Schopenhauer More Modern and Accurate than Existentialists I’m now thinking that both Schopenhauer’s, and Sartre’s, views are needed to give a full picture of the human condition. That is, taking either side without regard for the other ends up lacking.
I’ll use my current situation in life as an example. Software engineering is my profession, and I like philosophy, but don’t spend nearly as much time on it as my full time job. If someone said “define yourself”, “software engineer” seems a more appropriate answer than “philosopher”. Now I could choose to answer “philosopher” anyhow, but that would be contrary to the reality of my situation, which is as it is regardless of how I “define myself”. Actually it would cause dissonance in my mental states, as I’d have to try to ignore the fact that much more of my time is spent engineering software.
From the above, Sartre’s view seems absurd, and Schopenhauer’s seems right on – there is an actual reality to my life, which makes me as I am; any self-definitions I come up with are superfluous.
I could however take action, and quit my job and go back to school to get a degree in philosophy, and do this full time. I can’t whimsically define myself however I want, but I can start with some idea in mind, and take steps to bring that about (which involves time, resources, and constraints). I can will myself to be a philosopher, within limitations. But the fact that I choose to will this would already be based on pre-conditions of myself – a desire to do philosophy, and that desire itself isn’t something I chose to have. So Sartre’s view still looks totally wrong.
I could also ask: is it desirable to have a desire to do philosophy? Suppose I deliberated and found the answer is “no”. Given real constraints, I may not be able to change this desire, but through this I’d realize my desire must be grounded in something (some complex interaction between my makeup and the world) as opposed to being “just there”. My desire isn’t essential to “me”, but rather is held in place by my life’s situation – which given the right conditions, could change such that I no longer desire to do philosophy.
There is a sense of non-definitiveness, of freedom, in considering that everything about “me” is conditioned and in principle changeable (even if, given time and resources, it couldn’t actually change in my lifetime). So this is where an “extreme freedom” view makes sense – but it necessarily includes the aspect of life as conditioned and constrained by the world as it happens to be.