Schopenhauer and Hume on Will and Causation

One aspect of Schopenhauer’s doctrine that the world is will, which can be assessed independently of his more ambitious metaphysical ideas, is the claim that our own agency provides us with a full understanding of causation which then permeates and structures our experience of the world in general. In this chapter, the author argues that this claim can be defended against Hume’s well-known objections because they are based on a volitional theory of voluntary action, which Schopenhauer rightly rejected. Schopenhauer quite plausibly located an immediate experience of causation between at least some kinds of motives and our consequent actions. However, he was wrong in suggesting that this experience might be the source of our understanding of causation since intentional action already presupposes that understanding and cannot provide it. It is more plausible to argue that an understanding of causation is derived from our bodily encounters with material objects.

The Mystery of Freedom

Freedom is the focus of the first of the writings included in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. The attention that Schopenhauer devotes to the subject does not stop here, however, since freedom appears recurrently in different parts of his system. It is linked to his theory of knowledge, metaphysics, aesthetics, and the denial of the will. This chapter follows that track and examines the presence in different contexts of Schopenhauerian thought of a freedom that is so undeniable as unexplainable. In this way will be shown Schopenhauer’s transition from the freedom of the voluntas to the freedom of noluntas [non-willing] and the state of great liberation that occurs because the will frees itself from itself. It is a transition that begins and ends at the same point: mystery

Schopenhauer’s Understanding of Schelling

Schopenhauer is famously abusive toward his philosophical contemporary and rival, Friedrich William Joseph von Schelling. This chapter examines the motivations for Schopenhauer’s immoderate attitude and the substance behind the insults. It looks carefully at both the nature of the insults and substantive critical objections Schopenhauer had to Schelling’s philosophy, both to Schelling’s metaphysical description of the thing-in-itself and Schelling’s epistemic mechanism of intellectual intuition. It concludes that Schopenhauer’s substantive criticism is reasonable and that Schopenhauer does in fact avoid Schelling’s errors: still, the vehemence of the abuse is best perhaps explained by the proximity of their philosophies, not the distance. Indeed, both are developing metaphysics of will with full and conflicted awareness of the Kantian epistemic strictures against metaphysics. In view of this, Schopenhauer is particularly concerned to mark his own project as legitimate by highlighting the manner in which he avoids Schelling’s errors.

Schopenhauer and the Unconscious

This chapter explores the gradual emergence of the notion of the unconscious as it pertains to the tradition that runs from Arthur Schopenhauer via Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer to Sabina Spielrein, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. A particular focus is put on the popularization of the term “unconscious” by von Hartmann and on the history of the death drive, which has Schopenhauer’s essay “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual” as one of its precursors. In this essay, Schopenhauer develops speculatively the notion of a universal, intelligent, supraindividual unconscious—an unconscious with a purpose related to death. But the death drive also owes its origins to Schopenhauer’s “relative nothingness,” which Mainländer adopts into his philosophy as “absolute nothingness” resulting from the “will to death.” His philosophy emphasizes death as the goal of the world and its inhabitants. This central idea had a distinctive influence on the formation of the idea of the death drive, which features in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Nietzsche’s Schopenhauer

The chapter offers a critical analysis of Nietzsche’s objections to Schopenhauer’s philosophy. While the influence of Schopenhauer on Nietzsche is widely documented, the author’s intention here is to ask how Schopenhauer might respond to Nietzsche’s interpretation of his philosophy and his critical challenges and hence, ultimately, to assess the force of Nietzsche’s objections. The chapter considers Nietzsche’s central challenge, beginning with his account of Mitleid (compassion or pity) and, from there, opens out to the analysis of psychology, history, and the affirmation of life. It also considers two ways in which Nietzsche arguably steps out from under Schopenhauer’s influence: his “historical philosophy” and his style or philosophical attitude.

Schopenhauer and Christianity

This chapter explores Schopenhauer’s complex relationship with Christianity and Christian thought. It charts the development of his relationship with religion to the point where he shapes a critically interpretive and frequently comparative theory of religions in general and his lifelong studies of Christianity in particular. Schopenhauer’s writings about Christianity are numerous and varied in character and tone for in numerous ways he was both a critic and defender of religion—especially Christianity. The chapter outlines Schopenhauer’s interactions with and interpretations of major Christian doctrines and thinkers and also discusses those aspects of Christian thought that most significantly influenced his own writings, especially in terms of metaphysics, ethics, and soteriology. It concludes with some reflections on just how dependent his philosophical system was on Christianity and religion in general for his most significant ideas. Overall it seeks to demonstrate that an engagement with Schopenhauer’s relationship with Christianity and Christian thought can prove illuminating for understanding multiple aspects of his philosophy in general.

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in Context

In this chapter, the author attempts to establish what is philosophically living and what is philosophically dead in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Against the background of the intriguing the history of the terms “optimism” and “pessimism”—in debates about Leibniz’s theodicy in the early eighteenth century and the popularity of Schopenhauer in the late nineteenth century, respectively—the author points up the distinction between affirming life, which all living beings do naturally, and subscribing to philosophical optimism (or pessimism), which is possible only for reflective beings like us. Next, the author notes the significance of Schopenhauer’s claim that optimism is a necessary condition of theism and explains its bearing on his pessimistic argument for the moral unacceptability of suicide. The chapter concludes that Schopenhauer’s case for pessimism is not conclusive, but instructive; his dim view of the prospects for leading a truly rewarding, worthwhile human life draws vivid attention to important questions about how and to what degree an atheistic world can nevertheless be conducive to human flourishing.

Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Compassion

The focus of this chapter is Schopenhauer’s On The Basis of Morality (1841). His distinctive views are that compassion marks one’s being as spontaneously motivated to relieve another’s suffering as one’s own and that this requires a metaphysical explanation for how one identifies with another. The author defends these views and shows in some detail how they mirror the Mahayana account of compassion in Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva. Next, the author outlines Schopenhauer’s case for compassion being the sole basis of moral value and defends this claim against the Kantian view that acting beneficently cannot (rationally) override so-called perfect duties to others. Finally, the author explores how Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings cohere with Schopenhauer’s account of suffering and how mystical consciousness, as represented in Mahayana Buddhism’s “Middle Way,” coheres with Schopenhauer’s asceticism—the “denial of the will”—as the path to overcoming suffering.

Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy

Schopenhauer claims that his understanding of morality identifies and preserves its essential content as it is shared among various philosophical, religious, and cultural traditions. Indeed, he seems to argue that only by rooting moral value, virtue, and responsibility as he does in compassion and beneficence can a satisfactory account of morality be given. At the same time, however, Schopenhauer also insists that no prescriptive account of morality can be given: the very idea of a moral rule is spurious, and morality can only be approached from a theoretical perspective. In this chapter, the author argues that Schopenhauer reconciles this tension between conventional and revisionist strands by justifying morality as the appropriate form of responsiveness to the intrinsic senselessness of existence. Morality, then, is not a rational or strategic pursuit but an expression of the correct attitude toward the unavailability of any sensible pursuit; it is practical insofar as it needs to be sustained in order to express the appreciation of metaphysical truth. The author then addresses three sets of issues: why compassion is a superior form of responsiveness to indifference or arbitrariness, the extent to which this account preserves the content of morality as conventionally understood, and the extent to which this account enables Schopenhauer to address objections regarding the distinctness of persons, the importance of phenomenal concerns, and the possibility of agency.

Schopenhauer and the Paradox of the Sublime

Schopenhauer explores the paradoxical nature of the aesthetic experience of the sublime in a richer way than his predecessors did by rightfully emphasizing the prominent role of the aesthetic object and the ultimately affirmative character of the pleasurable experience it offers. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the sublime does not appeal to the superiority of human reason over nature but affirms the ultimately “superhuman” unity of the world, of which the human being is merely a puny fragment. The author focuses on Schopenhauer’s treatment of the experience of the sublime in nature and argues that Schopenhauer makes two distinct attempts to resolve the paradox of the sublime and that Schopenhauer’s second attempt, which has been neglected in the literature, establishes the sublime as a viable aesthetic concept with profound significance.