Schopenhauer was
the pessimist of the 19th century, who discerned by their very
human nature, as willing beings, people’s lives lead invariably to some sort of suffering or another, and that the only salvation from these torments (of
disappointment, of
jealousy, of
lust) was
denial of those base impulses. Only through restraint were you free from slavery to the
will. His rather famous student
Friedrich Nietzsche would later invert this equation. Schopenhauer's prescription for denial also have an aesthetic element, as he argued the struggle to escape the
will also provided one with a certain level of
detachment and distance from the
objects of the world, affording the individual
clarity of thought.
Essentially, if you view reality is an impelling force, which appears to the
individual as will, then conflict arises when the individual cannot satisfy those desires, or they prove contradictory. To boil it down then,
life is suffering and all people, Schopenhauer said,
live in pain. The whole basis of ethics, in fact, rests on sympathy for the pain of others, which he outlined in his essay,
On The Suffering Of The World, published after his death in 1851.
Schopenhauer was born in
Danzig, Germany in 1788, into a wealthy, educated family. He traveled widely and was well schooled throughout Europe in this youth, focusing on
Immanuel Kant,
Plato and the
Hindu Upanishads (which he stated later as his greatest influences). However, as his schooling continued, he encountered more and more the influence of
Hegel on his studies (en vogue at the time,
Hegel's
Philosophy of History was a sort of ur-
Modern Post-Modern Condition, certainly required reading).
Anyway, by 1816, S. begins to make a name for himself, writing a great deal on art, perception, colour, and even collaborating with
Goethe. In 1818, though, his masterwork is
published,
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (
The World as Will and Idea, or
The World as Will and Representation, depending on the translator), wherein he outlined his philosophy and vision of the world and mind extensively.
In
1820, he secured a position at University of
Berlin, only to be enraged to find few students interested in attending his lectures on account of they're being held the same time as
Hegel's
across campus. After that, he made it a point to ridicule and revile Hegel (and who can blame him really?) whenever he had
the chance, but eventually moved to
Frankfurt in 1833 to devote himself exclusively to writing, expanding each of the ideas
in his earlier work. He dies of a heart attack on September 21,
1860.
Quotations:
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." (from
Studies in Pessimism, 1851)
"In savage countries they eat one another, in civilized they deceive one another.'' (from Unser Verhalten gegen Andere
betreffend', 1851)
"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion
to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as pretty fair measure of it." (from
On Noise)
"There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry and high life." (Essays,
Our Relation to Ourselves, sec.
24)
"The two foes of human happiness are
pain and
boredom." (Essays, Personality; or
What a Man Is)
"All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently
opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." (from On the Wisdom of Life,
Aphorism.)
"In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the
masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief
periods." (from On the Wisdom of Life, Aphorisms.)
"
Hatred is an affair of the heart:
contempt that of the head."
(from The World as Will and Idea, Vol.2, ch.26, sct.324)
Sources: 1. "Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860),"
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (NY: 1998), v.8, p.545-554, and, 2.
Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, (NY: Burt, n.d.)