This is an essay I handed in recently. I would have loved to have gone further into Schopenhauer’s Hindu influence, but unfortunately I had a 3,500 word recommendation.
I am not sure why emoticons appeared in certain sections of the in-text referencing.
"A Genealogy of Schopenhauer's Pessimism".
Introduction.
The origin of Schopenhauer's pessimism is the coalescence of several strands of thought by various philosophers and religions. The two main sources that influence Schopenhauer on his overall position is Kant with his distinction of the human being possessing an "empirical character" and an "intelligible character", and the Hindu scriptures, particularly the "Upanishads" and the "Bhagavadgita" and their emphasis that human beings are the make-up of three distinct "moods". These three distinctive moods are, knowledge (Sattva-Guna), willing (Raja-Guna), and boredom (Tama-Guna). Schopenhauer also is also influenced by Buddhism, the reason being that Buddhism claims all life is suffering and the core root of this suffering is craving. This is identical to Schopenhauer's reason for his pessimistic doctrine. Other influences include the negative view that Christianity holds of the world and the human being in general. This paper will firstly outline Schopenhauer's view of the world and "will" as an entity of suffering and therefore inherently pessimistic. Schopenhauer's view is metaphysical rather than physical and centres around the conclusion that we endlessly strive for well-being, but once this goal is reached we become bored thus making it only a temporary state and so we soon fall back into striving for well-being once more. Life is ultimately a cyclic process that sees human beings suffering constantly while attempting to reach a goal that never arrives. The paper will then move onto inquire as to where Schopenhauer received his conception of "will" from, and this section will cover Kant and his distinction between human beings possessing an "empirical character" and an "intelligible character". We will see it is from Kant that Schopenhauer acquires his conception of "will" when examining Kant's "intelligible character". The paper will then move onto explain Schopenhauer's influence from Hindu thought. Hindu thought maintained that living solely in the world of sensorial perception leads to suffering, a view Schopenhauer totally agreed with. This paper will examine the three principle "moods" Hindu thought claimed covered the entire existence of the life of the human being, paying particular attention to the moods of willing and boredom. For the Hindus these two moods led to a miserable existence and this is exactly the conclusion Schopenhauer came to. The paper then examines two sections from the book of "Romans" in the New Testament. These two sections Schopenhauer finds appealing and ultimately coincide with his own view of the world and self. These two sections centre around the claims of the fixed nature of the human being in regards to its sexual nature, and that a force of some description is pulling the human being along in life beyond his or her control. The bible claims it is God that is leading the human being into a fatal existence, Schopenhauer totally agrees with the fatalist imperative but replaces the entity of God with "will". Finally, a small description of Buddhism and its influence on Schopenhauer will be dealt with. Buddhist thought coincides with Hindu thought in many regards so a full expansion will be unnecessary. Nevertheless, Buddhism maintains that all life is suffering and the cause of this suffering is from craving, this is identical to Schopenhauer's view on suffering. An outline and examination the Buddhist "four noble truths" will emphasize this point.
Schopenhauer’s Pessimism.
Schopenhauer’s pessimism is due primarily to his conception of the human being possessing a force inside it called “will”. The “will” is an unconscious force of energy that continually pushes the human being to strive towards the objective of happiness. The human being does not have a choice in this, the “will” controls him, not him the “will”. Schopenhauer states, “the will, considered purely in itself, is devoid of knowledge, and is only a blind irresistible urge, as we see it appear in inorganic and vegetative nature and in their laws, and also in the vegetative part of our own life” (1969:27). The will is self-enacting and is not subject to what the human being wants, the human being is subjected to what the will wants. Schopenhauer justifies this claim by stating there are three aspects of causality that exist in the world, “cause”, “stimuli”, and “motive”. “A cause - is that upon which changes in the inorganic kingdom alone ensue - which form the theme of Mechanics, Physics, and Chemistry” (Schopenhauer 1891:53). Stimuli is “movement of the inner economy of the organism, - the complex nature of the animal organism necessitated an outer sensorium for the apprehension of the outer world and the will’s reaction on that outer world - in order to direct the will’s reaction upon inner stimuli likewise” (Schopenhauer 1891:241). A motive is “when an influence from the outside causes the act, [and] has a brain for a mediator” (Schopenhauer 1891:238). Schopenhauer’s pessimism primarily grows from understanding the stimuli aspect of causality. The will being in itself stimuli makes it according to Schopenhauer, “absolutely free and entirely self-determining and for it there is no law” (1969:285). Whereas a motive involves a decision making process where the human being makes a choice between different avenues presented to it, the stimuli aspect is self-causing and therefore beyond the control of the human being. It is this “out-of-our-control” factor as to what lies at the heart of Schopenhauer’s pessimism.
The objective of the will is the, “maintenance of this existence - [and] the propagation of the race” (Schopenhauer 1969:312). The first objective brings the day to day activities of mankind, “health, food, protection from wet and cold” (Schopenhauer 2004:43), in short, the basic needs of existence. Once this is acquired the next phase of the will kicks in, that of sexual satisfaction. This need is the attempt to satiate the sexual impulse and Schopenhauer calls this, “the most decided affirmation of the will-to-live, pure and without further addition” (1969:328). From this Schopenhauer concludes that the will is primarily a sexual drive, its ultimate purpose is to pass on a seed so a new generated can be begot.
As stated before, the will’s aim is to gain happiness. Happiness can take the form of an attainted sexual target, but exists in many other sublimated forms like day to day petty wants, for example. A small summary of this process is as follows; The will attempts to strive to possess some object in the external world. This is the will unconsciously desiring an object that it thinks will make it happy, or to a lesser extent, at least content or satisfied. But once it achieves its goal the will becomes bored and so must strive again to attempt to possess happiness. This cycle repeats itself over and over ad infinitum as long as the individual is alive and then repeats itself through the proceeding generations thereafter. As Schopenhauer states, “all striving springs from want or deficiency, from dissatisfaction with one’s own state or condition, and is suffering so long as it is not satisfied. - [I]ts attainment of the goal, on the other hand, we call satisfaction, well-being, happiness” (1969:309). “[A]s soon as want and suffering give man a relaxation, boredom is at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion and amusement” (Schopenhauer1969:313). Boredom for Schopenhauer is a key point, it is such a wretched feeling that it forces people to will again. As Young states, “it is a condition of fear of which is surely a major driving force in human life” (2005:210). People become a “burden to themselves” (Schopenhauer 1969:313) and need to “kill time” (Schopenhauer 1969:313) and this is done via “panem et circenses” (bread and circuses) (Schopenhauer 1969:313), which is a metaphor for petty day to day wants. For Schopenhauer, this is the condition for all common people.
This pessimistic view of Schopenhauer’s goes on further to posit that striving and suffering is a positive. Striving and suffering is for Schopenhauer the only real state of existence, the negation of suffering is therefore a negative, because once we satiate a desire the suffering only temporarily ceases and so it was an illusion all along. The will’s only condition is to suffer and feel pain, hence the cessation of willing is negative. Schopenhauer explains, “for evil is precisely that which is positive, that which makes itself palpable; and good, on the other hand, i.e. all happiness and all gratification, is that which is negative, the mere abolition of a desire and extinction of pain” (2004:41-42). Temporary satisfaction of a desire is a negative because “[i]t is not a gratification which comes to us originally and of itself, but must always be the satisfaction of a wish” (Schopenhauer1969:319).
Kant’s Influence.
Due to the centrality of “the will” in Schopenhauer’s pessimistic outlook, it is of high importance to find the source of this concept. The will, for Schopenhauer, comes from Kant’s distinction between human beings possessing an “empirical character” and an “intelligible character”. Also, Kant made a claim that there are two differentiations to be made when attempting to fathom the world, the “world of appearances” and the “things-in-themselves”, this was also of importance for Schopenhauer. Kant explains, “[B]elonging to the sensible world have, first an empirical character, whereby its actions, as appearances, stand in thoroughgoing connection with other appearances in accordance with unvarying laws of nature. Secondly, we should also have to allow the subject an intelligible character by which is indeed the cause of those same actions [in their quality] as appearances, which does not stand under the conditions of sensibility, and is itself not appearance. We can entitle the former the character of the thing in itself in the [field of] appearances, and the latter its character as thing in itself” (1952:256). For Schopenhauer, the will is this “thing in itself” that Kant speaks of, it is unknowable to sense perception and exists as something innate in the human being. As Schopenhauer states, “[t]hing in itself signifies that which exists independently of our perception, to Kant it was = x; to me it is will” (2004:55). This intelligible character (or will) is what drives the human being to action but can only be sensed by our senses in the world of appearances or in its “empirical character”. So, in actual fact, the empirical character is only the intelligible character (will) manifesting itself after the fact. As Schopenhauer states, “the empirical character - is the mere unfolding of the intelligible character - [and] is to be regarded as the temporal unfolding of an extra-temporal, and so indivisible and unalterable, act of will” (1969:301). Kant does not expand upon the unpredictability of the “intelligible character” as Schopenhauer does, Kant maintains that the essence of it remains a mystery to us, nor does he have a pessimistic view of this “intelligible character”.
Schopenhauer also took to heart another vital point of Kant’s, “this acting subject would not, in its intelligible character, stand under any conditions of time; time is only a condition of appearances, not of things in themselves. In this subject, no action would begin or cease, and it would not, therefore, have to conform to the law of determination of all that is alterable in time” (Kant 1952:256). Schopenhauer comprehensively agreed with Kant in this statement, the will (intelligible character) is not subject to time or anything else in the world of appearance. The will (intelligible character) has no beginning, as was stated before concerning the stimuli aspect of causality, or end but continues ad infinitum by procreating in each generation thereafter. In the phenomenal world that is represented by the human body, it lives and dies and so ceases to exist, but what lives on is the “thing in itself”, in this case, the will. For when a person dies Schopenhauer states, “that when this happens it is only a phenomenon coming to end in time - without the thing in itself being affected thereby”(2004:68). “For it is true that everyone is transitory only as phenomenon; on the other hand, as thing in itself he is timeless, and so endless” (Schopenhauer 1969:282). The thing that Schopenhauer acquires from Kant that leads to his pessimistic doctrine is that the will or intelligible character has a life of its own and is therefore beyond our control. It is this continual cycle of the will as thing in itself that continues on ad infinitum and is not subject to the conditions of time and that expresses itself as the highest “affirmation of the will to live” as to what leads to misery. As was stated in similar terms beforehand by Schopenhauer, “the will wills life absolutely and for all time, it exhibits itself at the same time as the sexual impulse which has endless series of generations in view” (1966:568). Put simply, it desires endlessly beyond the control of the human being and the miseries that follow due to its uncontrollability is the root cause of Schopenhauer’s pessimism.
Hindu Influence.
Schopenhauer has also been heavily influenced by Hindu beliefs, particularly those in the Upanishads and Bhagavadgita. Schopenhauer’s doctrine of pessimism is almost identical to Hindu thought, both maintain that willing is suffering and hence the majority of life is painful. Schopenhauer claims there are three sides to life, while stating these he places the Hindu perspective in parenthesis that coincides with his own. They are, “[f]irstly, powerful and vehement willing, the great passions (Raja-Guna). Secondly, pure knowing, the comprehension of the Ideas, conditioned by the freeing knowledge from the service of the will (Sattva-Guna). Thirdly, the greatest lethargy of the will and also of the knowledge attached to it, namely empty longing, life-benumbing boredom (Tama-Guna)” (1969:321). Let us now proceed to look at the Bhagavadgita to see its perspective on these three positions. Raja-Guna is, “fieriness, know thou, is in essence passion, and is sprung from yearnings and clingings - it fetters the body’s tenant with the attachment of works” (Hindu Scriptures 1938:272). Sattva-Guna is “goodness, because it is pellucid, is luminous and untroubled, and fetters by the attachment of pleasantness and the attachment of knowledge” (Hindu Scriptures 1938:272), and Tama-Guna is, “gloom, know thou, is born of ignorance, and bewilders all dwellers of the body; it fetters by heedlessness, sloth, and sleep” (Hindu Scriptures 1938:272). It is the first and third elements, Raja-Guna and Tama-Guna that are of importance to Schopenhauer’s pessimistic perspective. “Guna” is an unfamiliar word in modern English so we had better inquire further as to what is a Guna. Barnett states it is, “[t]he phases into which matter or nature by its own essence is determined for the fulfillment of its immanent activities without losing thereby its ultimate unity” (Barnett in Hindi Scriptures 1938:236), or, to put it more succinctly, they are “moods” (Hindu Scriptures 1938:236). The latter simpler distinction is more comprehensible when looked at in context of Schopenhauer; Sattva-Guna = knowledge mood, Raja-Guna = willing mood, and Tama-Guna = boredom mood.
Let us compare each quote from the Bhagavadgita with a quote of Schopenhauer’s to emphasize the similarity between his doctrine and that of the Hindus. Raja-Guna “is in essence passion, and is sprung from yearnings and clingings”. Schopenhauer would claim this “yearning with passion” is actually the will doing what it does, willing life. Consider this statement, “the will finds itself - in an endless and boundless world - all striving, suffering, and erring” (Schopenhauer 1966:573). The other relevant Guna, Tama-Guna, for Schopenhauer is intimately linked with Raja-Guna, for once a goal of the will has temporarily been achieved it becomes bored and so must will again. Tama-Guna is permeated by “gloom, heedlessness, and sloth” and coincides with Schopenhauer’s view that, “[l]ife presents itself as first and foremost a task: the task of maintaining itself[.] If this task is accomplished, what has been gained is a burden, and then there appears a second task: that of doing something with it so as to ward off boredom” (2004:53). Boredom equates to sloth, gloom and heedlessness. It is not hard to see Schopenhauer’s pessimistic outlook coinciding with this text. Just as in the ancient Indus Valley they saw striving for physical objects and idleness of the mind as leading to suffering and inner torment, Schopenhauer comes to the very same conclusion 4,000 years later in modern Germany. The Bhagavadgita is littered with references of the sufferings that human beings endure when they strive ceaselessly after objects. Schopenhauer’s pessimism is not a recent manifestation in the world, if we take Hindu thought to be one of the first manifestations of pessimism expressed in text, then it dates back many thousands of years to about 2,000 B.C. (see Matthews 1999:82).
Christianity’s Influence.
There are similarities between certain parts of Christianity and Schopenhauer’s pessimistic doctrine that are central to his gloomy outlook, even though he has no belief in the Christian deity itself as he was an atheist. Nietzsche points out that “unconditional and honest atheism is the locus of Schopenhauer’s whole integrity” (Nietzsche in Janaway 1999:318), even though Schopenhauer “consistently takes his own view to coincide with Christianity proper” (Janaway 1999:320). There are two similarities worth mentioning, the fixed nature of the human being, and the original sin. Schopenhauer cites the book of Romans sections ix 11-24 from the New Testament. This section explains the power that God has over human beings and that he will do to them as he wishes. For God says, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish. So then, everything depends, not on what man wants or does, but only on God’s mercy. Who can resist God’s will? But who are you my friend, to answer God back? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, ‘why did you make me like this?’ After all, the man who makes pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes” (Romans 1998:1257-8). Schopenhauer’s reply towards this section is, “[I]n the Christian teaching we find the dogma of predestination in consequence of election and non election by grace (Romans ix, 11-24). Therefore his conduct is, so to speak, fixed and settled even at his birth, and remains essentially the same to the very end” (1969:293). Schopenhauer has interpreted this, not as God dominating the human being, but the will dominating him. God is synonymous with will and the terms are to be used interchangeably during the whole passage. The passage is to be understood metaphorically when grasping Schopenhauer’s admiration of this section, for he does not believe in the Christian God.
Schopenhauer also mentions Romans v 12-21. This section tells the story of Adam and Eve when they were tempted by the devil to eat the forbidden fruit. In doing so the whole of the human race was condemned thereafter to suffer for the sins of one man. As the Bible states, "[s]in came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned "(Romans 1998:1253). Schopenhauer has interpreted the original sin as sexual activity, the story of the temptation of the forbidden fruit is none other than a metaphor for the underlying sexual temptation that tempts all human beings. For he adds, “religious teaching regards every individual…as identical with Adam, with the representative of the affirmation of life, and to this extent as fallen into sin, suffering, and death” (Schopenhauer 1969:329). Just as Adam was under the sway of a force he could not control, so are we all, according to Schopenhauer. For as we recall, the sexual impulse is the inorganic force inside us all that leads us to acquire satisfaction with no end. “The sexual impulse is proved to be the decided and strongest affirmation of life, [and] it is his final end and highest goal” (Schopenhauer 1969:329). We must add that this interpretation of Christianity is an Augustinian view of the world (see Armstrong 1993:123-4).
These two sections show where Schopenhauer acquired worthy sources to help justify his own argument that we are at the mercy of a force beyond our means. The first quote from Romans ix 11-24 shows the fixed nature of mankind and the second quote from Romans shows how this fixed nature is primarily a sexual disposition.
Buddhist Influence.
Schopenhauer’s Buddhist influence comes late in his philosophical life, it is rarely mentioned in his earlier works, but is quoted and praised heavily in his later writings. There are only “eight references to Buddhist thought in - “World as Will and Representation”. By comparison, in the second volume, there are at least thirty references” (Nicholls 1999:177). Nevertheless, the similarities between the pessimism of Schopenhauer and that of Buddhism is almost identical. Let us look at the four basic truths of Buddhism, “[f]irst, all of life is suffering, second, the cause of suffering is craving, third, the end of suffering is getting rid of craving and grasping. Fourth, the method to use in overcoming suffering is the Eight-Fold Path” (Matthews 1999:136). The four truths are almost identical to Schopenhauer’s pessimistic mentality, but only the first two are necessary to investigate for this paper. The first truth, “all life is suffering”, is one that Schopenhauer would wholeheartedly agree with. He states incessantly throughout his works that our existence is one of suffering and that happiness is illusionary. Consider this quote, “[i]f the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and accidental” (Schopenhauer 2004:41). The cause of this suffering as the second truths states is “craving”. As stated before by Schopenhauer in other sections of this paper, the constant striving of the will leads to suffering. “The buddhist idea of thirst is Schopenhauer’s idea that all forms of life are essentially will” (Nicholls 1999:190). “Thirst” here used by Nicholls meaning “craving” or “striving”.
Conclusion.
This paper argued the origins of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic metaphysical system. It began this enquiry by firstly outlining what Schopenhauer’s pessimistic doctrine consisted of. As was explained, his pessimism centred around an idea called “will” and that it desired ceaselessly beyond the control of the human being to no end. The paper then began its genealogical investigation by tracing back this concept to Kant’s idea of human beings possessing an “intelligible character”. For Kant, the “intelligible character” was a mystery and therefore unknowable to human inquiry. But Schopenhauer knew what this “intelligible character” was, it was will. The pessimistic idea behind the will has its roots in Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian thought. Hinduism and Buddhism hold very similar views on why the world is a tormenting place. They seem to differ only in semantic terminology rather than definition. Both claim that desiring or “attachments” to objects in the physical world leads to suffering. This is identical to Schopenhauer’s idea that the will incessantly craves to be satiated by latching onto objects in the phenomenal world. The only real difference is that Schopenhauer’s will is primarily a sexual instinct whereas no such distinction is made in Hinduism and Buddhism. The influence of Christianity takes the form of two important factors, the fixed nature of the human being and the core reason for suffering being the sexual drive. Schopenhauer claims his doctrine “coincides with Christianity proper”, this statement reflects more on his ethical stance rather than his metaphysical stance. Nevertheless, his agreement with the myths expressed in the bible coincide with the idea that the will is of a fixed nature from birth until death, and that the will (sexual instinct) is the cause of all suffering.
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