially here in your chat:

Intellectual Reception of Forms: According to Aquinas, when the intellect knows an object, it receives the form of that object. However, unlike sense perception, which apprehends particular, individualized forms, intellectual knowledge apprehends universal forms. This means that the intellect abstracts the essence from the particular instances and grasps it in its universality.

Some of my own notes here:

1) In Schopenhauer the Universal Ideas/Forms are directly manifestations of the Will, but so is the "knower". The "knower" is the subject mediating via space/time/causality to garner the "Idea" which is the mediated version of external forms with subjective-space/time (the phenomenal world).

My question then is how does time function for Aquinas? For Schopenhauer, it seems to be a sort of instrument for becoming. Or that's how I take it. In order to strive for something, you need objects and duration, and displacement, etc. All the dimensionality needed to make the myriad of the world-framework.

2) In Schopenhauer, unlike Aquinas' knowledge through the religious-mystic, seems to have it through negation. Denial of one's will. Also, for Schopenhauer, a lesser form of denial, is the ability to see the "sublime" of objects-qua-objects in art and object-qua-their-inner nature (Will) via music.

From the SEP entry:

According to Schopenhauer, corresponding to the level of the universal subject-object distinction, Will is immediately objectified into a set of universal objects or Platonic Ideas. These constitute the timeless patterns for each of the individual things that we experience in space and time. There are different Platonic Ideas, and although this multiplicity of Ideas implies that some measure of individuation is present within this realm, each Idea nonetheless contains no plurality within itself and is said to be “one.” Since the Platonic Ideas are in neither space nor time, they lack the qualities of individuation that would follow from the introduction of spatial and temporal qualifications. In these respects, the Platonic Ideas are independent of the specific fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason, even though it would be misleading to say that there is no individuation whatsoever at this universal level, for there are many different Platonic Ideas. Schopenhauer refers to the Platonic Ideas as the direct objectifications of Will and as the immediate objectivity of Will.

'
I recall from Kastrup's discussion of the Ideas, that they are like modes of vibration, similar to the way that when a guitar string is plucked, it will emanate a specific note, due to the tension of the string etc. There's a sense in which the ideas as archetypes represent the possibilities of things - that if something is to exist, it has to take a certain form - but that 'form' is not something that exists separately in the supposed 'ethereal realm'. In that sense the ideas transcend existence. They are kind of like a combination of necessity and possibility (ref.) And in this respect there are continuities with neoplatonism and the 'grand tradition' generally i.e. The Ideas are like intermediaries between the One and the individual. However in Schopenhauer will is 'irrational and blind' whereas in neoplatonism the nature of the One is beneficient and purposive.

But then as the SEP also notes in respect of Schop's ethics, '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.' I find this paradoxical, not to say contradictory, aspect of Schopenhauer a bit confounding. On the one hand, he wrote ascerbic diatribes against all religion, but on the other, he seems to recognise the Upaniṣads and the 'life of Jesus' as kind of ideals. I think he had some kind of conflict around these issues - which I well understand, given the highly conflicted nature of religion in European history.

All in all, his writing on 'representation' and the ideas, I find highly amenable, but not so much his conception of the all-powerful will. I'm still dubious about those aspects of Schopenhauer, but as we all agree, he's a substantial figure in philosophy, and I'll continue to think it over.

Hey you…..

Would I have preferred S not to write? Great big emphatic no; it’s not for me to say.

From a personal point of view, would I have preferred he not write what he did? From the perspective of German idealism…the philosophy of the day, so to speak….what he wrote was inevitable; it’s what happens when one guy sets the world on fire, but the next guy wants to say something to make a name for himself by either making the fire bigger and better, or by demonstrating the ease of extinguishing it.

If S didn’t write what he did, somebody else would have written something; the enemy you know is easier to combat than the enemy you never met.

Ok, so…what. There’s an Enlightenment-era paradigm shift in metaphysics. It’s recorded history, not open for debate. The philosophical world is on fire. Every peer group member says to himself….why the HELL didn’t I think of that??? Ironic that Einsteins’s physics’ paradigm shift had to wait 30 years to be sustained because the technology of the day wouldn’t allow it even given the understanding of the primary ground, re: the math, but Kant’s metaphysics took 30 years to obtain even a respectable glimmer of comprehension because the peer group of the day couldn’t wrap their collective heads around even the basic conditional predicates.

If one has a background in K before studying S, he should recognize that S understood K pretty damn well, above and beyond the fact that S merely says he does.

Odd, innit, that a paradigm shift in metaphysics with a predication on empirical knowledge, logically proves as irreducibly the case that there is something the human intellect doesn’t know, and never can?

Given a system by which all empirical knowledge is possible, then defeat that system by making it impossible to know this something….why not make it so that something unknowable, actually is? Well, shucks, it can’t be the same as the unknowable thing, so what best to be exchanged for the unknowable, than the absolutely knowable, without question or exception, logically proved by the conclusion that the negation of such knowledge is impossible?

Those with sufficient exposure are already familiar with what the unknowable is in K, and also just as much what erasure of the unknowable is in S. Bottom line….if we know our will indubitably, and if it is possible to make the will, as it is known, to represent what K stipulated as unrepresentable, then the thing K said we couldn’t possibly know, just disappears, and with it the entire Kantian epistemological dualism.

My bitch? Kant’s will, re: the very thing we know best of all, can never do the job S’s will is called upon to do, re: replace what we don’t know at all. Kant’s will belongs to moral philosophy, and has nothing whatsoever to do with German transcendental idealism writ large, hence can never be, as a perfectly well-known conception, a substitute for a perfectly unknown conception.

But, you know as well as I the pervasiveness of cognitive prejudice. Pretty hard to dislodge what’s first absorbed.

That was remarkably well written M, even by your standards (of which I've always considered to be extremely high).

There's A LOT that could be said here in reply to what you said S and K and the unknowable and - I would add - even Hume and Locke, but, then we go back to Plotinus and even further back to Plato and then we don't get anywhere.

As I've said I think K's conclusions about the unknowable were very much anticipated and discussed very interestingly by others prior to him, though I suspect they did not notice the importance of what they were saying.

But. But. The emphasis Kant made on the given point of the unknowable was strong enough that the previously mentioned observations (made in a different manner), were finally taken to be as deep and as important as they should have been taken. Plus, all the other stuff Kant said about the synthetic unity of apperception, the synthetic a-priori and the law like nature of the "ought" among other things were also quite deep.

My own feeling is, that those who came after K (not S) were honestly more than anything bloated showmen, who sometimes said an interesting thing here and there, but otherwise presented other things so obscurely it was passed off as Hidden Truths.

As for the will not doing the job S wanted it to do, I would agree with you, tentatively.

Thanks for the clarification.

Will is identified as the noumena of Kant- the Thing-in-Itself. — schopenhauer1

Yes I understood that but rehashed it poorly.

so Will's expression via Representation is to have a subject that perceives, experiences, and knows objects — schopenhauer1

Ok, that is clarified now.

as Kant proposed, is mediated by a priori categories such as time/space/causality, such that when it looks upon the object, it manifests the idea of the object in space/time/causality and the PSR (the world of phenomenon). — schopenhauer1

Yes, this is where I have the most trouble and need to understand more thoroughly. And this...

The objects for Schopenhauer, are akin to some kind of Platonic Forms. These Forms are the direct manifestation of Will unmediated by a subject — schopenhauer1

WHY is it that Will has the double aspect? — schopenhauer1

...confusing me into seeing dualism...If you have a neat answer, please. Otherwise, I will read with a view to an answer.

That is to say, Will cares not for its individuated expressions that are its manifestations. We end up suffering as being taken along for its ride as beings who strive constantly, being expressions of Will. — schopenhauer1

And this, I understand and agree with, but with my modifications, admittedly requiring more "research" on my part before expressing the modifications with so much zeal

It is purely experiencing the Will without willing, if you will. — schopenhauer1

Wow. Not making conclusive comparisons, reminds me of Wu Wei, the Taoist, actionless action

If we deny-the-will to the point of getting beyond our own subject-object nature, we can perhaps escape. — schopenhauer1

I assume that last one was a generous "I guess," and not a certain position espoused by S?

Thank you,

if we know our will indubitably, and if it is possible to make the will, as it is known, to represent what K stipulated as unrepresentable, then the thing K said we couldn’t possibly know, just disappears, and with it the entire Kantian epistemological dualism. — Mww

Unless the thing K said we couldn't possibly "know" we simply "are". Knowing belongs to the representations and it cannot "know" (represent) the present and real. What we are independent of the representations, the human being as a present participle. As in, not becoming, so not accessible to the becoming, the knowing, only accessible by being. We already are exactly that.

Admittedly neither orthodox to Kant nor to Schopenhauer.

To try to validate it in the "Eastern" context of Schopenhauer, Tat Tvam Assi. Ultimate Reality? You are that.

Anyway. This is a thought and I don't intend to pursue it. But I am interested in your thoughts, if any. I found your brief assessment to be excellent.

Unless the thing K said we couldn't possibly "know" we simply "are". — ENOAH

Empirically, to know is to represent phenomenally. That which we simply “are” cannot be represented phenomenally, insofar as such representation is given from sensation alone, and we obviously cannot sense that which has no perceivable matter or substance.

On the other hand, derived from a long convoluted transcendental argument, if we think of ourselves as subject to which all representation belong, united under a single consciousness, we cannot possibly discover a conception by which it becomes possible to know “what” we are. It is then the case we, thought as subjects, can never be objects, which is the same as never knowing ourselves as such. So it is that we must be content to know we are nothing more than a mere transcendental idea which functions as subject. All this because when we try to know as something, the very thing that knows anything, we are met with an impossible situation.

Thing is, in juxtaposition to S, re: questions about knowledge of the world and that which is unknowable in it, these are strictly empirical questions, which cannot include mere transcendental ideas. So it is that a quite similar notion, unknowable as the what we “are” that is unknowable, which gets us to the mistake I hold S to have made, for he wants to force a purely transcendental idea into a necessary ground for a strictly empirical domain.

Furthermore, S couldn’t have even forged his personal philosophy if he didn’t de-construct what Kant intended the ding an sich to be. The thing-in-itself, in Kant, is a real existence, unknowable merely from the fact that thing has never been an appearance to our sensibility, has never run the gauntlet of the human cognitive system. As soon as the thing-in-itself is presented to sensibility, it is no longer -in-itself, it becomes a yet undetermined thing -in-us, and we can intuit, thus represent it as phenomenon, subsequently experience it and know it as a certain thing. S, on the other hand, wants all things as representations of will, which removes the very construct of representation from the cognitive system itself. Under these conditions, and in anticipation of Kant’s concept that no knowledge is at all possible for that without representation, we find the thing that was unknowable because it wasn’t representable, now is the very representation that was formerly unavailable to us.

Instead of things being given to sensibility, it is representations that are so given, which leaves the gaping explanatory hole in the form of…..how the HELL can a mere representation be of physical substance???????? How does a sensation follow from a representation, in the same manner as a sensation follows from a real physical object’s affect on the sensory apparatuses?

And if S’s representations are conditioned by space and time in order to make them appear real for our senses, as Kant’s things appear to us, then it remains questionable how the will can be a source of such conditions insofar as will is the origin of them. And if will doesn’t originate space and time, in that they still belong to the subject as pure a priori intuitions of transcendental deduction….S hasn’t done anything Kant didn’t already do.

Kant took Plato’s forms from the external instances of universals and made them internal a priori content of the mind; S took Kant’s internal representations as content of faculties of mind and made them external objects of will. Turn-about is fair play? If he can do it so can I, kinda thing? Dunno, but maybe….

Anyway….opinion. I’m entitled to mine no matter how misguided….prejudiced….it may be. (Grin)

your standards (of which I've always considered to be extremely high). — Manuel

And I, yours even moreso. One had better appreciate and respect those with far greater formal training than himself.

Instead of things being given to sensibility, it is representations that are so given, which leaves the gaping explanatory hole in the form of…..how the HELL can a mere representation be of physical substance???????? How does a sensation follow from a representation, in the same manner as a sensation follows from a real physical object’s affect on the sensory apparatuses? — Mww

So you have to remember that Schopenhauer believes that the world is Will AND Representation. It is NOT one or the other, but both. Thus Will is nothing without Representation as its double-aspect. Thus, sensation is simply how Will manifests itself on the "flipside" to a subject when certain interactions happen (of external stimuli with sense perceptions). The physical causations have the double-aspect of the internal feelings. And this interaction he calls "Representation". The feelings are immediate, but they are still a "presentation" of subject/object mediated in the PSR phenomenal world.

And if S’s representations are conditioned by space and time in order to make them appear real for our senses, as Kant’s things appear to us, then it remains questionable how the will can be a source of such conditions insofar as will is the origin of them. And if will doesn’t originate space and time, in that they still belong to the subject as pure a priori intuitions of transcendental deduction….S hasn’t done anything Kant didn’t already do. — Mww

I am not quite sure what you are contending here. Schopenhauer thinks that BOTH subject and object are manifestations of the Will that is the noumenal aspect of the whole apparatus. I think of Will as a sort of aimless Logos "principle" behind the phenomenal world. Will is simply "striving", and the apparatus is striving "playing out" in its individuated ways. Its the expression of how Will strives. Of course "why" it takes this form and not another is a bit of a "just so" answer, but that is another objection that doesn't affect this one.

Kant took Plato’s forms from the external instances of universals and made them internal a priori content of the mind; S took Kant’s internal representations as content of faculties of mind and made them external objects of will. Turn-about is fair play? If he can do it so can I, kinda thing? Dunno, but maybe…. — Mww

I think Schop would even agree with this. His idea of art and aesthetics "bringing out" the external Forms in their sublime universal form, and this being some sort of stop-gap of the Will, pretty much shows this.

As soon as the thing-in-itself is presented to sensibility, it is no longer -in-itself, it becomes a yet undetermined thing -in-us, and we can intuit, thus represent it as phenomenon, subsequently experience it and know it as a certain thing. S, on the other hand, wants all things as representations of will, which removes the very construct of representation from the cognitive system itself. Under these conditions, and in anticipation of Kant’s concept that no knowledge is at all possible for that without representation, we find the thing that was unknowable because it wasn’t representable, now is the very representation that was formerly unavailable to us. — Mww

How does a sensation follow from a representation, in the same manner as a sensation follows from a real physical object’s affect on the sensory apparatuses? — Mww

Kant took Plato’s forms from the external instances of universals and made them internal a priori content of the mind; S took Kant’s internal representations as content of faculties of mind and made them external objects of will. — Mww

:up: :up:
Thank you!


:

In other words, it's not suffering all the way down - suffering has a cause and an end. I wouldn't look to Nietzsche for insight on that, however. — Wayfarer

Yes. I don't project a sunny Pollyanna view onto our imperfect world. But I also can't subscribe to Schop's gloomy-give-up outlook. I wouldn't want to model my personal worldview on his example of analytical intellectual critical methodology*1. His scientific approach to criticism is reductive, but I look to philosophy for a more holistic & creative big picture, including both the bad and the good stuff. Since I am a sentient creature, I can experience pain & suffering for myself. I don't need Schop's help to touch it where it hurts, to feel the exquisite agony of physical & psychological trauma. But I could benefit from a longer-broader view that envisions some "end" of suffering, preferably in the here & now world.

I suspect that Schop, as a young man, was an Idealist, taught to expect a more perfect world. But, as cynical comic-commentator George Carlin noted, a cynic is a disappointed idealist. When I was young, I too was indoctrinated with an idealistic worldview, in which a loving father in heaven was there to sooth my suffering. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that divine succor was an ideal concept, not to be found in this real life, but in some remote angel-harp-cloud-world. Instead, I realized that practical succoring is found in your fellow sufferers, and in your own inner fortitude. So, instead of descending into angry Atheism, I became a Stoic Agnostic, and looked to human-authored philosophy, rather than cleric-authorized religion, to inform my pragmatic self-dependent positive forward-looking worldview.

If I found the world to be completely irrational & absurd, then my rational self-help plan of action would be insane. In the OP, found Schop's "denial of the will to live" unacceptable. But that sad state of mind would be sane, if the "Will" running the world had no inherent Logic or direction. And, if the world is a creation of my own mind, its absurdity would be a reflection of my own state of mind. Schop, like other European intellectuals of his era, was impressed by the "Eastern" holistic, non-dogmatic philosophies that contrasted with his own dualistic, legalistic religious heritage. Yet, I suspect that he failed to find any reason for living, other than fear of death, in a godless directionless life.

But, enough of this sober serious "Big School" stuff. As my teasing about Debbie Downer should indicate, I don't take Schop's worldview so seriously. It's not an ideal model for me to emulate. I prefer to filter the bad stuff through a sense of humor. That said, I can see that his notion of a "mind created world" would resonate with your own. But don't take it too literally. The imperfect real world will still be following its own internal logic (natural laws) into the uncertain future, long after your personal Mind has graduated to Nirvana. :cool:

PS___ My answer to the OP question is that Schop may be right about the imperfections of the not-yet-complete world process, and about our human ability to create a world-model of personally experienced & selected facts, but wrong about the hopelessness of the whole enterprise, which is not about little ole me.



*1. Why does negativity seem more intelligent than positively?
Negativity deals with the analytical while positivity is more creative.
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-negativity-seem-more-intelligent-than-positively

Despite my efforts, and the generous input of others in this thread and otherwise, I have yet to properly grasp (or abandon) what I believe to be something basic. So I will present it as simply as possible below for the consideration of anyone not yet worn out by my repeated efforts.

Where below am I naive or inconsistent?


PLATO
Forms(X)-->Particulars(Y)
KANT
Noumena(X)-->Phenomena(Y)
SCHOPENHAUR
Will(X)-->Representation(Y)

ALTERNATIVELY
Being(X)-->Becoming(Y)
[Body]-->[Mind]*
[Living]-->[knowing]*

While there are seemingly significant qualifiers differentiating each beyond nuances, is it not true that the following can be "extracted" from the "root" of each (i.e. before the differences emerge)?

Y is the "ground" where difference, therefore, meaning, therefore, desire, therefore, suffering is "constructed." This ground is mediated reality.

X is the "ground" where there is only the will to survive. No difference, etc., therefore no constructing suffering. This ground is direct reality.

And if X and Y are indivisible, inseparable, and not "two" distinct "grounds," why does this line of philosophical history separate them?


*is it "Body-->Mind"/"Living--knowing" which is "problematic"?

PLATO
Forms(X)-->Particulars(Y)
KANT
Noumena(X)-->Phenomena(Y)
SCHOPENHAUR
Will(X)-->Representation(Y)

ALTERNATIVELY
Being(X)-->Becoming(Y)
[Body]-->[Mind]*
[Living]-->[knowing]* — ENOAH

Interesting summary of general philosophical principles, extracted from real-world details. Forms are the essential idea of a thing that is instantiated in actual real things. The Noumenal ding an sich is also the idea of a Phenomenal object, as represented in a mind. The World-Will concept has been represented both as an unstoppable destructive tidal wave, and as an ongoing creative process, suitable for the evolution of thinking & willing & adapting beings. We are all in the same world, but we can choose to look at the dark side, or the brighter side of the same cloud.

Schopenhauer's pointless power of natural Will, may describe a snapshot of "Being" similar to Einstein's frozen Block Universe, going nowhere. But a "Becoming" world would offer more opportunities for growth & learning & evolution. Your notion of Living, as an opportunity for Knowing, is also more optimistic about the human condition. Instead of helplessly chained to the whipping wall, we are able to devise (represent) ways to escape, in reality (plan) or ideality (hope). :cool:

Schopenhauer’s Will as Intention :
For most humans though, Willpower is presumed to be both self-control and control over the environment. Hence, neither “aimless” nor “devoid of knowledge”.
http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page19.html

While there are seemingly significant qualifiers differentiating each beyond nuances, is it not true that the following can be "extracted" from the "root" of each (i.e. before the differences emerge)?

Y is the "ground" where difference, therefore, meaning, therefore, desire, therefore, suffering is "constructed." This ground is mediated reality.

X is the "ground" where there is only the will to survive. No difference, etc., therefore no constructing suffering. This ground is direct reality.

And if X and Y are indivisible, inseparable, and not "two" distinct "grounds," why does this line of philosophical history separate them?


*is it "Body-->Mind"/"Living--knowing" which is "problematic"? — ENOAH

1) Yes this is a more-or-less good summarization of the main premise of his theory.

2) As to why his line of philosophical history separates them, I would have to understand what you mean exactly. If you mean, where does this line of thinking come from, then that would be Kant's noumena/phenomena. If you mean, how is it split in history, as a metaphysical construct, it has no historical beginning- the world is both noumenal Will AND mediated Representation. They co-occur, not one after the other.

3) Body-mind is simply the apparatus, subject/object, knower/known. The problematic part is that Will IS this construct constantly playing out, over, and over, and over. An aimless unity viewed as individuated by its hapless subject-object creating, "illusory" manifestations (the representations that are but the manifestations of Will).

Where below am I naive or inconsistent? — ENOAH

Not necessarily either, but the subtleties of these subjects are such that they resist compression to a schematic. Understanding what exactly Plato intended by 'ideas' or 'forms' is quite a difficult task in its own right, and Kant is infamously difficult to read.

One analogy I've found for Schopenhauer's 'will' is the Buddhist 'tannha' (craving or thirst). I got ChatGPT to summarize this comparison which can be viewed below:

Goal of Liberation: Schopenhauer and Buddhism both propose that liberation from suffering involves overcoming the driving force of desire. For Schopenhauer, this is through the negation of the will, while in Buddhism, it is through the elimination of craving and the attainment of nirvāṇa.
Differences: — Wayfarer

This is getting very esoteric, but can it be argued that Schopenhauer's famous "denial of Will", is actually a sort of existence of unmediated existence?

But how is it you suppose, one can "deny" if one IS will. What is this "other" of "denial" which would not be part of "Will" itself, thus self-refuting the effort from the start?

This is getting very esoteric, but can it be argued that Schopenhauer's famous "denial of Will", is actually a sort of existence of unmediated existence? — schopenhauer1

This is where I think Schopenhauer was disadvantaged by not having encountered an adept or guru of the Eastern paths he admired (of course in his day and age that would have been very unlikely given geography and history.) I think Schopenhauer intuited that there was a state of the 'cessation of suffering', which he said was exemplified St Francis and other ascetics, but I don't know if he really reached those states (and who does?) In Urs App's book Schopenhauer's Compass, there's a whole chapter on what Schopenhauer describes as 'better consciousness' (apparently what we would call higher consciousness) so again, he was very much aware of that in a way that most later philosophers were not. But Zen teachers will demand going far beyond just a kind of theoretical grasp and it takes considerable training to truly integrate that understanding. Schopenhauer was a perceptive philosopher, but not, in Eastern parlance, a 'realised being'.

See also
Schopenhauer and Buddhism
Peter Abelsen

Philosophy East and West
Vol. 43, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 255-278 (24 pages)
Published By: University of Hawai'i Press

What was Schopenhauer known for?

In my mind he was a bona fide person, more authentic and genuine about his philosophy and its import towards life like no other philosophy. Perhaps the only philosopher that was more bona fide was Wittgenstein.

As a person, he wasn't very interesting to investigate; but, his aphorisms enduring popularity is still a testament to his genuineness and authenticity.

In the Wikipedia entry on higher consciousness I belatedly linked to my last entry, there's this snippet:

The better consciousness in me lifts me into a world where there is no longer personality and causality or subject or object. My hope and my belief is that this better (supersensible and extra-temporal) consciousness will become my only one, and for that reason I hope that it is not God. But if anyone wants to use the expression God symbolically for the better consciousness itself or for much that we are able to separate or name, so let it be, yet not among philosophers I would have thought. — Schopenhauer

In Urs App's book Schopenhauer's Compass, there's a whole chapter on what Schopenhauer describes as 'better consciousness' (apparently what we would call higher consciousness) — Wayfarer

So what do you think of this one?

But how is it you suppose, one can "deny" if one IS will. What is this "other" of "denial" which would not be part of "Will" itself, thus self-refuting the effort from the start? — schopenhauer1

Have another look at #7 of the SEP entry.. I think it addresses that question. The emphasis on will is 'less of an outlook derived from an absolute standpoint that transcends human nature and as more of an outlook expressive of human nature in its effort to achieve philosophical understanding .... It can be understood alternatively as an expression of the human perspective on the world, that, as an embodied individual, we typically cannot avoid. This tempered approach, though, does leave us with the decisive question of why the world would appear to be so violent, if the universe’s core is not thoroughly “Will,” but is also something mysterious beyond this.'

Perhaps the gist is that his is a perspectival approach - from the human perspective, the world appears 'as will', but to those who have 'gone beyond', it is something else.

I think it's the other way around. Will is represented as 1) your own body, and 2) the world.

Schopenhauer is along the lines of phenomenology. He follows what appear to be intellectual dictates, such as the Law of Explanation. He's not saying this law is a feature of the universe, it's a feature of thought. We can't think beyond it, so it's like a signpost of the border of thought.

Taking him this way, he flows into Witt's Tractatus, which can be taken as a warning against trying to turn phenomenology into a theory of everything.

Poor guy. Thank you. — ENOAH

Genius poor guy.

I do rather like SEP's phrasing here:

For if Will is only one of an untold number of the universe’s dimensions, there would be no reason to expect that the individuating effects of the principle of sufficient reason would generate a world that feasts on itself in the manner that Schopenhauer describes. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/#7

It sounds like something I'd say :smile: as a criticism.

But it brings up a good point. And again, the question remains- "what" is this "denial of Will" that can be employed that would "not Will" if "all is Will"? Is there a Will above Will? Is there Will+? This now looks like gnosticism. That is to say, Will is the demiurge, but there is "higher Will" which is more foundational. But then when one is "denying the Will", is one employing "higher Will" to deny the "lower Will"? And then this starts to unravel... And then you get to bring in those fun Sanskrit and Pali terms to placate it.

One analogy I've found for Schopenhauer's 'will' is the Buddhist 'tannha' (craving or thirst). — Wayfarer

Ok, if that's the case, then definitely he places suffering in the category of the real being, and unlike Buddhism, not in the category of Maya/Samsara/Karma. That is, suffering for S. is not restricted to the "illusions" but also Buddha Nature (if that and S's "will" are similarly the ground of real being).

As to why his line of philosophical history separates them, I would have to understand what you mean exactly. — schopenhauer1

I mean to say, for me the two categories summarized as X and Y are ontologically(?) separate. The one being, "Being", the other being a modified "reality" mediated or projected solely by the emergence of human minds. If I am mistaken, and for all of these philosophies, X and Y are indivisible (I.e. suffering cannot be isolated to Mind or resolved in being, independent of mind), then why are they consistently spoken of as if one is the ground of being and the other projections of Mind?

The Noumenal ding an sich is also the idea of a Phenomenal object, as represented in a mind — Gnomon

Ok. Here I see the distinction from what I'm proposing. At least for Plato and Kant. But what about Schopenhauer?
If K and P were not positing two "realities" one being, the other becoming, wasn't Schopenhauer?

I see from further in your reply, likely not. As for the "two realities" I'm observing, as you suggest, these might be two ways to "choose" to view the one reality?

Hmm.

Thank you to all three, for helping me understand.

Ok, if that's the case, then definitely he places suffering in the category of the real being, and unlike Buddhism, not in the category of Maya/Samsara/Karma. That is, suffering for S. is not restricted to the "illusions" but also Buddha Nature (if that and S's "will" are similarly the ground of real being). — ENOAH

Not exactly, look at our conversation right above:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904945