Schopenhauer like Kant tries to defend a principled “compassionism” by claiming that the thing-in-itself, the “will”, for Schopenhauer, is an a priori entity or essence that cannot be reached in epistemology and must therefore be “intuited” in ethics. I interpret this to mean that along with the skepticism of real “rational” knowledge, human beings can make evaluations like “the will to life is bad”, in general, or “life is a tragedy”, etc.
Along with the transcendence of the thing-in-itself, wouldn’t also the ethical evaluations of it escape human beings as well? How could we know, as Schopenhauer suggests, that “life is inherently bad” if the value of the thing-in-itself must also transcend the immanent reality of what we experience?
Kant invented this noumenal as Schopenhauer went one way with it, Nietzsche the other, both remaining metaphysicians in the Kantian sense. Even in Nietzsche’s polemics of analytical rationalism, he uses metaphorical arguments which are platonically allegorical. He is at one moment a metaphysican and at another a pure skeptical scientist. It is when he makes moral statements about anything that he becomes platonic and romantic. But such inquiries about reality cannot be made when the noumenal is hidden from epistemology completely. Not even Kant’s intuition can reach it.
For Schopenhauer, compassion as a principle is a result of there being nothing else to do with a meaningless existence. For Kant, the universe might or might not be meaningless (because God might exist) and compassion should be treated like an analytical certainty, just like science treats natural phenomena, in case God exists. (Cause if he does…it’s your ass)
For Nietzsche, we get a wonderful and daring deviation from the classical romanticism and the emphasis on the spirits of liberty, democracy, divinity, freedom, and justice. His use of the greek tragedy to demonstrate the existential remainders in human existence…those paradoxes and dilemmas and ironies which exemplify the most absurd aspects of life and existence, kind of forced out any idealistic fantasies about divine meaning for this universe. A God could not possible have created this universe. Surely not.
Nietzsche (and more so Kierkegaard) took the philosophical value and excitement out of the enlightenment period and helped forge the denial of the scientific revolution of the modern world. Even after we conquer philosophy, our sciences remain meaningless.
Finally Nietzsche does what is to be expected: if shit is what we get, shit is what we will want.
Many mistake this as a nihilistic attitude, and forget that it is not like Kant and Schopenhauer where not only is fate meaningless, but any effort, any will, any desire is therefore also inexcusable and useless if it is not accounted for by an ethical belief which is “good”.
Nietzsche is saying because of both the failure of the philosophies and the sciences, man should become again the romantic simply because maybe…he shouldn’t. At least art can be made out of meaninglessness.