Abstract
Here is how Schopenhauer reasoned his way towards identifying the Thing-inItself as Will.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
“Wer aber das Unbegreifliche dieser Identität sich recht vergegenwärtigt, wird sie mit mir das Wunder káτ’ ‘εξoχrηv nennen.”
“Der Wille, der bis hieher im Dunklen höchst sicher und unfehlbar seinen Trieb verfolgte, hat sich auf dieser Stufe ein Licht angezündet, als ein Mittel, welches notwendig wurde zur Aufhebung des Nachteils, der aus dem Gedränge und der komplizierten Beschaffenheit seiner Erscheinungen eben den vollendetesten erwachsen würde.”
It is reassuring to find ourselves in agreement here with such a distinguished thinker as Cassirer. He pointed out that, on the one hand, according to Schopenhauer the Intellect with its a priori forms of space, time, and causality is only a secondary, nay even a tertiary, phenomenon, since it is only a late product of Will, appearing at the final stage of its successive objectivations (“Far from being simply the first (as, e.g., Fichte taught), it is really tertiary, since it presupposes the organism, and this in its turn the will” [“Weit entfernt, das schlechthin Erste zu seyn (wie z.B. Fichte lehrte), ist es im Grunde tertiär, indem es den Organismus voraussetzt, dieser aber den Willen”], Schopenhauer says, whereas, on the other hand, it follows logically from Schopenhauer’s own doctrine that all
these ‘objectivations’ can be there only for, not before, the Intellect (for the very reason that he holds space, time, and causality to be a priori forms, i.e., nothing but the necessary ways in which the Intellect grasps the world), so that in this respect Intellect ought to be considered as primary. Metaphysically, therefore, Will and Intellect would be wholly on a par.
This opinion was not of course quite correct, insofar as the Idea of the Good (which is comparable to Parmenides’ ‘One’, albeit with the important difference that it is ‘beyond Being’ rather than ‘true Being’) stands above and is fundamentally different from the other Ideas (cf. Chapter VII, p. 179). So in this respect there is no difference between Plato and Schopenhauer (not counting, to be sure, the trifle that for Schopenhauer the ‘One’, far from being the ‘Idea of the Good’, is wicked “Will”). It may however be doubted (as in the present chapter we seek to show) whether this is really Schopenhauer’s last word on the matter.
This also explains his attitude towards history (cf. Chapter V, p. 127).
Cf. Introduction, p. 5.
Scheler distinguishes between what he calls the “classical” and the “negative” theory of Man. The former comprises all those theories which, in one form or another, grant “Spirit” (Geist), not only autonomy and original being, but also force and activity, nay even supreme power and force. The latter comprises all those which in one form or another (Schopenhauerianism being one of them) hold that Spirit comes into being only as a result of the specific human capacity to say ‘no’ to reality, whether in acts of asceticism, of repression, or of sublimation. Rejecting both theories, Scheler presents his own view that Spirit, although possessing being and laws of its own, is in its ‘pure’, original form without any power, force, and activity. It is only through man’s ‘negative’ activity that it is endowed with energy and thus with the possibility to manifest itself. Thus Being has two attributes: “Spirit” (Geist) and “Urge” (Drang), the former needing the latter to realize itself in the world-process, culminating in Man.
Certainly to Nietzsche this ‘Will’ is no longer a metaphysical being beyond the veil woven by the principium individuationis, but rather the will-to-power of the creative individual. Or at least this is so for the later Nietzsche, as in this respect the youngster who wrote The Birth of Tragedy was still a more or less orthodox Schopenhauerian (‘more or less’ indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter).
Up to this point Nietzsche’s “will-to-power” may be said to be universal in nature after all, yet not in the monistic sense of a metaphysical world behind the ‘veil of Maya’, but rather in the pluralistic sense of an interplay between an infinity of forces. Man (i.e., each individual man) can be seen as the intersection of these forces; and certainly man always brings some kind of order and hierarchy to those forces. To that extent, then, man is for Nietzsche what he was for Kant and, in however contradictory a manner, for Schopenhauer too — a free and autonomous being. But unlike Kant, Nietzsche does not ground this autonomy in Reason, and therefore it is not the source of universally valid, moral values (cf. Chapter VII, footnote on p. 185).
‘Only at first sight’; for the problem with Nietzsche, as with all critique-of-ideology (e.g., Marx’s, too) is that he cannot possibly avoid the position of that famous Cretan who must have lied in any case (cf. also footnote on p. 226). On the other hand Hegel’s position can be kept consistent only by dint of a dialectics which enables him to incorporate the irrational into the rational (cf. Chapter V, p. 132). Insofar as it is up to us to choose, we therefore prefer Schopenhauer’s inconsistency, while recognizing it as being an inconsistency.
According to Nietzsche’s exposition in Human, All too Human, man was at first made responsible for his effects (because particular actions were called ‘good’ or ‘evil’ without consideration of their motives but only with regard to their useful or harmful consequences); then for his actions (by imagining that the quality ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is inherent in an action in the same way as— equally wrongly — a stone was believed to be hard in itself or a tree green in itself); later still for his motives (which made the action as such morally equivocal); and finally for his essence (from which the good or evil motives were held to arise). This was still the position of Schopenhauer, who inferred the existence of moral responsibility from the phenomenon of our sense of guilt (for which there would be no reason if both all human action occurs with necessity — which he acknowledged — and man’s whole essence is acquired with the same necessity — which he denied). According to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer is subject here to the fallacy that the fact of our sense of guilt leads him to inferring its being justified; “and from this wrong conclusion Schopenhauer arrives at his phantastic consequence of so-called intelligible freedom” (“und von jenem Fehlschluß aus kommt Schopenhauer zu seiner phantastischen Konsequenz der sogenannten intelligiblen Freiheit”). That is how Schopenhauer failed, in Nietzsche’s view, to make the truly final step, which is to stop making man responsible for anything at all.
“Wir bekennen es vielmehr frei: was nach gänzlicher Aufhebung des Willens übrig bleibt, ist für alle Die, welche noch des Willens voll sind, allerdings Nichts. Aber auch umgekehrt ist Denen, in welchen der Wille sich gewendet und verneint hat, diese unsere so sehr reale Welt mit all ihren Sonnen und Milchstraßen — Nichts.”
Schopenhauer’s remark in his letter of 31 March 1854 to Johann August Becker about the complete futility of seeking contradictions in his work (cf. Introduction, p. 1) referred to an article by Frauenstädt, about whom he goes on as follows: “But it seems to me that my good Frauenstädt, in his desire to show up his sharρ wit, has brought home only quibbling, petty criticisms. However, I should forgive him much once I realize that only through his ongoing, steadfast striving for eight years now, is my philosophy finally gaining an
audience, and the professors’ intrigue is frustrated.” (“Aber mir scheint, daß der gute Frauenstädt hat seinen Scharfsinn zeigen wollen und nur spitzfindige Kritzeleien zu Markte gebracht hat. Ich muß ihm aber vieles zu Gute halten, wenn ich bedenke, daß allein durch sein jetzt achtjähriges unausgesetztes, standhaftes Bemühen meine Philosophie jetzt endlich ins Publikum dringt und die Kabale der Professoren vereitelt wird.”) But how difficult it was for Schopenhauer at times to let his gratitude prevail over his annoyance with his slowwitted disciple becomes clear in a letter of 21 August 1852 from which we have already quoted a passage in our preceding chapter, and which opens with the words: “I must call to mind, my dear friend, all your many and great merits for the preaching of my philosophy in order not to lose all patience and countenance when reading your last letter.” (“Ich muß, mein werther Freund, mir alle Ihre vielen und großen Verdienste um die Verkündigung meiner Philosophie vergegenwärtigen, um nur nicht außer aller Geduld und Fassung zu gerathen, bei Ihrem letzten Briefe.”).
The explosion forms the main content of the letter of which we quoted the first sentence in the preceding note. It was none other than Schopenhauer himself who on this occasion ironically coined the phrase we have chosen as the most adequate description of the Schopenhauerian paradox (a paradox, to be sure, of which he denied that his metaphysics leads to it) What provoked Schopenhauer to his explosion was the manner in which Frauenstädt spoke of the Thing-in-itself, namely, as “the eternal, uncreated, and imperishable primal being” (“das ewige, unentstandene, und unvergängliche Urwesen”). This conception of the Thing-in-itself, the master sneered, has evidently been taken from the synagogue. He then went on: “The meaning of your long digression is, in short, that the good God cannot commit suicide. Quite so! for how should he? and, for that matter, why would he? when he warbles panta kala lian (‘all is very fine’).” (“Und der langen Rede kurzer Sinn ist, daß der liebe Gott keinen Selbstmord begehen kann. Richtig! wie sollte er auch? und wie möchte er? wenn er nαντa kαλα λιαν trillert.”).
Mark you: in the ascesis of the saint, not in (individual) suicide! Bertrand Russell complains that Schopenhauer never explains clearly why the saint’s purpose to come as near as possible to non-existence cannot be achieved by suicide. But in fact Schopenhauer (who actually rejected individual suicide!) does explain it and even clearly (whether one is wholly convinced by his argument is of course another question), when he argues that suicide is not a denial but on the contrary an expression of strong affirmation of will, since a person who commits suicide does will life and is only dissatisfied with the particular conditions under which it is given to him; and especially when he adds that the essence of denial of will does not lie in an abhorrence of the sufferings but precisely of the enjoyments of life (“Der Selbstmörder will das Leben und ist bloß mit den Bedingungen unzufrieden. Weit entfernt Verneinung des Willens zu seyn, ist dieser ein Phänomen starker Bejahung des Willens. Denn die Verneinung hat ihr Wesen nicht darin, daß man die Leiden, sondern daß man die Genüsse des Lebens verabscheut.”) It is particularly this rejection of the good things of life which (in Chapter VII, p. 191) made us call Schopenhauer’s attitude ‘metaethical’ rather than ‘ethical’.
Angelika Hübscher calls Schopenhauer’s regret over this reluctance (“My best apostles do not write”; “Meine besten Aposteln schreiben nicht”) ‘the only shadow ever to fall over a relation filled with mutual sympathy’. Quoting Doss (“Now that he is dead I feel a bitter regret over my irresolution and hesitation that was rebuked by himself’; “Nun er todt ist, füühle ich bittere Reue über meine von ihm selbst gerügte Unschlüssigkeit und Zaghaftigkeit”) she adds that Doss’ subsequent illness, which compelled him to go into retreat already at the age of forty-four, unfortunately prevented him from ever becoming Schopenhauer’s ‘writing evangelist’.
Cf. the letter to Frauenstädt already quoted and Schopenhauer’s letter to Adam von Doss of 22 July 1852. We are reminded here of the final line of the Tractatus logicophilosophicus (Wittgenstein, as is well known, underwent Schopenhauer’s influence).
“Wenn die Maxime allgemein würde, würde das Menschengeschlecht aussterben und ich glaube annehmen zu können, daß mit der höchsten Willenserscheinung auch der schwächere Widerschein derselben, die Thierheit, wegfallen würde; wie mit dem vollen Lichte auch die Halbschatten verschwinden. Mit gänzlicher Aufhebung der Existenz schwände denn auch von selbst die übrige Welt in Nichts; denn ohne Subjekt kein Objekt.”
†”Wie in dieser Welt hungerige Kinder sich um ihre Mutter drängen, so harren alle Wesen des heiligen Opfers.” He might also (so we would add) have quoted St. Paul (“All creature longs for the revelation of the children God’s”; Epistle to the Romans, 8:19).
“Mensch! Alles liebet dich; um dich ist sehr Gedränge: / Es läuft dir Alles zu, daß es zu Gott gelange.”
“So soll der gute Mensch alle Dinge hinauftragen zu Gott, in ihren ersten Ursprung. Dies bewähren uns die Meister, daß alle Kreaturen sind gemacht um des Menschen Willen. Dies prüfet an allen Kreaturen, daß eine Kreatur die andere nützt: das Rind das Gras, der Fisch das Wasser, der Vogel die Luft, das Thier den Wald. So kommen alle Kreaturen dem guten Menschen zu Nutz: eine Kreatur in der andern trägt ein guter Mensch zu Gott.” This passage from Meister Eckhardt may at first sight appear ambiguous, as it seems to subscribe to the notorious idea that ‘animals are there for man, who may therefore do with them as he pleases’. But Schopenhauer is certainly right in interpreting it in the sense that animals help to lead man to his destiny, namely, to redeem himself and thus the animals as well. It was this vision which made Thomas Mann speak of Schopenhauer’s “humanism” (cf. Chapter IX, p. 255).
“Schon lange Zeit bist du im Leben und im Tode da; jetzt aber sollst du aufhören zu tragen und zu schleppen. Nur dies Mal noch, o Kantakana, trage mich von hinnen, und wann ich werde das Gesetz erlangt haben (Buddha geworden seyn), werde ich deiner nicht vergessen.”
That is, the ‘Small Vehicle’ (Hinayana), as distinguished from the ‘Northern’ version of the ‘Great Vehicle’ (Mahayana). It is actually more correct to use for the former the name by which it designates itself, namely, Theravada (‘pure doctrine’), since ‘Hinayana’ is really a term of abuse coined by the Mahayanists. We added the proviso ‘so at least its adherents claim’, because it has been suggested from the side of an expert (Richard F. Gombrich) that the Buddha preached a religion of love (like Mahayana), whereas in the systematized Theravada-doctrine kindness and compassion, though recommendable, are not sufficient to reach Nirvana.
Schopenhauer quotes with approval Aristotle: ‘η φνσιζ δaιµovιa, ‘aλλ’ ‘ou θειa ‘εσn (hè fusis daimonia, all ‘ ou theia esti: “nature is demonic, but not divine”). For other remarks by Schopenhauer on pantheism cf. Chapter IX, p. 250 and 253.
Although we can accept only with much reservation Heidegger’s view of voluntarism as the secret Western metaphysics (cf. Chapter I, footnote on p. 14) we do believe that only a Westerner could ever arrive at proclaiming ‘Will’ to be the essence of the world (even if this ‘Will’ is such a peculiar one as Schopenhauer’s).
According to Schopenhauer, the ‘great, fundamental truth’ of the need for redemption from an existence bound up with suffering and death, and of the attainment of redemption
through negation of will, runs counter to the natural inclination of mankind and is hard to fathom in its true foundations; it stands in need, therefore, of a mythical vehicle. A doctrine which remains inaccessible to the masses sensu proprio must be taught to them sensu allegorico. Hence, the real value of a religion depends upon how great or small a truthcontent it carries under the veil of allegory, and on how clearly this becomes visible through the veil. Considered thus, Buddhism is to Schopenhauer the most perfect religion. Philosophy, unlike religion, must always speak sensu proprio and without a vehicle, since it adresses itself to the very few who are able to think. Needless to say, Schopenhauer has his own philosophy in mind here more than anyone else’s.
To be more precise, Vedanta philosophy is what Shankara around 800 made out of the likewise monist philosophy of the Uphanishads.
Here it must be stressed that this, just as the absence of a Divine Redeemer (see below), goes only for Theravada-Buddhism. For at the popular level the ‘Arhat’ has given way in Mahayana-Buddhism to the ‘Bodhisatva’, by means of which concept divine, redeeming
beings are reintroduced; and at the philosophical level Mahayana-Buddhism’s greatest representative, Nagarjuna, turned Nirvana into a cosmic principle (the ‘Void’) not unlike Vedantic Brahman, with which one can enter into a unio mystica. This meant really a reintegration of Buddhism into the great mystical tradition, whereas original Buddhism strikes us by its rational method (even if, other than in Western rationalism, the method is inner-directed).
We add that Schopenhauer himself indicated still another point of agreement between his philosophy and Buddhism, which Glasenapp failed to mention. This is the rejection, in Buddhism, of exaggerated asceticism — the self-torture characteristic of Brahmanism. The Buddhist ‘middle road’ confines (sic! PL) asceticism to celibacy, voluntary poverty, humility and obedience of the monks, and abstinence from animal food and in general of all worldliness.
“ ... das ausdehnungslose Centrum der Sphäre aller unserer Vorstellungen [ist], deren Radien zu ihm konvergieren ...” Making this point in his ‘Critique of Kantian Philosophy’, Schopenhauer also refers to Chapter 22 of the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, where we read: “This focus of the whole activity of the brain is what Kant called the synthetic unity of apperception; only by means of it does Will become aware of itself, since this focus of the activity of the brain, or of cognition, conceives itself as identical with its own basis upon which it has arisen; and thus the I comes into being.” (“Dieser Brennpunkt der gesamten Gehirntätigkeit ist Das, was Kant die synthetische Einheit der Apperception nannte; erst mittelst desselben wird der Wille sich seiner selbst bewußt, indem dieser Fokus der Gehirntätigkeit, oder des Erkennens, sich mit seinem eigenen Basis, daraus er entsprungen ist, dem Wollenden, als identisch auffaßt und so das Ich entsteht.”).
Recall here Wittgenstein’s well-known remark on the eye which cannot see itself and the visual field from which one cannot gather that it is seen by an eye! Yet it might be objected that as such it is real, hence our remark above about Münchhausen.
Cf. Chapter IV, p. 100. In a letter to Frauenstädt of 6 June 1856 Schopenhauer refers to a book by Fichte (no Christian name is mentioned, but Immanuel Fichte must be meant) intended to refute him while tacitly adopting his concept of “Will” — a theft veiled by calling it urge (Trieb). Besides the matter of plagiarism, Schopenhauer objects to the term because we are concerned here with the Thing-in-itself, whereas the concept of Trieb has its origin in “the phenomenon, the representation, the consciousness of other things” (“in der Erscheinung, der Vorstellung, den Bewußtseyn von andern Dingen”), since it comes from treiben, which indicates a vis a tergo, visible only for him who looks in from the outside, in contrast to Wille, which reveals itself only in self-consciousness and is the whole content of the latter. To us this seems a rather banal piece of word-fetishism: as if the metaphor of a driven herd might not come to mind in the process of introspection as well!
Cf. Chapter II, p. 48, and Chapter VI, p. 152.
Cf. Chapter VI, p. 154.
Recall here Rosenzweig’s remarks as quoted in the preceding chapter (p. 193).
For example, in the letter to Frauenstädt of 21 August 1852, where we read: “[“suill”] is Thing-in-itself only in a relative sense, i.e., in relation to phenomena: and phenomena are
phenomena only in relation to the Thing-in-itself ... I have never said what the Thing-initself is beyond this relation, since I don’t know that; but within it, it’s Will-to-Life.” (“Dieses [i.e.”Will”] ist Ding an sich bloß relativ, d.h. in seinem Verhältnis zur Erscheinung: und diese ist Erscheinung bloß in ihrer Relation zum Ding an sich ... Was das Ding an sich außerhalb jener Relation sei, habe ich nie gesagt, weil ich’s nicht weiß: in derselben aber ist’s Wille zum Leben.”
“Sobald wir ein Wirkliches anschauen, stellt es sich eo ipso als materiell da, wie auch umgekehrt ein Materielles notwendig als wirksam: es sind in der Tat Wechselbegriffe. Daher wird das Wort ‘wirklich’ als Synonym von ‘materiell’ gebraucht: auch das Griechische kaτ’ ‘ενεpγειαν, im Gegensatz von kaτa δννaµιν, beurkundet denselben Ursprung, da ‘ενερyειa das Wirken überhaupt bedeutet.” Thus, ‘ενερyειa (energeia) means nothing but Wirklichkeit, for which ‘actuality’ would in Schopenhauer’s view be a better English equivalent than ‘reality’ (as Greek kaτ’ ενερyειaν (kat’ energeian) corresponds to Latin actu, just as kaτa δννaµιν (kata dynamin) corresponds with potentiâ).
Cf. our exposition in Chapter IV, sections b. and c.
“Die Materie ist Kausalität durch und durch, ihr Seyn ist ihr Wirken.”
“‘Kraft’ ist das was, von der Ursache völlig verschieden, jedoch jeder Ursache ihre Kausalität, d.h. die Möglichkeit zu wirken, erteilt.”
Concerning ‘atomic theory’ it is interesting to notice that in Schopenhauer’s opinion the atom was nothing but a methodological fiction: “the atom is without reality” (“das Atom ist ohne Realität”). That view is typical for his ‘positivist’ or ‘phenomenalist’ conception of science (cf. our exposition in Chapter V); it was later defended against Boltzmann by Mach, and also (until owning defeat in 1908) by Ostwald. The latter figure is not mentioned by Magee, which is somewhat surprising as Ostwald’s ‘energeticism’ ought to have pleased him to the point of regarding it as an improved version of Schopenhauerianism. Ostwald himself recognized a kindred spirit in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. In his lectures on natural philosophy he praised the latter’s insight into the tremendous importance of Will, going on (not too unexpectedly) to correct it by confining Will to those processes in which living beings give out Energy, thus depriving it of the central and unique position accorded to it by Schopenhauer. The basic difference in philosophical attitude between the two men seems to be that Schopenhauer was anxious to separate the scientist’s phenomenalist proceedings from the philosopher’s task of satisfying man’s metaphysical needs, whereas in Ostwald’s ‘scientism’ one rather meets a curious blend of both.
This is well illustrated in the anti-atomism of Ostwald’s energeticism, which (as mentioned in the previous footnote) he later felt compelled to drop.
Certainly a ‘cosmic answer’ need not in itself be a ‘science-based answer’, but in people like Capra that is what it turns into in fact.
“Ihr folget falscher Spur, / Denkt nicht, wir scherzen! / Ist nicht der Kern der Natur / Menschen im Herzen?” (“You follow the wrong track, / do not think that we are joking! / Lies not nature’s core / in man’s heart?”).
For his other objections against traditional ‘εν kαι naν (hen kai pan) doctrines cf. footnote on p. 207.
“Im Tischrücken zeigt sich der Wille in seiner ursprünglichen Allmacht: lenkt er die Bewegung, so ist er auch der Beweger.”
“Menschen, die nichts als ihre Retorten, galvanischen Batterien und Froschkeulen kennen, unternehmen damit die Welt und den Menschen zu erklären”; “unter den Physikern manifestiert sich ein wirklicher Angst vor dem Tischrücken.”
‘Unhistorical’, in that all too often it entails projecting present-day tendencies or problem situations back onto the past; ‘unjust’, in that it suggests that the character concerned is not interesting for his own sake but only deserves an approving (also patronizing) nod for having enabled later people to stand upon his shoulders.
He refers here to Freud’s acknowledgement that the theory of repression appears already in Schopenhauer, although of course Freud insisted that he had made this discovery independently (more on this below).
“Sie werden vielleicht achselzuckend sagen: Das ist nicht Naturwissenschaft, das ist Schopenhauersche Philosophie. Aber warum, meine Damen und Herren, sollte nicht ein kühner Denker erraten haben, was dann nüchterne und mühselige Detailforschung bestätigt?”
“Denn der Philosoph Arthur Schopenhauer hat bereits vor geraumer Zeit den Menschen vorgehalten, in welchem Maß ihr Tun und Trachten durch sexuelle Strebungen — im gewohnten Sinne des Wortes — bestimmt wird, und eine Welt von Lesern sollte doch unfähig gewesen sein, sich eine so packende Mahnung so völlig aus dem Sinn zu schlagen!”
“. . . weil der Wille ihren Anblick nicht ertragen kann ...”
According to Schopenhauer the criterion proper for distinguishing sanity from madness rests in the ability to be quite as certain of a past event to which one has been a witness as of a present perception. As soon as I doubt whether an event remembered by me has really taken place I expose myself to the suspicion of madness; that is why suspicion of madness makes one unfit to act as a witness in court. For, although a madman may occasionally have witty ideas or single intelligent thoughts or even correct judgements, he is never a valid witness of a past event. It is interesting (although as far as we know this has never been confirmed statistically) that Schopenhauer considers actors to be particularly prone to madness because they strain their memory to premature exhaustion by studying a new role or brushing up an old one every day; moreover, their roles are often mutually contradictory, so the actor must be another person every evening.
“Nun haben wir kein anderes Mittel zur Beherrschung unserer Triebhaftigkeit als unsere Intelligenz.”
Janaway writes: “Kant has three discernible conceptions of the self, which continually threaten to become conceptions of three selves, each distinct from the others. There is, first, the empirical self — the collection of mental states appearing in the inner sense. Secondly, there is the self as it is in itself — that of which those states are an appearance [i.e., the intelligible self, PL]. And thirdly, the self as pure subject — that for which those states are there, and which can think of them as its own” [i.e. the transcendental self, PL]. Cf. also our Chapter I, footnote on p. 20 and Chapter VI, p. 161 with appended footnote.
“Aber andrerseits sehen wir dasselbe Ich als armes Ding, welches unter dreierlei Dienstbarkeit steht und demzufolge unter den Drohungen von dreierlei Gefahren leidet, von der Außenwelt her, von der Libido des Es und von der Strenge des Über-Ichs.”
“Nicht nur das Tiefste, auch das Höchste am Ich kann unbewußt sein.”
This rather crude identification of ‘conscience’ and ‘sense of guilt’ is phrased more subtly elsewhere in the same essay ‘Das Ich und das Es’ : “The tension between the claims of conscience and the actions of the I is experienced as a sense of guilt” (“Die Spannung zwischen den Ansprüchen des Gewissens und den Leistungen des Ichs wird als Schuldgefühl empfunden”); also in more elaborate fashion in chapters VII and VIII of his famous ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur).
“Das Es ist ganz amoralisch, das Ich ist bemüht, moralisch zu sein, das Über-Ich kann hypermoralisch und dann so grausam werden wie nur das Es.”
“Gewiß, und dies ist das höhere Wesen, das Ichideal oder Über-Ich, die Repräsentanz unserer Elternbeziehung. Als Kind haben wir diese höheren Wesen gekannt, bewundert, gefürchtet, später sie in uns selbst aufgenommen.”
Cf. Chapter IV, p. 107.
According to Scheler, man is the only living creature which, by force of its spirit, is able to take a principally ‘ascetic’ attitude towards life, i.e., abstain from immediately following its natural urges and impulses. “Compared with the animal, which always says ‘yes’ to reality even when it abhors and flees it — man is the one who is able to say ‘no ‘, the ‘ascete of life ‘, the perennial Protestant against mere reality.” (“Mit dem Tiere verglichen, das immer ‘Ja’ zum Wirklichsein sagt — auch da noch, wo es verabscheut und flieht — ist der Mensch der ‘Nein-sagenkönner’, der ‘Asket des Lebens ‘, der ewige Protestant gegen die bloße Wirklichkeit.”). Indeed; and this is true not only for the ascete in the normal sense (although the Buddha presents indeed the most radical form of this tendency) but also for those who have a positive attitude towards real life, but who, precisely because of that, want to change and improve it. It is interesting to compare Scheler’s description of man as the sole creature capable of saying ‘no’ with Sartre’s conception of human existence as “pour soi” rather than just “en soi”, which mode of existence he defines as the human propensity to say ‘non’. Ultimately, therefore, human existence is “nothing” against the “Being” of all other creatures (L ‘être et le néant being the title of Sartre’s first magnum opus in philosophy; as we shall see presently, in his L ‘existentialisme est un humanisme he also said of man that he ‘is’ nothing but can only ‘become’ something, namely, that into which he makes himself).
The titles of the four ‘books’ this work consists of are: Book I ‘Der Welt als Vorstellung erste Betrachtung: Die Vorstellung unterworfen dem Satze vom Grunde: das Objekt der Erfahrung und Wissenschaft’; Book II ‘Der Welt als Wille erste Betrachtung: Die Objektivation des Willens’; Book III ‘Der Welt als Vorstellung zweite Betrachtung: Die Vorstellung, unabhängig vom Satze vom Grunde: die Platonische Idee, das Objekt der Kunst’; Book IV ‘Der Welt als Wille zweite Betrachtung: Bei erreichter Selbsterkenntniß, Bejahung und Verneinung des Willens zum Leben’.
“Diese Welt ist der Wille zur Macht — und nichts außerdem!”
“Against the theory that the ‘in-itself’ of things must necessarily be good, blessed, true and one, Schopenhauer’s interpretation of the ‘in-itself’ as will was an essential step; but he did not understand how to deify this will; he remained entangled in the moral-Christian ideal. To that extent Schopenhauer still stood under the dominion of Christian values that (now that the Thing-in-itself was for him no longer ‘God’) he could see it only as bad, stupid, and absolutely reprehensible.” (“Daß ein ‘An-sich der Dinge’ notwendig gut, selig, wahr, eins sein müsse, dagegen war Schopenhauer’s Interpretation des ‘An-sich’s’als Wille ein wesentlicher Schritt: nur verstand er nicht, diesen Willen zu vergöttlichen: er blieb im moralisch-christlichen Ideal hängen. Schopenhauer stand so weit noch unter der Herrschaft der christlichen Werte, daß er, nachdem ihm das Ding an sich nicht mehr ‘Gott’ war, es als schlecht, dumm, absolut verwerflich sehen mußte.”).
See above, p. 198.
See above, footnote on p. 200.
“Lexististentialisme athée ... déclare que si Dieu n’existe pas, il y a au moins un être chez qui l’existence précède à l’essence.” “L’homme, tel que le conçoit l’existentialiste, s’il n’est pas définissable, c’est qu’il n’est d’abord rien. Il ne sera qu’ensuite et il sera tel qu’il se sera fait.” Thus, Sartre’s existentialism, with its ‘situation-ethics’, insists that, when facing a certain situation, I am compelled to adopt some attitude towards it. As a result, I am responsible for my choice not only towards myself but towards all men, because with my engagement I engage at the same time humanity as a whole — we cannot in fact engage in an action with which we ‘create’ the man we want to be without at the same time creating an image of man as he should be in our opinion. This may well be seen as an attempt to radicalize, on the one hand, Kant’s idea of ethical autonomy by stripping it of its rational certainty, yet on the other hand to avoid Gide’s theory of the acte gratuit (cf. Chapter VII, p. 185) since the latter means, according to Sartre, to act out of a mere whim (caprice). Whether the attempt is very convincing, and especially whether Sartre’s political ‘engagements’ have actually been very fortunate, remains of course another question.
On this topic the essential has long ago been said already by Pascal when, in the Pensées, he wrote: “Man is to himself the greatest prodigy in nature, for he cannot conceive what body is, and still less what mind is, and least of all how a body can be joined to a mind. This is his supreme difficulty, and yet it is his very being. The way in which minds are attached to bodies is beyond man ‘s understanding, and yet this is what man is.” (“L’homme est à lui-même le plus prodigieux objet de la nature; car il ne peut concevoir ce que c’est que corps, et encore moins ce que c’est qu’esprit, et moins qu’aucune chose comme un corps peut être uni avec un esprit. C’est là le comble de ses difficultés, et cependant c’est son propre être: Modus quo corporibus adhaerent spiritus comprehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est”; the passage in Latin is from St Augustine).
Kant, in the second, teleological part of his Critique of Judgement, stresses in his sober way, on the one hand, the need for a non-mechanistic, teleological view of nature since we cannot hope that there will ever arise a Newton who could make plausible the coming into being of even a simple blade of grass by laws of nature that are not ordered by design or intention, but also the need, dictated by our reason, to go on as long as we can to regard nature’s productive faculty in a purely mechanical way, since teleology, although a necessary postulate of reason, cannot scientifically explain anything without lapsing into tautologies. So according to Kant one could imagine a combination of mechanical and teleological laws in the products of nature without contaminating the principles of judgement or putting the one in the place of the other. Since it is impossible for our reason to determine how much mechanism nature introduces as a means to its ultimate end, we cannot know either how far mechanical ways of explanation may go; only that they are insufficient for things that we recognize as ends of nature, and that therefore we must subordinate mechanical reasons to a teleological principle. We are here back again at Kant’s distinction between Grenzen and Schranken (cf. Chapter VI, p. 136).
Chapter VII, footnote on p. 185.
This goes not only for traditional religious explanations, but also for Hegel’s objective idealism. Moreover, bereft of its ‘idealist’ clothing the latter leads to a historical reductionism which leaves as little place for human freedom as a biological one. In both cases we are concerned with the Cretan who must have lied in any case (cf. footnote on p. 202); for evidently the reductionist is convinced of the determinedness and, hence, the ultimate lack of truth of all statements ... except his own! For the rest, what we said in the above about the discipline of biology goes likewise for the discipline of history as such; indeed, it is a problem as legitimate as it is fascinating (and we have tried to contribute to its solution in the course of this study) why the conditio humana described in the above (while fundamentally universal) has assumed in the West that much more pointed guise which has resulted in a world which may be said to be broken by modern science.
This expression was actually used twice by Schopenhauer; in the ‘Critique of Kantian Philosophy’ as regards epistemology (Kant’s statement that the object of intuition is given to us; cf. our exposition in Chapter IV, p. 96), and in ‘On the Foundation of Morals’ as regards ethics (Kant’s statement that it is not what actually happens but what ought to happen, even if it never happens, that should be the starting-point of moral philosophy; cf. our exposition in Chapter VI, p. 149).
Cf. our exposition in Chapter IV, p. 92.
Cf. our exposition in Chapter IV, p. 99.
The last work Kant completed is the Anthropologie published in 1798. It is therefore a product of his old age and bears the signs of it; as (in agreement with Raymund Schmidt’s view) we remarked in Chapter VII, p. 178, it was Kant’s tragedy that he proved unable to accomplish the ‘positive’ part of his philosophy because he was already at an advanced age when he had completed the necessary preliminary ‘critical’ part. Kant’s ‘Anthropology’ surely offers many an interesting observation on human nature, but taken as a whole it reminds one of the worldly wisdom of, say, Schopenhauer’s Parerga und Paralipomena rather than of an elaborated, philosophical anthropology.
“Zu Feuerbachs ‘Sinnlichkeit’ gehören Tatbestände wie seelisches und physisches Leid, Schmerz, Organlust, Leidenschaft und Glück, Bedürfnisse, Wünsche und Triebe, aber auch Kategorien wie Widerstand, Materie, Praxis, Anschauung, Phantasie, und — Liebe.”
Cf. our remarks in Chapter I, p. 38. In fact the same happened to Marx, whose originally anthropological approach (to be found especially in the Paris manuscripts) finally resulted in a philosophical materialism which pretended to give a fully fledged explication not only of the workings of society but also of those of nature (the latter perhaps more so in Engels’ Anti-Dühring than in Marx himself).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lauxtermann, P.F.H. (2000). The Paradox: Can God Commit Suicide?. In: Schopenhauer’s Broken World-View. Science and Philosophy, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9369-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9369-4_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5566-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9369-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive