80 thalers was actually a very substantial sum of money in the German States in the 19th century. A Thaler Was a very large Silver coin weighing well over an ounce of silver, usually around 30 grams and usually over 40 millimeters in diameter, with some variance from state to state as Germany was not unified at this point and was a loose decentralized confederation of territories. This amount of silver that made up one thaler had a high amount of purchasing power and the average yearly wage for a Laborer in most German territories was about 30 thalers as an annual salary, so you could imagine that 80 thalers would be a fairly substantial amount of money in Hamburg or Frankfort in the 1800s. This is actually something that I am pretty well versed in, as I am a Numismatist and an avid l collector of German States coins and I have several thalers in my collection dating back to the 1500s. Another interesting fact is that the English word "Dollar" actually comes from the Germanic word "thaler" which is it's entomological root word
60 thalers in 1840 is $3,500 in today's dollars. (The incident occurred in 1821 and she died in 1842.) As the above notes, this would have provided the woman with a comfortable life for a single person, although the standard of living was very low then compared with today. In 1850, a family of five typically spent 180 thalers a year.
@@HammyGiblets In most sources it is written (Thaler) but in some of the German states and in some of the low countries it was sometimes spelled (Taler) but in either case the "H" would be silent and the "A" would make the (ah) sound and not the (ay) sound. So it would be pronounced (TAA-LUH) or sometimes (TAA-LER). In some German states it was pronounced with the hard "R" at the end, and in some regions it would be pronounced with more of an "Uh" sound at the end instead... Hope this might be helpful!
This narrator is so casually intellectually gifted that it makes me want to chuckle. He's the kind of guy who could talk about Anything but is so gifted that I'd go along for the ride, even if it was just to Walmart.
He's a third rate non entity. Nice to fall asleep to. Has he published anything. And if so, is it anything durable, visionary, or is he just avoiding a job and summarizing Walter Kauffman over and over.
Here's something really interesting. I'm currently staking my life on Schopenhauer being correct. I'm involved in a project where I'm giving my life away to the saxophone. I'm literally living a life of pure discipline. No worldly desire, only hard work, alone. So I have to believe Schopenhauer is right as long as I keep playing saxophone
Takhle společnost si rada a velmi casto zaměňuje realismus a pesimismus... To, ze nekdo rika pravdu a vam se to nelibi, z neho nedělá pesimistu... Jako s tou blondýnečkou tedka v autě...
Thank you very much for this. I have been searching for an overview of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that clarifies his thought on the subject-object distinction, his criticism of competing schools, the exact role of the POSR, and other tenents beyond simply focusing on the Will.
When we pierce the veil, we behold not God, but Satan, the wicked omnipotent will, perpetually busied in weaving a web of suffering for the torture of its creatures. Terrified by the Diabolic Vision, the sage cries "Avaunt!" and seeks refuge in non-existence. A.S.
Exactly! He is leaving unsaid that which cannot really be said (I might add, at the time when he lived, forgive me for that). "All is vanity," as he quotes. But the "all" in that quote is not really all. I think he was polite enough to avoid going into that, instead, restricting his words to what would survive the process of representation in finitude.
Schopenhauer was definitely a genius. His metaphysical system is by far the one which I find most plausible. I think it’s the culmination of monistic thinking. He brings together Plato, Kant and Advaita Vedanta in to a beautiful crafted synthesis.
This is a brilliant podcast. I most definitely will be reading Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.. Didn't realise Schoppenhauer's metaphysics and epistemology was such a profound and brilliant continuation of Kant's (my favorite philosopher) undertaking and approach.. Thank you so much for this.
Idk- my father had a degree in Philosophy and drank himself to death at 51, although successful. My ex husband had a Philosophy degree and drank himself to death after retiring from civil service age 65. My brother had a masters, nearly finished a PhD in Philosophy, (Harpur College as it was known then) and drank himself to death at 64 after leaving the PhD program and starting a construction company. Just weird facts. Dont think to hard y’all or drink too hard haha. Im a retired RN who got sober 40 years ago. Dont know how I landed on this channel …Good luck everybody
Hey, look at me everybody. Am I pretty? Hey, look at me everybody, I'm a nurse. Hey, look at me everybody I go on the comment section of a philosophy video and tell everybody all about my life and how important I am and how important my experiences are for everyone else. Good luck to you all!
Schopenhauer In-Depth: The Total Denial of the World by the Greatest Pessimist of Philosophy 00:00 📚 Arthur Schopenhauer is known for being a quintessential pessimist who argued that life is futile and filled with suffering. 01:23 🌍 Schopenhauer's philosophy distinguishes the world as "will" (undivided force) and "representation" (phenomena subject to laws and perception). 03:18 📖 Schopenhauer's main work, "World as Will and Representation," influenced Nietzsche and remained his core philosophy throughout life. 06:36 💰 Schopenhauer came from a merchant family, worked as a clerk, and later pursued philosophy with a fixed worldview. 10:02 🌐 Schopenhauer's philosophy was influenced by Indian philosophy, particularly the Upanishads. 14:22 🕰 Schopenhauer maintained a rigid daily routine for 27 years, emphasizing his unyielding character. 16:41 🔥 Nietzsche was introduced to Schopenhauer's ideas by a friend and diverged from him by embracing life's affirmation. 20:47 🤔 Schopenhauer's philosophy begins with the concept of the "world as will," which is the fundamental aspect of reality. 21:44 🌎 Schopenhauer argues that the world exists in two aspects: will and representation, and he relates this to our subjective experience and consciousness. 23:08 🤯 According to Schopenhauer, our bodies are both objects in the world of representation and the means through which our will acts in the world. 24:35 🧐 Schopenhauer contends that the will is the inner nature of the self and is different from mere representation. 26:00 ⚖ Schopenhauer argues that the will is groundless and the source of all phenomena, not subject to causality. 28:24 🌟 The "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer is the will, which underlies all phenomena and is indivisible. 30:15 💭 Schopenhauer believes that feeling is the manifestation of the will within the body. 32:45 🌌 Schopenhauer extends the concept of the will to all phenomena in nature, including forces like magnetism and gravitation. 35:06 🤔 Schopenhauer chooses the term "will" because it reflects our direct experience of inner desire, making it more understandable than other abstract terms like "force" or "energy." Please note that these key takeaways are based on the provided video transcript. 41:43 🧠 Schopenhauer emphasizes the importance of looking to one's immediate certainties within their subjective experience, focusing on feelings, desires, and passions as the gateway to understanding fundamental reality. 43:36 🔍 Schopenhauer believes that no amount of science can break us out of the limitations of empiricism, as we receive the world through the senses. He advocates for using reason to make synthetic judgments a priori to understand reality. 46:31 🌌 Schopenhauer asserts that gravity, like all forces in nature, represents the will's blind striving, with no awareness or self-awareness, and it affects all things with mass, driving them to accumulate more mass. 49:52 💭 Schopenhauer argues that our perception of time, space, causality, and the principle of sufficient reason are essential components of our understanding of the world, and they belong to both the object and the subject. 52:18 🌐 Schopenhauer's epistemology highlights the compatibility of empirical reality with transcendental reality, emphasizing that everything in the world is only an object in relation to the perceiver, and it exists for the subject through representation. 55:17 🤔 Schopenhauer's principle of sufficient reason explains how time, space, and causality are necessary for the existence of matter and reality as we perceive it, bridging the gap between empirical and transcendental views of the world. 59:05 🧐 Schopenhauer contends that our interpretation of sense data through a conceptual framework, including concepts like causality and permanence, is essential for the existence of the world as we know it, which is the world of representation. 01:03:57 🧠 Schopenhauer rejects materialism because it assumes a dead world where objects exist without a subject's representation. 01:04:23 🌍 Schopenhauer believes that material objects are indirectly given to us through the senses, and our direct knowledge is of representations. 01:05:49 🤔 Schopenhauer criticizes both materialism and idealism for their errors and pitfalls in understanding reality. 01:06:46 🌌 Schopenhauer is influenced by Indian philosophers who view the world as an illusion and the true reality as an undifferentiated unity. 01:09:18 🤖 Schopenhauer sees logic as a second-order derivation of perception, and direct perception is pure knowledge.
A blissful, absolutely brilliant elucidation of A. Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Congratulations to the narrator! You have done an admirable job!!! I listened to the entire lecture, and I have to say that the narrator’s soothing voice is alike therapeutic and uplifting. Even Schopenhauer’s beautiful although dour existentialistic outlook, his incurable pessimism, could be said to be very uplifting and it is due to his marvelous philosophic mind, whose amazing puissance to soar into the essence of things, the will-to-exist, noumena, the thing in itself, is even more enthralling by all the incidental occurrences, conflicts, struggles, of life and death, as checked by our conscious self-willed existence. In Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and this awful world of the will-to-exist, however tragic in countless contests, we are blissfully carried away into a riveting contemplation of all the phenomena of Mother Nature. In my room I have a painting of a penitent nun (India Anacaona) whose countenance conveys the reality of a world of sorrows, sufferings and the wheel of samsara, which reminds me Schopenhauer’s asceticism. I also I have a copy of the Abduction of Psyche by the French artist William A. Bouguerrau, whose celebration of life through the uplifting powers of aesthetics, an orgasmic flight, reminds me of F. Nietzsche! However betwixt Nietzsche and Schopenhauer’s gloomy philosophy, the latter is extremely additive, and though we may reluctantly abhor a world so rife with sufferings, conflicts, decadence, aging, illnesses, disappointments and even meaningless, some may escape this monster-will through the path of asceticism, mysticism and aesthetics. F. Nietzsche’s solution to the problems of existence, I may argue, is in stark contrast to Schopenhauer’s mysticism, and till this day I am still struggling to set myself free from the barbaric intoxication of these Germans… Finally, I would like to say that Schopenhauer’s will to exist is solely confined to the purview of our known world, namely, the planet Earth. If this will-to-exist is so encompassing, so universal, so-far-reaching, even beyond the earthly shores of our little solar system, why is this intelligent life (human beings) so rare a phenomenon? In the long stretches of cosmic time, this will-to-exist has only be able to create a bunch of intelligent, odious, bipedal critters (humans or Homo Sapiens, which are incurably tribalistic, racist and primitive), whose greed and stupidity could finally bring a nuclear disaster on the surface of the Earth. Bravo! This is the best world of all possible worlds…thanks to those extraterrestrials, whose cool standoffishness is simply suggestive of a world of absurdity, meaninglessness and nihilism.
Thanks for this brilliant reply. It was a joy to read. I also have a couple episodes dealing with Nietzsche’s take on Schopenhauer and the differences between them, mainly from the Nietzschean perspective: ruclips.net/video/eHJGuzmEcqU/видео.html In the podcast feed, it’s two episodes (sort of like this video), but they’re combined into one video for RUclips
Dear Essentialsalts, thanks a lot for replying. As you may know, the tragic event of (911) the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City (September 11th of 2001) had brought about a revival of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy. Homo sapiens are not always going linear, we are just a bunch of incurable reprobates! Today the Russian-Ukraine crisis has struck a chord with Schopenhauer’s pessimistic worldview, and I hope Hegel’s ever-improving spirit of history, Decadence and Rennaissance, could bring a glimmer of hope to our beloved humanity. The continuous prowess of the sciences (the zeitgeist of our technological era) seemed to have finally found an explanation, a systematic comprehensive framework (the Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking) in the verifiable provinces of materialism (e.g., mathematics and physics) and thus the romantic ideas of Henri Bergson and Schopenhauer’s romanticized epistemology, the World As Will and Representation, were cast outside of the mainstream school of thoughts and established academia, i.e., an irrational blind will behind the phenomenology of life, which, hitherto, had prevailed among the leading thinkers and psychologists of the twentieth century (at least in UK and USA). Such philosophic trampling, since it is beyond the provinces of science, aiming to crack open the womb of time and space through the ever-ascending Jacob-ladder of abstract philosophy, like the wonderful gardens of Babylonia, hanging loose in the air, such philosophic concepts were thought to be outdated, spirited and obsolete when squared with the cosmogony and quantum physics of Albert Einstein. But I would like to say that Schopenhauer’s will-to-exist, as the true X and Y of many a traceable phenomenon in this mysterious world of omens, twilights and thunders, could still provide much thought-material when delving into the unknowns, the supra-natural, the preternatural: a web of dreams, transcendent metaphysics behind the silent scribes of fate and destiny, magic, the supernatural, animal magnetism, Will in Nature (check out Parerga and Paralipomena Vol. 1, On Spirit Seeing and Apparitions and other mysteries in the will-to-exist). And what to say of the String Theory to tracing back and arresting the tiniest and most baffling phenomena in the observable universe? Are such tiny bits of matters the fingerprints of the will-to-exist? Earlier, I touched upon the possibility of a vast universe teeming with the will-to-exist, but why are these so-called aliens so aloof (if they exist), why so standoffish to the serious slaughterhouse of endless wars and destructions wrecking havoc upon the surface of the earth? I am here sending you an essay I wrote on Nietzsche’s Antichrist: www.eddiebeato.com/essay-on-f-nietzschersquos-antichrist-and-the-dirty-games-of-politics-in-post-america.html Feel free to contact me if you like art and music. Kindly, Eddie Beato
Thanks very much. I'm really enjoying listening to this. Your style is great, makes this complex material very enjoyable and accessible. I'll definitely be listening to more of these.
Wonderful. I've read The World as Will & Representation twice, and have never heard such a clear, concise and deep introduction to Schopenhauer as this. I used to be Schopenhauerian myself but am much more of a Nietzschean now - perhaps for reasons of temperament rather than intellect! Incidentally, I agree with you that art shouldn't be purely contemplative and Apollonian. We need the Dionysian too. I think the greatest art of all is usually a marriage of the two. Consider Dostoyevsky, Keats, Beethoven, Django Reinhardt, Turner, or Botticelli.
Would you please tell me what you find appealing in Dostoyevsky`s books? The English-language translation? I know Russian and his stories are such a oboring and tedious read. And it`s in the mid-19th century Russian that is not spoken today. And Dostoyevsky deals with problems of his time - to smear the revolutionaries and their anti-Christian ideas. I wonder what Dostoyevsky thought about Schopenhauer. I`ve never been able to track it down.
@@peterivankovich2990 I haven't read him in Russian, so I can't judge his original literary style. I have read him in various translations, and they vary in quality. But I disagree that he only discusses the issues of his time. It's true that he does that, but he was a visionary who saw clearly that the West was headed for an epoch of solipsism, materialism, and hedonism. He foresaw the collapse of our shared values, and the atomisation of society. For him, the solution was Orthodox Christianity. You might disagree with that, but it's hard to deny that he diagnosed the crisis of late capitalism very well, and with incredible psychological insight. He's less perfect as a writer than Tolstoy, but I think deeper, philosophically, especially in his treatment of ethics.
@@garrycraigpowell I appreciate your well-reasoned response. Still I ask myself why Dostoevsky liked to have a good time in the West while moralizing Russians. His gambling sins in Germany impelled him to write some of his best books like Crime and Punishment and Idiot, to cite just a couple. He loved Western sins. And barred them to his compatriots in Russia who could not afford traveling out to the West to enjoy capitalistic sins? Again, if you look at the atomized Western world, the vast majority of "free" people seem to be enjoying their accessibility to various sins, as per Dostoevsky,. Nowadays few people view those things as sin but rather as much-vaunted personal choice. A modern slogan is my body, my choice. Sin in appropriate places and according to established rules - sin as long as you don`t hurt others. What Dostoevsky saw as regress, the West embraces it as progress... People often tend to detect prophetic predictions in old books where authors had none. When reading Dostoevsky`s books, I saw nothing in them but Dostoevsky settling scores with his ideological rivals. Many of his characters are recognizable people of note in his time whom he ridicules in his stories. For example, he inserts a famous Russian writer Turgenev in disguised form in Devils. Personally, reading Dostoevsky I got the impression that he was belaboring his own thoughts for or against something. To be sure, after batting around an idea through his characters, his own point of view came out on top. He ridiculed his characters who held an opposing view. A buddy pf mine tried to start in on works by Dostoevsky in chronological order. He gave up soon. He said his impression was that Dostoevsky`s characters stood out for being consumptives. Nearly everybody coughed in his books, he said. If you look at the book Idiot , you learn right away that the positive principal character had Dostoevsky`s personal traits - epilepsy. That was Dostoevsky`s favorite pastime - to cough and have epileptic fits. It`s just a hint for careful readers that he himself rules the roost in his books. Yes, he stood for Russian Orthodoxy but he wanted a refashioned Russian Orthodoxy, if you follow his thoughts in his books very carefully. The way some knowing critics put it, he wants to take Russia into the past, not the future. Dostoevsky wrote that Western values were not good for Russia. That`s exactly what comrade Putin feeds into his anti-western propaganda. Russia doesn`t need decadent western ideas. While Western countries raise voluminous outcry that Russia is against our democratic values. A battle of words to vilify the other... Dostoevsky wasn`t the only one back at that time to condemn capitalism. Plenty of writers across Europe did it one way or another. Some took capitalism as an unavoidable given, others clamored for change. Dostoevsky couldn`t have known that the US would become the sturdy mainstay of global capitalism. Without the US and its tight grip on the system of capitalism, the world would probably have evolved into a different structure. I still have a problem with people claiming that Dostoevsky had deep psychological insight. Even if greats like Nietzsche claimed it. To my way of thinking, Dostoevsky doesn`t extract insight, he produces it. He produces any "insight" he desires. To get insight, one has to collect it, not to manufacture it. Dostoevsky wishes for (Russian) people to be morally pure with ethical rectitude. So create all people to be alike? I once asked a rapist if he would like it if all people on Earth were like him. His answer surprised me. Yes. What a wonderful world would it be if all people looked and were like him. The notion of boring didn`t even enter his head. I`ve met people who say with conviction that everybody should read Dostoevsky. Maybe that`s right. But the funny thing is when I interact with people, I find it impossible to tell if they are even familiar with Dostoevsky. beyond the name. The other day a guy mentioned a book by Dostoevsky. The book that was written by Solzhenitsyn. This guy teaches preschool. The vast majority of my American acquaintances say without hesitation that capitalism is the best system in the world. And then they go either to work a mandatory 12-hours a day or deal dope. Teamwork (an American substitute for a collective) occurs only in slogans by politicians or in the US Army. I think most of human life consists in screwing with the mind of other. So Dostoevsky comes across to me as one such screwer of the minds. An American acquaintance of mine who`s in the medical profession once told me that he`d started out as a psychologist. He said he felt this job consisted of just screwing around with the minds of patients. He didn`t like it, doing a Dostoevsky. His consciousness rebelled and he switched over to another job. Any remarks of yours on the above?
@@peterivankovich2990 I quite enjoyed your comments. I have not read Dostoyevsky myself. But I have also never been convinced that there is any reason to read his works. I have listened to people describe his work in an effort to sell it as "genius" or "required reading", but I've never found any substance in these sales pitches. If the people who have supposedly benefitted from reading his books cannot describe precisely what it is they gained, I see no reason to follow their example. Life is short and time is precious.
To me Nietzsche is advocating for slavery to one's will, dressing it up in glory and splendor, and then passing off your will's ability to inflict itself on other wills as some sort of real freedom. It's almost like Nietzsche looked at the task before him and recoiled in horror, and instead of admitting to the immense burden that the path out of all suffering entails, and the very real suffering that death, old age, and sickness entails, he did what any good rhetorician does: he made propaganda and pleasing justification out of doing the "easy" thing. But the fact is that old age, sickness, and death are inevitable. No amount of power or pretending to celebrate these things spares a conscious entity from this suffering. Nietzsche is a step up from the common man's approach, no doubt, as Nietzsche's philosophy basically amounts to living in alignment with the universal Will, but living in alignment with the Will still means having one's own individual will that wishes for things to be different than what they are, which is the definition of suffering. It just means the strength of the desire for things to be different is heavily reduced, as you're fully accepting all the pain and misery the will brings. I've lived as a Dionysian for a while now, and it has been a significant step up from my previous way of living. I honor that. I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable and aware that it's my own will that makes me uncomfortable. That seems to be the core of the Dionysian approach. But I've also experienced the ascetic life of denial of the will and know people who have fully made the crossing to the other side (and no, none of them are Buddhist monks). It doesn't even compare. The life of denial of the will is way more peaceful and clearly the way out of the whole mass of suffering. My everyday life is better, but the terror at the thought of my own extinction still looms. The Dionysian life is just the attempt to deny that it's any real suffering at all. And thus why I say Nietzsche was a propagandist who was convincing himself as much as anyone else. The constant issue with the ascetic's life is the very strong representations, in the form of bodily urges, beliefs, temptations and every other manner of hindrance, that the will uses to convince you to be its slave. And it's VERY persuasive. The temptations are constant and strong and the rationalizations one walks away with to indulge the will are convincing. There's nothing more tricky, more persistent, and more convincing than your own ego/will. Nothing. And Nietzsche fell for it. So ya, while the Dionysian approach is perhaps the best for living a "normal" life, it's just as much indulging in ignorance as any other form of normal life. Schopenhauer was essentially correct that the world is full of inevitable suffering and if one just stopped there, like so many thinkers have with the Buddha, one would think him just a pessimist. But he doesn't...he, like the Buddha, also believed there was an escape from suffering. In the end it's an optimistic point of view if it's correct. It's Nietzsche and his ilk that are truly the pessimists that believe there's no escape from inevitable suffering, and fooling themselves into believing the suffering is just fine at that!
01:13:33 🔍 Schopenhauer argues that a transcendent intellect can perceive a different world than ordinary people, similar to Plato's allegory of the cave. 01:18:14 🌟 Schopenhauer introduces the concept of "will" as the driving force behind existence, and Platonic ideas are used to classify the gradations of the will's objectification. 01:26:25 🌍 Schopenhauer's philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of all existence, stating that mankind relies on ecosystems, weather patterns, and geological processes for survival. 01:27:28 🌊 The gradation of the will's manifestations is expressed by an outer necessity, where various life forms, including humans, depend on each other as well as the natural world. 01:28:45 🦉 The will is in a constant state of striving and conflict, as it is never satisfied, leading to perpetual competition and suffering among different manifestations of the will. 01:29:40 Schopenhauer believes that freedom from all limits is intrinsic to the nature of the will, which is an endless striving, causing continuous suffering and unsatisfactory desires. 01:30:35 Schopenhauer illustrates the perpetual renewal and change in the world, with every attainment leading to a new course, emphasizing the ceaseless nature of existence and desire. 01:32:36 Knowledge intensifies suffering by illuminating the character of the will, making humans capable of recognizing suffering that other beings cannot. This knowledge leads to the possibility of denying the will as a path to liberation. 01:34:39 Schopenhauer's philosophy is characterized by its dark and pessimistic view of life, emphasizing the suffering and dissatisfaction inherent in human existence. 01:37:45 Schopenhauer's ultimate goal is the denial of the will, a rejection of worldly desires and the attainment of liberation from suffering, which he believes can only be achieved by humans through knowledge and reason. 01:48:50 Schopenhauer draws parallels between his philosophy and Buddhism, emphasizing the idea of stopping desires and denying the will as a path to liberation from suffering. 01:51:51 Schopenhauer believes that art and aesthetics offer a unique means of directly exiting the will and achieving liberation. 01:53:46 Schopenhauer sees the Platonic ideas as the most adequate objectivity of the will, representing patterns and forms in the world, which exist independently of individual instances. 02:05:27 Schopenhauer discusses the role of knowledge in negating the will, leading to the liberation from desires through disinterested contemplation and perception of natural objects. 02:07:53 Schopenhauer's view of art focuses on selfless perception and contemplation of the object, similar to Eastern meditation practices, but it may not encompass the entirety of the artistic experience. 02:10:49 Schopenhauer discusses the metaphor of the mind as a mirror in Buddhist philosophy and how it relates to perception and attachment. 02:12:40 Schopenhauer describes a state of mind achieved through pure perception where the individual becomes willless and experiences the world as dependent on their existence. 02:14:01 Schopenhauer emphasizes that desires inevitably lead to suffering and that the pursuit of one's will's desires only results in disappointment. 02:15:26 Schopenhauer argues that even the fulfillment of wishes ultimately leads to new desires, perpetuating suffering and dissatisfaction. 02:19:26 Schopenhauer discusses the concept of genius, individuals capable of representing ideas independently of individual entities, and how they experience moments of pure knowing. 02:21:15 Schopenhauer explores the connection between madness, art, and philosophy, likening it to Plato's enlightened man who has freed himself from the cave. 02:23:28 Schopenhauer discusses the sublime in aesthetics, emphasizing that it leads to a state of will-less contemplation and defines beauty. 02:25:45 Schopenhauer's pessimism lies in the endless cycle of suffering driven by the will to live, not just mortality, and how individuals have no value to nature. 02:30:12 Schopenhauer argues that individuals are subject to the laws of causality, individuation, and mortality, while emphasizing the indestructibility of the archetype. 02:31:38 Schopenhauer suggests that humans are not commonly bothered by the fear of death, as they tend to focus on immediate goals and desires, believing they are part of the enduring will of nature. 02:34:28 After death, Schopenhauer believes individuals return to the timeless and endless will, not as separate entities but as part of an indestructible chain of beings. 02:36:20 Schopenhauer argues that life's real problem is not death but the endless pain inherent in existence, making suicide an ineffective solution. 02:42:00 Schopenhauer sets up a challenge for those who desire eternal recurrence of life, similar to Nietzsche's concept, but he himself rejects the idea, emphasizing the negativity of existence. 02:45:15 Schopenhauer's aim is the negation of the individual will, leading to a state of nothingness, akin to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, but without mystification or continued existence. 02:49:03 True death, according to Schopenhauer, is not achieved through suicide but through the conscious rejection of life as an autonomous choice, leading to nothingness. 02:52:40 Nietzsche was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer's concepts, such as the will, representation, genius, and the negation of the will, which played a significant role in shaping Nietzsche's philosophical ideas.
absolutely true , i’m agree with you . There’s too much toxic positivity today and denial about fatalities and people struggling for something and Schopenhauer is one of those who helped me a lot in life by reading is work
I've seen so many lecturers in the history of philosophy present Schopenhauer as this horrendous, pessimistic, spiteful, depression-inducing philosopher that should be consigned to the dustbin. It's as annoying as Nietzsche being presented as a nihilist when his entire philosophy was literally about resisting nihilism.
@@saintsword23 exactly, and i’m absolutely agree with you for Nietzsche , he prevented us for the upcoming general nihilism in our society and the last man
just wanted to say- your voice is awesome. you speak so clearly and with interest in which you’re actually talking about lol so thank you for giving me something cool to listen to during work.
Ad 2:09:10: "The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." (A. Schopenhauer)
15:50 actually he did walk because of his health. In a letter to a friend he "revealed" that the secret to his good condition at old age was his "daily promenades".
Enjoying your video thank you! But S did have a reason for his 2 hour walk. I think in the book on aphorisms, he says that "life is motion," and goes into some depth about how the lungs must be exercised, other organs, etc. He mentions daily cold baths. So I don't think its true that mere "immobility as primary characteristic" is what caused him to continue the daily walk -- I think his conceptions supported the idea.
And why can't we take his use of the word "will" to mean consciousness? I think defining it as "force" leans it into being considered a thing in the world, and subject to causality. But leaning towards "consciousness" allows it to embody desires, those things which, like "will," we know, or at least think we know and can begin our own reasoning about his ideas from where we are, in this subjective state we find ourselves.
1:00:00 paraphrasing Schopenhauer: 'The whole of reality (all of causality) is only for the understanding (to realise these transcendental themes), through the understanding (perspective) in the understanding (experience)' what do you think this means?
There are serious people who work hard at what they do... But we need a "gift" to teach like you do. Straight to the point - no arrogance - speaks slowly and enjoys the words... I am grateful! #judeuslivresporPALESTINALIVRE
It really is surprising that you didn’t examine Schopenhauer’s take on music, although you took your time analysing the rest of the arts, which in his eyes are inferior with a significant gap. Music’s delineation from platonic ideas was such an eye opener for me when I first came in contact with Schopenhauer’s philosophy that ever since, I have always kept it very close to heart. In any case, great effort on the video as a whole.
Schopenhauer comes across as definitely someone who not only saw the world as a glass half empty, but saw it necessary to smash the glass all together! What amazes me is that he didn’t slash his own throat with the shards!
If all is will, the motive force for all is will, so the only force or energy by which the will can be negated is the will. The will's negation of the will must inevitably be a striving for negation against a striving for non-negation. The will cannot be negated by the will, the best that can be achieved is to use will to suppress the external manifestation of will. The striving can never be negated, only locked into an eternal battle within the mind that limits will's expression within perceived external reality. There can never be victory over the will, only a perpetual stalemate in which will is turned against itself in such a way as to limit its extremal manifestation within perceived reality. Only a tiny percentage of human minds will be capable of engaging in this perpetual internal warfare of will against itself, so the suffering of the external world will continue largely unabated while simultaneously those minds capable of harnessing the will with such skill will be squandered on a futile endeavor rather than free to serve mankind. The problem with the kind of Eastern metaphysics that defines us all as iterative manifestations of a single meta-being of some kind, is that they are entirely at odds with the empirical evidence for how humans actually live their lives in the mundane world. If we are all one, then stealing from you becomes stealing from myself, which isn't theft at all. If we are all one, then "grape" becomes nothing more than "self-pleasuring," "unaliving" becomes "self-unaliving," violence becomes self-harm and all rights predicated upon the notion of individual agency, like property rights, all become null and void. If there is no "I" then "I" cannot own anything, all things must be the property of all in the one. This, of course, is not even how the vast majority of Hindus live. Even most Buddhists own property and respect the agency of others. If we take the "all is one" philosophy to its logical conclusions, then we must dispense with almost everything that has made civilization possible and dissolve all individual human agency into nothing.
Thanks for an honest understanding of Schopenhauer! As an artist, retired art teacher, and lover of philosophy, I fully agree with Schopenhauer's idea of both art and genius. It is in sync with my thoughts and in keeping with his collective thinking. This is where I dislike Nietzsche (well, I understand your favour). In his attempt to personify the antichrist, Nietzsche opposes the simplicity of reality ( God, form, thing in itself) by opposing his will rather than letting his will go to see it as is. in its own genesis ( without neurosis or psychosis)
@Lio s Nietzsche didn't consider himself an optimist. He calls himself a "pessimist of strength". He believed in asserting an honest view of the world, as Schopenhauer did - that to be life-affirming is to affirm pain, tragedy, calamity, torture, privation, and failure - and yet, to affirm it in spite of this. This is the Nietzschean "tragic worldview"; the love of fate and the love of life in spite of the suffering entailed - even *because* of the suffering entailed.
Finding things that chime to some extent later in life than ideal, especially Sarte and Schopenhaur. The ridiculousness of our habits, and the overt attempts we make to try to convince ourselves we're happy.
@@scottstorchfan He's completely right about nische. Nische was a pompous idiot. Entertaining, and maybe rousing good spirits for people in certain predicaments, but absolutely delusional and utterly dumb. Nietzsche was a tragically stupid man, the epitome of what it means to be pathetic.
Excellent! For a more positive outlook I suggest Decoding Schopenhauer"s Metaphysics by Bernardo Kastrup. His (Kastrup's) Metaphysical Idealism brings it all together in a very believable philosophy.
I have the highest regard for Bernardo Kastrup. I regard him as being the Galileo of Consciousness. I think that , like Schopenhauer , he will became more significant over time . He gives very profound scientific evidence for metaphysical Idealism and Advaita Vedanta.
@@michaeldillon3113 I find it annoying when people say they have "scientific evidence" for metaphysical claims. Either they don't understand what it is that science does, they don't understand what metaphysics is about, or both.
@QuantumFieldAgentLeMan My entire point is that physics has nothing to say about metaphysics. You have to add a philosophical claim, like "the most useful explanations are closest to the truth" to bridge that gap.
Ad 00:03: "I am convinced that Schopenhauer is the most brilliant of men. ... It's the whole world in one incredibly beautiful and bright replica." (L. Tolsto) - My guess is that "incredibly beautiful" refers to his language as it's not only my opinion, that Schopenhauer might be the best prose-author the german language knows (surpassing Nietzsche's also eceptional, more polemic style). - In deed, epistemologically, ontologically and ethically outstanding in his own right, regardless the not very meaningful label 'pessimist'.
*He published his book in 1818 (you accidently said 1918) 60$ from 1913 (founding of the FED) would be somewhere around 1800$ today, can't imagine it being very much different in Germany (especially after 2 world wars) I looked it up, 60 Gulden (from 1840) would be 1430€ today.
Thanks! Someone else caught the 1918 slip-up as well. Unfortunately its a mistake etched in the ether for all time! Thanks for the insight on the monetary conversion, also!
@@untimelyreflections You're welcome! This topic always gets my attention, since the founding of the FED (same as every central bank, which is written down in the communist manifesto from Marx) and then getting rid of the gold-standard is the biggest fraud in human history! I looked it up, 60 Gulden (1840) would be around 1430€ today
I just got to the part where you mentioned he, Nietzsche, and many others followed a rigid behavioral pattern. Based on that behavior, the out of the box abstract thinking and unique social skills (or lack thereof) I'd bet money they were all on the autism spectrum. There's definitely a pattern imo. Thank you for all of this great work.
I heard the comment made by his mother was something more dramatic, like the following: "Certainly! Copies of your first edition will still be available for sale!" I also heard it was delivered during a soiree at her salon. Its historicity is likely dubious, but it's an entertaining anecdote.
the woman he pushed down the stairs was his landlady .... there was a long backstory of her coming up the stairs to bother/harass him ... just saying ...
Life is science (theory about the world and experience, which tells you if you are right or not about your ideas).Pessimism is simply withdrawal from the world (the pain of a bad experience) as optimism plunges into the world (naive youth as opposed to experienced old age). Failure sharpens the mind, which leads us to concentrate on reality more in its finer details. Childhood does not discern as its perception of the world is more dispersed as in sleep (vague reality): sleep like thought and all periods of unconsciousness is a necessary withdrawal from the world, to reassess our position in the world. The monk withdraws from all contact possible but cannot teach us anything new because they don't interact with the outside world. Wars tell us that even if you want to avoid this state, you cannot because it can pursue you in its violent stupidity. Peace allows expression but wars and all forms of violence are about suppression. Like Wittgenstein said , the best book on philosophy would be a joke book (end of Tractus). This is because taking things seriously leads to conflict 'believe me!' Laughter is letting go and seeing the world as ridiculous - pursuing goals that make no sense in the final analysis, just perpetuate the myth of meaning, which Zen koans and indeed its general philosophy, says is nonsense. The East has older cultures than the childish West, which is why it has developed its philosophies in the way it has and what drew Schopenhauer to them in the first place.
Towards the end of this video I can't help but be reminded of the following quote by Jung: "Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness is the same as emptiness. The nothing is both empty and full. One may just as well state some or other thing about the Nothing, namely that it is white or it is black or that it exists or that it exists not. That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities." It makes me question the labeling of Schopenhauer as pessimistic, rather than gnostic. Of course, once one arrives at gnosticism, what the point of differentiation by words? It is what it is.
1:17:50 Schopenhauer says that life has no meaning, but didn't he say just earlier (1:00:00) that cause and effect exist just for our understanding; understanding for what? Surely this implies that life has meaning, we are simply not aware of what this meaning is, and as of right now we cant know the meaning. Why were things designed this way; for our understanding?
he says this 'will' is a blind striving, and yet look at all the concepts it has given birth to. Also consider that when basic needs are satiated more complex emotional needs arise; is this the 'will's' doing? This does not seem random, it seems to follow a design, a sequence, but to assume that this progression is blind is to assume too much. We make assumptions about the structure without seeing the bigger picture. Perhaps the will drives all evolution, and because we misunderstand the requisites for evolution the striving of the will 'seems' blind.
when the spider starts to spin its web do you think it has an understanding of the grand design, or do you think it acts intuitively according to impulse? How does it know the web is complete; correspondence of feeling. Likewise man acts intuitively on impulse, unlike the spider humans mistrust their impulses. What seems to be a blind form of striving (the spinning of a web) serves a purpose, likewise do the actions and complexity of mankind's organisations seemingly serve a purpose, we have simply not realised what this purpose is, and as soon as we do we will better understand the grand design (perhaps we wont be so timid). evolution is progressive, and we can never better understand the purpose of this grand design without first taking a leap of faith (this requires that we trust in our biology).
the division of labour is such an evolutionary concept provided to us upon acting on impulse: intuitively we organised ourselves, and upon reflection we discovered what for. Intuitively we know that a square is not a triangle, only upon reflection do we start to better understand why.
seemingly what drives our evolution now is the selection of problems, after all, all progress entails the replacement of one problem (public transport) with a new more desirable problem (cost of registration): we call this progress, and the nature of this progress is the replacement of one problem with another slightly more desirable problem. Reason is typically used to debate the desirability of problems, but reason is not capable of determining what an advantage is: and so from this perspective the striving of reason is blind and the progress we make is arbitrary (a type of striving for the sake of striving which is incentivised and rewarded by biological systems: the will). the will makes life meaningful: reason looks at the progress it has made and does not know to what end, thus it proclaims life is meaningless, this is an error. Indeed creation for creations sake seems absurd to us.
If Schopenhauer was the quintessential pessimist who was the essential pessimist? Moreover I would not use the word "essential" but rather the word "essence" as in 'his philosophy was the quintessence of pessimism,' which is more accurate in usage, but nevertheless I would still have to clearly define what "essence" is so I know what the "next thing to" (quint) really means. This may seem to be a quibble but especially in philosophy should we not seek absolute clarity and accurate nuance in the words we use? What do I know?
Not quite happiness. Our primary drive is survival and when our survival is expanded or enhanced we are happy (body releases chemicals, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin. Our will is a drive for immortality, unlimited strength. All life forms have a life drive. We are slaves to this drive. This drive can not be satisfied and when the drive (desire) is obstructed we suffer.
@@mikekensington1705Not necessarily. Some of our drives are directly in conflict with survival and others neither add nor detract from survivability. The will to survive is only a portion of what can be willed.
I really like Schopenhauer Mythology . I really like how you were able to communicate to us what his passages really mean even though you may not agree fully. Everything we need We already have but because it’s never enough we always feel incomplete. We are accountable when we are aware of the knowledge of truth and reality. We then are accountable for the change within ourselves. So we technically die in someway to be reborn. And that’s heavy in the beginning. I have more peace understanding and live a more harmonious life with the understanding that everything I need I already have.💕
1:03:30 you can have a "knower" without the known. solipsism is a valid metaphysical argument. since if all is illusion/delusion , there only needs to be the dreamer. the so called "objects" of the dream do not need to exist.... on the flip side, if there is only materialism or the buddhist "anatta", the illusion of a "knower" is just the passing impermanent sensations/experiences of the body and no eternal/permanent "knower" or "self". both arguments are equally plausible and impossible to invalidate.
Hearing such things is surreal, since I've thought them for over a decade--I'm 30. My theory is Schopenhauer's "wills," but where the will that you are is your present (timeless) experience (qualia flavor), not to be confused with its structural representation.
Yeah I got, like, two syllables in and I totally subscribed. I mean, I don't even know what the content is, but you've got a voice made for radio. Screw pot -- screw psychedelics -- forget beta waves or whatever: this is the stuff people should listen to for bliss.
So, am I to understand that the very lowest level of the will is gravity? So, continuing in order up the ladder, it would follow EM, weak and strong, electrons, protons, atoms and molecules, microorganisms, plants, animals, and people?
At each level we could sprinkle in additional, less important stages such as neutrinos, Higgs bosons, DNA, prions and viruses, and then perhaps rank each animal in accordance with its sentience. One could rank the entire known universe in this way. Is this useful? How would celestial objects fit into this scheme?
Isn't the decision to negate the will just another part of it? Seems to me the concepts of meditation and art (in the way described as "true art" by Schopenhauer) lack the need for knowledge, but imply basic and persistent observation and repetition. Where exactly does knowledge come into play in this case? Maybe I didn't fully understand some of the ideas, but it's all fascinating, and I really appreciate the tremendous efforts you put into these videos. Thank you kindly
Unfortunately, Nietzsche was born with a congenital disease that plagued him throughout his life. He had migraines from the time he was 12 until the end of his life, coupled with vomiting, nauseau and near blindness as the condition worsened. Eventually, he collapsed from a severe series of strokes. An alternative theory is a brain tumor, which would have effectively lobotomized him. So, while it would be unfounded to attribute his philosophy as the cause of his loss of sanity - we might notice, on the other hand, that Nietzsche more than anyone would be predisposed to agree with Schopenhauer that life is characterized by ever worsening suffering. And yet, he still remained firm in his view that life was of the highest value. And what could be more severe of a belief than the idea that one’s life of intense pain, vomiting and incipient insanity must be lived over and over again, for eternity?
I like his daily schedule. When you get older in life you realize everyone has their own bullshit , yours is as good as theirs and therefore follow your own mind.
Thanks for this. I'm excited to check it out! Nietzsche is one of my heroes. Schopenhauer is someone I've worked at but haven't fully grasped yet. Thanks for the podcast - we need real means of thinking our way out of this horrorshow.
In shadows deep, where thoughts entwine, Schopenhauer's mind, a realm malign. Rejecting life, a stark decree, Does negation hold the key? Influence profound on Nietzsche's pen, A philosophical journey, where did it begin? Plato's echo, Kant's embrace, Metaphysical dance, a somber grace. World as will, a ceaseless flow, Representation, illusions sow. A complex tapestry, Schopenhauer's lore, Dare we delve where few explore? Aesthetic pathways, will-less gaze, Becoming subjects in life's maze. Genius whispers, an ethereal call, Through art and beauty, does liberation sprawl? Indestructible being, a cosmic dance, Happiness, a negative stance. Negation's shadow, cast so wide, Liberation sought on suffering's tide. Three hours unfold, a lecture grand, Reasoning through perception's stand. Galaxies reduced to nothingness, Will-less contemplation, an abyss. Schopenhauer, pessimist profound, In questioning verses, truths are found. Deny the world, yet seek to know, The paradoxical dance, where meanings grow.
Man, thanks for sharing! Poor Schopenhauer was the ultimate sad boy. Definitely got an awful lot in life, similar to Edgar Poe. I read his writing "Studies in pessimism" A majority of it, I'd say he makes some good points, but man, he sure didn't get to enjoy the vanity of life at all. 😅
Extremely high quality exposition and commentary.
80 thalers was actually a very substantial sum of money in the German States in the 19th century. A Thaler Was a very large Silver coin weighing well over an ounce of silver, usually around 30 grams and usually over 40 millimeters in diameter, with some variance from state to state as Germany was not unified at this point and was a loose decentralized confederation of territories. This amount of silver that made up one thaler had a high amount of purchasing power and the average yearly wage for a Laborer in most German territories was about 30 thalers as an annual salary, so you could imagine that 80 thalers would be a fairly substantial amount of money in Hamburg or Frankfort in the 1800s. This is actually something that I am pretty well versed in, as I am a Numismatist and an avid l collector of German States coins and I have several thalers in my collection dating back to the 1500s. Another interesting fact is that the English word "Dollar" actually comes from the Germanic word "thaler" which is it's entomological root word
60 thalers in 1840 is $3,500 in today's dollars. (The incident occurred in 1821 and she died in 1842.) As the above notes, this would have provided the woman with a comfortable life for a single person, although the standard of living was very low then compared with today. In 1850, a family of five typically spent 180 thalers a year.
Enjoyed the information 😊
how was it pronounced?
@@HammyGiblets In most sources it is written (Thaler) but in some of the German states and in some of the low countries it was sometimes spelled (Taler) but in either case the "H" would be silent and the "A" would make the (ah) sound and not the (ay) sound. So it would be pronounced (TAA-LUH) or sometimes (TAA-LER). In some German states it was pronounced with the hard "R" at the end, and in some regions it would be pronounced with more of an "Uh" sound at the end instead... Hope this might be helpful!
This guy is telling him to be a cheap asshole (meanie). Wonder what his contemporaries thought of him
This narrator is so casually intellectually gifted that it makes me want to chuckle. He's the kind of guy who could talk about Anything but is so gifted that I'd go along for the ride, even if it was just to Walmart.
Can I ride too?
He's a third rate non entity. Nice to fall asleep to. Has he published anything. And if so, is it anything durable, visionary, or is he just avoiding a job and summarizing Walter Kauffman over and over.
To go schoppening at Willmart
@@peterwinters-uc7ftTwit.
@@peterwinters-uc7ft have you published anything yourself mr peter winters
Here's something really interesting. I'm currently staking my life on Schopenhauer being correct. I'm involved in a project where I'm giving my life away to the saxophone. I'm literally living a life of pure discipline. No worldly desire, only hard work, alone.
So I have to believe Schopenhauer is right as long as I keep playing saxophone
Not pure discipline if you are dilly dallying on youtube.
you WANT to live your life playing saxophone. this is a desire.
All the best. Im doing the same but with attempting to realise the non existence of my individuality.
I, too, have staked my life on Schopenhauer being correct. But my project involves giving my life away to _finding and destroying your saxophone._ 🚫🎷🚫
@@CrazyLinguiniLegs selective destruction
First so comprehensive lecture about Schopenhauer on youtube.
A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.
love this
Also a gutless one.
@@spiritlevelstudiostakes guts to be real
Hilarious. No, really.
"A pessimist is an optimist turned inside out."
Takhle společnost si rada a velmi casto zaměňuje realismus a pesimismus...
To, ze nekdo rika pravdu a vam se to nelibi, z neho nedělá pesimistu...
Jako s tou blondýnečkou tedka v autě...
Accurate quote...many often get snared this way.
Good lecture. Good speaking voice as well. And thanks for not ruining it by putting music over the lecture as many often do
Could use some dubstep
@@James-ll3jb I'm sure he meant dubstep
@@joeybeann definitely
I agree. Music ruins many videos, unless a music video.
Hey!!! I ruin nothing!!!
So grateful for this podcast. Has helped so much in my own readings of Nietzsche. Keep up the great work my fellow metal head 🔥
Great lecture! Thanks for taking the time to record and upload this
Thank you very much for this. I have been searching for an overview of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that clarifies his thought on the subject-object distinction, his criticism of competing schools, the exact role of the POSR, and other tenents beyond simply focusing on the Will.
I just can't see how Schopenhauer is a pessimist after reading The World as Will and Representation. Honestly.
Metacognition is suffering...the bad part
Don't metacognate! The joyful part.
When we pierce the veil, we behold not God, but Satan, the wicked omnipotent will, perpetually busied in weaving a web of suffering for the torture of its creatures. Terrified by the Diabolic Vision, the sage cries "Avaunt!" and seeks refuge in non-existence. A.S.
@@patlitton3506which only the accountability in the eternal law of nature bearing light can balance in sheer torture & chaos
Pessimism has taken a different meaning because of how it's used colloquially
Exactly! He is leaving unsaid that which cannot really be said (I might add, at the time when he lived, forgive me for that). "All is vanity," as he quotes. But the "all" in that quote is not really all. I think he was polite enough to avoid going into that, instead, restricting his words to what would survive the process of representation in finitude.
I'm stoked that this channel has so many listeners. And the comment section is huge !!!! Awesome.
One of the best videos on Schopenhauer, the man was a genius. Well presented.
Schopenhauer was definitely a genius. His metaphysical system is by far the one which I find most plausible. I think it’s the culmination of monistic thinking. He brings together Plato, Kant and Advaita Vedanta in to a beautiful crafted synthesis.
Brilliant lecture. Intelligent, eloquent, thoughtful & kept me locked in
This is a brilliant podcast. I most definitely will be reading Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.. Didn't realise Schoppenhauer's metaphysics and epistemology was such a profound and brilliant continuation of Kant's (my favorite philosopher) undertaking and approach.. Thank you so much for this.
Idk- my father had a degree in Philosophy and drank himself to death at 51, although successful. My ex husband had a Philosophy degree and drank himself to death after retiring from civil service age 65. My brother had a masters, nearly finished a PhD in Philosophy, (Harpur College as it was known then) and drank himself to death at 64 after leaving the PhD program and starting a construction company. Just weird facts. Dont think to hard y’all or drink too hard haha. Im a retired RN who got sober 40 years ago. Dont know how I landed on this channel …Good luck everybody
yes the battle for the alcoholic is letting go of willfullness into surrender inshillah
How do you know if a person is a nurse? She will be sure to tell you.
Hey, look at me everybody. Am I pretty? Hey, look at me everybody, I'm a nurse. Hey, look at me everybody I go on the comment section of a philosophy video and tell everybody all about my life and how important I am and how important my experiences are for everyone else. Good luck to you all!
@@100_Dollar_Bill you got issues.
Being an intellectual is painful. Seeing the world for what it is.
Schopenhauer In-Depth: The Total Denial of the World by the Greatest Pessimist of Philosophy
00:00 📚 Arthur Schopenhauer is known for being a quintessential pessimist who argued that life is futile and filled with suffering.
01:23 🌍 Schopenhauer's philosophy distinguishes the world as "will" (undivided force) and "representation" (phenomena subject to laws and perception).
03:18 📖 Schopenhauer's main work, "World as Will and Representation," influenced Nietzsche and remained his core philosophy throughout life.
06:36 💰 Schopenhauer came from a merchant family, worked as a clerk, and later pursued philosophy with a fixed worldview.
10:02 🌐 Schopenhauer's philosophy was influenced by Indian philosophy, particularly the Upanishads.
14:22 🕰 Schopenhauer maintained a rigid daily routine for 27 years, emphasizing his unyielding character.
16:41 🔥 Nietzsche was introduced to Schopenhauer's ideas by a friend and diverged from him by embracing life's affirmation.
20:47 🤔 Schopenhauer's philosophy begins with the concept of the "world as will," which is the fundamental aspect of reality.
21:44 🌎 Schopenhauer argues that the world exists in two aspects: will and representation, and he relates this to our subjective experience and consciousness.
23:08 🤯 According to Schopenhauer, our bodies are both objects in the world of representation and the means through which our will acts in the world.
24:35 🧐 Schopenhauer contends that the will is the inner nature of the self and is different from mere representation.
26:00 ⚖ Schopenhauer argues that the will is groundless and the source of all phenomena, not subject to causality.
28:24 🌟 The "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer is the will, which underlies all phenomena and is indivisible.
30:15 💭 Schopenhauer believes that feeling is the manifestation of the will within the body.
32:45 🌌 Schopenhauer extends the concept of the will to all phenomena in nature, including forces like magnetism and gravitation.
35:06 🤔 Schopenhauer chooses the term "will" because it reflects our direct experience of inner desire, making it more understandable than other abstract terms like "force" or "energy."
Please note that these key takeaways are based on the provided video transcript.
41:43 🧠 Schopenhauer emphasizes the importance of looking to one's immediate certainties within their subjective experience, focusing on feelings, desires, and passions as the gateway to understanding fundamental reality.
43:36 🔍 Schopenhauer believes that no amount of science can break us out of the limitations of empiricism, as we receive the world through the senses. He advocates for using reason to make synthetic judgments a priori to understand reality.
46:31 🌌 Schopenhauer asserts that gravity, like all forces in nature, represents the will's blind striving, with no awareness or self-awareness, and it affects all things with mass, driving them to accumulate more mass.
49:52 💭 Schopenhauer argues that our perception of time, space, causality, and the principle of sufficient reason are essential components of our understanding of the world, and they belong to both the object and the subject.
52:18 🌐 Schopenhauer's epistemology highlights the compatibility of empirical reality with transcendental reality, emphasizing that everything in the world is only an object in relation to the perceiver, and it exists for the subject through representation.
55:17 🤔 Schopenhauer's principle of sufficient reason explains how time, space, and causality are necessary for the existence of matter and reality as we perceive it, bridging the gap between empirical and transcendental views of the world.
59:05 🧐 Schopenhauer contends that our interpretation of sense data through a conceptual framework, including concepts like causality and permanence, is essential for the existence of the world as we know it, which is the world of representation.
01:03:57 🧠 Schopenhauer rejects materialism because it assumes a dead world where objects exist without a subject's representation.
01:04:23 🌍 Schopenhauer believes that material objects are indirectly given to us through the senses, and our direct knowledge is of representations.
01:05:49 🤔 Schopenhauer criticizes both materialism and idealism for their errors and pitfalls in understanding reality.
01:06:46 🌌 Schopenhauer is influenced by Indian philosophers who view the world as an illusion and the true reality as an undifferentiated unity.
01:09:18 🤖 Schopenhauer sees logic as a second-order derivation of perception, and direct perception is pure knowledge.
Lol surely written by AI. May I know which one? Please.
More Schopenhauer please
A blissful, absolutely brilliant elucidation of A. Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Congratulations to the narrator! You have done an admirable job!!!
I listened to the entire lecture, and I have to say that the narrator’s soothing voice is alike therapeutic and uplifting. Even Schopenhauer’s beautiful although dour existentialistic outlook, his incurable pessimism, could be said to be very uplifting and it is due to his marvelous philosophic mind, whose amazing puissance to soar into the essence of things, the will-to-exist, noumena, the thing in itself, is even more enthralling by all the incidental occurrences, conflicts, struggles, of life and death, as checked by our conscious self-willed existence.
In Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and this awful world of the will-to-exist, however tragic in countless contests, we are blissfully carried away into a riveting contemplation of all the phenomena of Mother Nature.
In my room I have a painting of a penitent nun (India Anacaona) whose countenance conveys the reality of a world of sorrows, sufferings and the wheel of samsara, which reminds me Schopenhauer’s asceticism. I also I have a copy of the Abduction of Psyche by the French artist William A. Bouguerrau, whose celebration of life through the uplifting powers of aesthetics, an orgasmic flight, reminds me of F. Nietzsche!
However betwixt Nietzsche and Schopenhauer’s gloomy philosophy, the latter is extremely additive, and though we may reluctantly abhor a world so rife with sufferings, conflicts, decadence, aging, illnesses, disappointments and even meaningless, some may escape this monster-will through the path of asceticism, mysticism and aesthetics.
F. Nietzsche’s solution to the problems of existence, I may argue, is in stark contrast to Schopenhauer’s mysticism, and till this day I am still struggling to set myself free from the barbaric intoxication of these Germans…
Finally, I would like to say that Schopenhauer’s will to exist is solely confined to the purview of our known world, namely, the planet Earth.
If this will-to-exist is so encompassing, so universal, so-far-reaching, even beyond the earthly shores of our little solar system, why is this intelligent life (human beings) so rare a phenomenon?
In the long stretches of cosmic time, this will-to-exist has only be able to create a bunch of intelligent, odious, bipedal critters (humans or Homo Sapiens, which are incurably tribalistic, racist and primitive), whose greed and stupidity could finally bring a nuclear disaster on the surface of the Earth.
Bravo! This is the best world of all possible worlds…thanks to those extraterrestrials, whose cool standoffishness is simply suggestive of a world of absurdity, meaninglessness and nihilism.
Thanks for this brilliant reply. It was a joy to read. I also have a couple episodes dealing with Nietzsche’s take on Schopenhauer and the differences between them, mainly from the Nietzschean perspective: ruclips.net/video/eHJGuzmEcqU/видео.html
In the podcast feed, it’s two episodes (sort of like this video), but they’re combined into one video for RUclips
Dear Essentialsalts, thanks a lot for replying. As you may know, the tragic event of (911) the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City (September 11th of 2001) had brought about a revival of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy. Homo sapiens are not always going linear, we are just a bunch of incurable reprobates! Today the Russian-Ukraine crisis has struck a chord with Schopenhauer’s pessimistic worldview, and I hope Hegel’s ever-improving spirit of history, Decadence and Rennaissance, could bring a glimmer of hope to our beloved humanity.
The continuous prowess of the sciences (the zeitgeist of our technological era) seemed to have finally found an explanation, a systematic comprehensive framework (the Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking) in the verifiable provinces of materialism (e.g., mathematics and physics) and thus the romantic ideas of Henri Bergson and Schopenhauer’s romanticized epistemology, the World As Will and Representation, were cast outside of the mainstream school of thoughts and established academia, i.e., an irrational blind will behind the phenomenology of life, which, hitherto, had prevailed among the leading thinkers and psychologists of the twentieth century (at least in UK and USA). Such philosophic trampling, since it is beyond the provinces of science, aiming to crack open the womb of time and space through the ever-ascending Jacob-ladder of abstract philosophy, like the wonderful gardens of Babylonia, hanging loose in the air, such philosophic concepts were thought to be outdated, spirited and obsolete when squared with the cosmogony and quantum physics of Albert Einstein.
But I would like to say that Schopenhauer’s will-to-exist, as the true X and Y of many a traceable phenomenon in this mysterious world of omens, twilights and thunders, could still provide much thought-material when delving into the unknowns, the supra-natural, the preternatural: a web of dreams, transcendent metaphysics behind the silent scribes of fate and destiny, magic, the supernatural, animal magnetism, Will in Nature (check out Parerga and Paralipomena Vol. 1, On Spirit Seeing and Apparitions and other mysteries in the will-to-exist).
And what to say of the String Theory to tracing back and arresting the tiniest and most baffling phenomena in the observable universe?
Are such tiny bits of matters the fingerprints of the will-to-exist?
Earlier, I touched upon the possibility of a vast universe teeming with the will-to-exist, but why are these so-called aliens so aloof (if they exist), why so standoffish to the serious slaughterhouse of endless wars and destructions wrecking havoc upon the surface of the earth?
I am here sending you an essay I wrote on Nietzsche’s Antichrist:
www.eddiebeato.com/essay-on-f-nietzschersquos-antichrist-and-the-dirty-games-of-politics-in-post-america.html
Feel free to contact me if you like art and music.
Kindly,
Eddie Beato
Thanks very much. I'm really enjoying listening to this. Your style is great, makes this complex material very enjoyable and accessible. I'll definitely be listening to more of these.
Wonderful. I've read The World as Will & Representation twice, and have never heard such a clear, concise and deep introduction to Schopenhauer as this. I used to be Schopenhauerian myself but am much more of a Nietzschean now - perhaps for reasons of temperament rather than intellect! Incidentally, I agree with you that art shouldn't be purely contemplative and Apollonian. We need the Dionysian too. I think the greatest art of all is usually a marriage of the two. Consider Dostoyevsky, Keats, Beethoven, Django Reinhardt, Turner, or Botticelli.
Would you please tell me what you find appealing in Dostoyevsky`s books? The English-language translation? I know Russian and his stories are such a oboring and tedious read. And it`s in the mid-19th century Russian that is not spoken today. And Dostoyevsky deals with problems of his time - to smear the revolutionaries and their anti-Christian ideas.
I wonder what Dostoyevsky thought about Schopenhauer. I`ve never been able to track it down.
@@peterivankovich2990 I haven't read him in Russian, so I can't judge his original literary style. I have read him in various translations, and they vary in quality. But I disagree that he only discusses the issues of his time. It's true that he does that, but he was a visionary who saw clearly that the West was headed for an epoch of solipsism, materialism, and hedonism. He foresaw the collapse of our shared values, and the atomisation of society. For him, the solution was Orthodox Christianity. You might disagree with that, but it's hard to deny that he diagnosed the crisis of late capitalism very well, and with incredible psychological insight. He's less perfect as a writer than Tolstoy, but I think deeper, philosophically, especially in his treatment of ethics.
@@garrycraigpowell I appreciate your well-reasoned response. Still I ask myself why Dostoevsky liked to have a good time in the West while moralizing Russians. His gambling sins in Germany impelled him to write some of his best books like Crime and Punishment and Idiot, to cite just a couple. He loved Western sins. And barred them to his compatriots in Russia who could not afford traveling out to the West to enjoy capitalistic sins? Again, if you look at the atomized Western world, the vast majority of "free" people seem to be enjoying their accessibility to various sins, as per Dostoevsky,. Nowadays few people view those things as sin but rather as much-vaunted personal choice. A modern slogan is my body, my choice. Sin in appropriate places and according to established rules - sin as long as you don`t hurt others. What Dostoevsky saw as regress, the West embraces it as progress... People often tend to detect prophetic predictions in old books where authors had none. When reading Dostoevsky`s books, I saw nothing in them but Dostoevsky settling scores with his ideological rivals. Many of his characters are recognizable people of note in his time whom he ridicules in his stories. For example, he inserts a famous Russian writer Turgenev in disguised form in Devils. Personally, reading Dostoevsky I got the impression that he was belaboring his own thoughts for or against something. To be sure, after batting around an idea through his characters, his own point of view came out on top. He ridiculed his characters who held an opposing view.
A buddy pf mine tried to start in on works by Dostoevsky in chronological order. He gave up soon. He said his impression was that Dostoevsky`s characters stood out for being consumptives. Nearly everybody coughed in his books, he said. If you look at the book Idiot , you learn right away that the positive principal character had Dostoevsky`s personal traits - epilepsy. That was Dostoevsky`s favorite pastime - to cough and have epileptic fits. It`s just a hint for careful readers that he himself rules the roost in his books.
Yes, he stood for Russian Orthodoxy but he wanted a refashioned Russian Orthodoxy, if you follow his thoughts in his books very carefully. The way some knowing critics put it, he wants to take Russia into the past, not the future. Dostoevsky wrote that Western values were not good for Russia. That`s exactly what comrade Putin feeds into his anti-western propaganda. Russia doesn`t need decadent western ideas. While Western countries raise voluminous outcry that Russia is against our democratic values. A battle of words to vilify the other... Dostoevsky wasn`t the only one back at that time to condemn capitalism. Plenty of writers across Europe did it one way or another. Some took capitalism as an unavoidable given, others clamored for change. Dostoevsky couldn`t have known that the US would become the sturdy mainstay of global capitalism. Without the US and its tight grip on the system of capitalism, the world would probably have evolved into a different structure.
I still have a problem with people claiming that Dostoevsky had deep psychological insight. Even if greats like Nietzsche claimed it. To my way of thinking, Dostoevsky doesn`t extract insight, he produces it. He produces any "insight" he desires. To get insight, one has to collect it, not to manufacture it.
Dostoevsky wishes for (Russian) people to be morally pure with ethical rectitude. So create all people to be alike? I once asked a rapist if he would like it if all people on Earth were like him. His answer surprised me. Yes. What a wonderful world would it be if all people looked and were like him. The notion of boring didn`t even enter his head.
I`ve met people who say with conviction that everybody should read Dostoevsky. Maybe that`s right. But the funny thing is when I interact with people, I find it impossible to tell if they are even familiar with Dostoevsky. beyond the name. The other day a guy mentioned a book by Dostoevsky. The book that was written by Solzhenitsyn. This guy teaches preschool. The vast majority of my American acquaintances say without hesitation that capitalism is the best system in the world. And then they go either to work a mandatory 12-hours a day or deal dope. Teamwork (an American substitute for a collective) occurs only in slogans by politicians or in the US Army.
I think most of human life consists in screwing with the mind of other. So Dostoevsky comes across to me as one such screwer of the minds.
An American acquaintance of mine who`s in the medical profession once told me that he`d started out as a psychologist. He said he felt this job consisted of just screwing around with the minds of patients. He didn`t like it, doing a Dostoevsky. His consciousness rebelled and he switched over to another job. Any remarks of yours on the above?
@@peterivankovich2990 I quite enjoyed your comments. I have not read Dostoyevsky myself. But I have also never been convinced that there is any reason to read his works. I have listened to people describe his work in an effort to sell it as "genius" or "required reading", but I've never found any substance in these sales pitches. If the people who have supposedly benefitted from reading his books cannot describe precisely what it is they gained, I see no reason to follow their example. Life is short and time is precious.
To me Nietzsche is advocating for slavery to one's will, dressing it up in glory and splendor, and then passing off your will's ability to inflict itself on other wills as some sort of real freedom. It's almost like Nietzsche looked at the task before him and recoiled in horror, and instead of admitting to the immense burden that the path out of all suffering entails, and the very real suffering that death, old age, and sickness entails, he did what any good rhetorician does: he made propaganda and pleasing justification out of doing the "easy" thing.
But the fact is that old age, sickness, and death are inevitable. No amount of power or pretending to celebrate these things spares a conscious entity from this suffering. Nietzsche is a step up from the common man's approach, no doubt, as Nietzsche's philosophy basically amounts to living in alignment with the universal Will, but living in alignment with the Will still means having one's own individual will that wishes for things to be different than what they are, which is the definition of suffering. It just means the strength of the desire for things to be different is heavily reduced, as you're fully accepting all the pain and misery the will brings.
I've lived as a Dionysian for a while now, and it has been a significant step up from my previous way of living. I honor that. I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable and aware that it's my own will that makes me uncomfortable. That seems to be the core of the Dionysian approach. But I've also experienced the ascetic life of denial of the will and know people who have fully made the crossing to the other side (and no, none of them are Buddhist monks). It doesn't even compare. The life of denial of the will is way more peaceful and clearly the way out of the whole mass of suffering. My everyday life is better, but the terror at the thought of my own extinction still looms. The Dionysian life is just the attempt to deny that it's any real suffering at all.
And thus why I say Nietzsche was a propagandist who was convincing himself as much as anyone else. The constant issue with the ascetic's life is the very strong representations, in the form of bodily urges, beliefs, temptations and every other manner of hindrance, that the will uses to convince you to be its slave. And it's VERY persuasive. The temptations are constant and strong and the rationalizations one walks away with to indulge the will are convincing. There's nothing more tricky, more persistent, and more convincing than your own ego/will. Nothing. And Nietzsche fell for it.
So ya, while the Dionysian approach is perhaps the best for living a "normal" life, it's just as much indulging in ignorance as any other form of normal life. Schopenhauer was essentially correct that the world is full of inevitable suffering and if one just stopped there, like so many thinkers have with the Buddha, one would think him just a pessimist. But he doesn't...he, like the Buddha, also believed there was an escape from suffering. In the end it's an optimistic point of view if it's correct. It's Nietzsche and his ilk that are truly the pessimists that believe there's no escape from inevitable suffering, and fooling themselves into believing the suffering is just fine at that!
Wonderful! Took me three listening sessions to take it all in, but you explained it all so well. Thank you!
01:13:33 🔍 Schopenhauer argues that a transcendent intellect can perceive a different world than ordinary people, similar to Plato's allegory of the cave.
01:18:14 🌟 Schopenhauer introduces the concept of "will" as the driving force behind existence, and Platonic ideas are used to classify the gradations of the will's objectification.
01:26:25 🌍 Schopenhauer's philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of all existence, stating that mankind relies on ecosystems, weather patterns, and geological processes for survival.
01:27:28 🌊 The gradation of the will's manifestations is expressed by an outer necessity, where various life forms, including humans, depend on each other as well as the natural world.
01:28:45 🦉 The will is in a constant state of striving and conflict, as it is never satisfied, leading to perpetual competition and suffering among different manifestations of the will.
01:29:40 Schopenhauer believes that freedom from all limits is intrinsic to the nature of the will, which is an endless striving, causing continuous suffering and unsatisfactory desires.
01:30:35 Schopenhauer illustrates the perpetual renewal and change in the world, with every attainment leading to a new course, emphasizing the ceaseless nature of existence and desire.
01:32:36 Knowledge intensifies suffering by illuminating the character of the will, making humans capable of recognizing suffering that other beings cannot. This knowledge leads to the possibility of denying the will as a path to liberation.
01:34:39 Schopenhauer's philosophy is characterized by its dark and pessimistic view of life, emphasizing the suffering and dissatisfaction inherent in human existence.
01:37:45 Schopenhauer's ultimate goal is the denial of the will, a rejection of worldly desires and the attainment of liberation from suffering, which he believes can only be achieved by humans through knowledge and reason.
01:48:50 Schopenhauer draws parallels between his philosophy and Buddhism, emphasizing the idea of stopping desires and denying the will as a path to liberation from suffering.
01:51:51 Schopenhauer believes that art and aesthetics offer a unique means of directly exiting the will and achieving liberation.
01:53:46 Schopenhauer sees the Platonic ideas as the most adequate objectivity of the will, representing patterns and forms in the world, which exist independently of individual instances.
02:05:27 Schopenhauer discusses the role of knowledge in negating the will, leading to the liberation from desires through disinterested contemplation and perception of natural objects.
02:07:53 Schopenhauer's view of art focuses on selfless perception and contemplation of the object, similar to Eastern meditation practices, but it may not encompass the entirety of the artistic experience.
02:10:49 Schopenhauer discusses the metaphor of the mind as a mirror in Buddhist philosophy and how it relates to perception and attachment.
02:12:40 Schopenhauer describes a state of mind achieved through pure perception where the individual becomes willless and experiences the world as dependent on their existence.
02:14:01 Schopenhauer emphasizes that desires inevitably lead to suffering and that the pursuit of one's will's desires only results in disappointment.
02:15:26 Schopenhauer argues that even the fulfillment of wishes ultimately leads to new desires, perpetuating suffering and dissatisfaction.
02:19:26 Schopenhauer discusses the concept of genius, individuals capable of representing ideas independently of individual entities, and how they experience moments of pure knowing.
02:21:15 Schopenhauer explores the connection between madness, art, and philosophy, likening it to Plato's enlightened man who has freed himself from the cave.
02:23:28 Schopenhauer discusses the sublime in aesthetics, emphasizing that it leads to a state of will-less contemplation and defines beauty.
02:25:45 Schopenhauer's pessimism lies in the endless cycle of suffering driven by the will to live, not just mortality, and how individuals have no value to nature.
02:30:12 Schopenhauer argues that individuals are subject to the laws of causality, individuation, and mortality, while emphasizing the indestructibility of the archetype.
02:31:38 Schopenhauer suggests that humans are not commonly bothered by the fear of death, as they tend to focus on immediate goals and desires, believing they are part of the enduring will of nature.
02:34:28 After death, Schopenhauer believes individuals return to the timeless and endless will, not as separate entities but as part of an indestructible chain of beings.
02:36:20 Schopenhauer argues that life's real problem is not death but the endless pain inherent in existence, making suicide an ineffective solution.
02:42:00 Schopenhauer sets up a challenge for those who desire eternal recurrence of life, similar to Nietzsche's concept, but he himself rejects the idea, emphasizing the negativity of existence.
02:45:15 Schopenhauer's aim is the negation of the individual will, leading to a state of nothingness, akin to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, but without mystification or continued existence.
02:49:03 True death, according to Schopenhauer, is not achieved through suicide but through the conscious rejection of life as an autonomous choice, leading to nothingness.
02:52:40 Nietzsche was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer's concepts, such as the will, representation, genius, and the negation of the will, which played a significant role in shaping Nietzsche's philosophical ideas.
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all of it 1:38:07 part 1 ends, watched all of part two 2:52:20
‘Dandy’ of the underworld in true Marc Bolan fashion. Superb working through steadily. Thank you 🤩
Schopenhauer was not a pessimist, he was a refreshing life-positive realist.
Men will do anything, including, normalizing their pessimistic world view as the single true natural reality, just not to go to therapy lol
absolutely true , i’m agree with you . There’s too much toxic positivity today and denial about fatalities and people struggling for something and Schopenhauer is one of those who helped me a lot in life by reading is work
I've seen so many lecturers in the history of philosophy present Schopenhauer as this horrendous, pessimistic, spiteful, depression-inducing philosopher that should be consigned to the dustbin. It's as annoying as Nietzsche being presented as a nihilist when his entire philosophy was literally about resisting nihilism.
@@saintsword23 exactly, and i’m absolutely agree with you for Nietzsche , he prevented us for the upcoming general nihilism in our society and the last man
Thank you for such a wonderful work
What an awesome thing you've done here. Thanks so much for this
just wanted to say- your voice is awesome. you speak so clearly and with interest in which you’re actually talking about lol so thank you for giving me something cool to listen to during work.
Ad 2:09:10: "The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." (A. Schopenhauer)
Thank You, excellent technical production too.
15:50 actually he did walk because of his health. In a letter to a friend he "revealed" that the secret to his good condition at old age was his "daily promenades".
You had me at 'hated Hegel'
A pessimist is nothing more than an optimist with experience.
😅😅👌
You are such a clear spoken man. I really appreciate your efforts. This is calm and easy to understand. Thank you and I appreciate you.
Either we become sane to insane or insane to sane objectively, great explanation, thank you
Enjoying your video thank you! But S did have a reason for his 2 hour walk. I think in the book on aphorisms, he says that "life is motion," and goes into some depth about how the lungs must be exercised, other organs, etc. He mentions daily cold baths. So I don't think its true that mere "immobility as primary characteristic" is what caused him to continue the daily walk -- I think his conceptions supported the idea.
And why can't we take his use of the word "will" to mean consciousness? I think defining it as "force" leans it into being considered a thing in the world, and subject to causality. But leaning towards "consciousness" allows it to embody desires, those things which, like "will," we know, or at least think we know and can begin our own reasoning about his ideas from where we are, in this subjective state we find ourselves.
Fascinating. Thank you!
1:00:00 paraphrasing Schopenhauer: 'The whole of reality (all of causality) is only for the understanding (to realise these transcendental themes), through the understanding (perspective) in the understanding (experience)'
what do you think this means?
Well done, clear and concise. And thanks for no background music.
There are serious people who work hard at what they do... But we need a "gift" to teach like you do. Straight to the point - no arrogance - speaks slowly and enjoys the words... I am grateful!
#judeuslivresporPALESTINALIVRE
Just, amazing!
Schopenhauer wasn't a pessimist he was a sober realist.
he was a sober pessimist
And let's not forget a fine arsehole
He was a somber feminist*
Pheasant and lobotomist
That's not pesimism, it's freedom and true joy
Hey man, this stuff is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Love your insights and enjoy thinking about this stuff.
You need to do audiobooks if you dont already. Fantastic speaking voice.
this is so nicely explained.
It really is surprising that you didn’t examine Schopenhauer’s take on music, although you took your time analysing the rest of the arts, which in his eyes are inferior with a significant gap. Music’s delineation from platonic ideas was such an eye opener for me when I first came in contact with Schopenhauer’s philosophy that ever since, I have always kept it very close to heart. In any case, great effort on the video as a whole.
Schopenhauer comes across as definitely someone who not only saw the world as a glass half empty, but saw it necessary to smash the glass all together!
What amazes me is that he didn’t slash his own throat with the shards!
Thank you for this, enjoyed it thoroughly. Perhaps you could do a lecture on Viktor Frankl and comparing him with Nietzsche?
Great show, thanks. 👍
Amazing! Thank you so much,
Thank you very much for your analysis’ on these philosophers. Wonderful videos sir. Please continue with these.🙏🏼
dude you have an extremely enjoyable podcast/video voice.
Do you have a Patreon? How can I support you and keep this going?
www.patreon.com/untimelyreflections
Thank you!
What a great job, thanks!
Man I love all your podcast
Thank you for listening
Me too, the way you explain.
If all is will, the motive force for all is will, so the only force or energy by which the will can be negated is the will. The will's negation of the will must inevitably be a striving for negation against a striving for non-negation. The will cannot be negated by the will, the best that can be achieved is to use will to suppress the external manifestation of will.
The striving can never be negated, only locked into an eternal battle within the mind that limits will's expression within perceived external reality. There can never be victory over the will, only a perpetual stalemate in which will is turned against itself in such a way as to limit its extremal manifestation within perceived reality.
Only a tiny percentage of human minds will be capable of engaging in this perpetual internal warfare of will against itself, so the suffering of the external world will continue largely unabated while simultaneously those minds capable of harnessing the will with such skill will be squandered on a futile endeavor rather than free to serve mankind.
The problem with the kind of Eastern metaphysics that defines us all as iterative manifestations of a single meta-being of some kind, is that they are entirely at odds with the empirical evidence for how humans actually live their lives in the mundane world. If we are all one, then stealing from you becomes stealing from myself, which isn't theft at all.
If we are all one, then "grape" becomes nothing more than "self-pleasuring," "unaliving" becomes "self-unaliving," violence becomes self-harm and all rights predicated upon the notion of individual agency, like property rights, all become null and void. If there is no "I" then "I" cannot own anything, all things must be the property of all in the one.
This, of course, is not even how the vast majority of Hindus live. Even most Buddhists own property and respect the agency of others. If we take the "all is one" philosophy to its logical conclusions, then we must dispense with almost everything that has made civilization possible and dissolve all individual human agency into nothing.
This is my favourite channel. ❤
Thanks for an honest understanding of Schopenhauer! As an artist, retired art teacher, and lover of philosophy, I fully agree with Schopenhauer's idea of both art and genius. It is in sync with my thoughts and in keeping with his collective thinking. This is where I dislike Nietzsche (well, I understand your favour). In his attempt to personify the antichrist, Nietzsche opposes the simplicity of reality ( God, form, thing in itself) by opposing his will rather than letting his will go to see it as is. in its own genesis ( without neurosis or psychosis)
He was a realist, not a pessimist.
That's what pessimists always say! ;)
Only because realistic thinking is seen as negative 🙂
@Lio s Nietzsche didn't consider himself an optimist. He calls himself a "pessimist of strength". He believed in asserting an honest view of the world, as Schopenhauer did - that to be life-affirming is to affirm pain, tragedy, calamity, torture, privation, and failure - and yet, to affirm it in spite of this. This is the Nietzschean "tragic worldview"; the love of fate and the love of life in spite of the suffering entailed - even *because* of the suffering entailed.
I have multiple sclerosis and your channel has been so helpful
Many thing schopenhaeur be misunderstood by others..
They didnt have a same vision with him..
Thank you for this lecture.😎
Schopenhauer was a realist ; he knew that this is all BS ; niche was confused and even though he agreed with Schopenhauer, niche was in denial
Finding things that chime to some extent later in life than ideal, especially Sarte and Schopenhaur. The ridiculousness of our habits, and the overt attempts we make to try to convince ourselves we're happy.
At least learn how to spell his name. Its Nietzsche. Furthermore, you’re wrong. Good day sir.
@@scottstorchfan He's completely right about nische. Nische was a pompous idiot. Entertaining, and maybe rousing good spirits for people in certain predicaments, but absolutely delusional and utterly dumb. Nietzsche was a tragically stupid man, the epitome of what it means to be pathetic.
Excellent! For a more positive outlook I suggest Decoding Schopenhauer"s Metaphysics by Bernardo Kastrup. His (Kastrup's) Metaphysical Idealism brings it all together in a very believable philosophy.
I have the highest regard for Bernardo Kastrup. I regard him as being the Galileo of Consciousness. I think that , like Schopenhauer , he will became more significant over time .
He gives very profound scientific evidence for metaphysical Idealism and Advaita Vedanta.
Thanks!
@@michaeldillon3113 I find it annoying when people say they have "scientific evidence" for metaphysical claims. Either they don't understand what it is that science does, they don't understand what metaphysics is about, or both.
@@saintsword23 What was the most recent Nobel Prize for Physics awarded for ?
@QuantumFieldAgentLeMan My entire point is that physics has nothing to say about metaphysics. You have to add a philosophical claim, like "the most useful explanations are closest to the truth" to bridge that gap.
He spoke truth.
Ad 00:03: "I am convinced that Schopenhauer is the most brilliant of men. ... It's the whole world in one incredibly beautiful and bright replica." (L. Tolsto) - My guess is that "incredibly beautiful" refers to his language as it's not only my opinion, that Schopenhauer might be the best prose-author the german language knows (surpassing Nietzsche's also eceptional, more polemic style). - In deed, epistemologically, ontologically and ethically outstanding in his own right, regardless the not very meaningful label 'pessimist'.
*He published his book in 1818
(you accidently said 1918)
60$ from 1913 (founding of the FED) would be somewhere around 1800$ today, can't imagine it being very much different in Germany (especially after 2 world wars)
I looked it up, 60 Gulden (from 1840) would be 1430€ today.
Thanks! Someone else caught the 1918 slip-up as well. Unfortunately its a mistake etched in the ether for all time!
Thanks for the insight on the monetary conversion, also!
@@untimelyreflections You're welcome!
This topic always gets my attention, since the founding of the FED (same as every central bank, which is written down in the communist manifesto from Marx) and then getting rid of the gold-standard is the biggest fraud in human history!
I looked it up, 60 Gulden (1840) would be around 1430€ today
@@untimelyreflections Did Schopenhauer help the soldiers to beat down the socialist revolution? This makes him more likeable for me :'D
Yeah that was painful to listen to, mauling historical facts and figures like a pleb!
As a Buddhist, his philosophy makes the most sense to me. Despite his negativity.
I just got to the part where you mentioned he, Nietzsche, and many others followed a rigid behavioral pattern. Based on that behavior, the out of the box abstract thinking and unique social skills (or lack thereof) I'd bet money they were all on the autism spectrum. There's definitely a pattern imo. Thank you for all of this great work.
Wrong.
The word you're looking for is German.
the root of all evil @@honestpeoplearescum8401
One of the greatest optimists of all time.
For a visual on Shoupenhaurs understanding, check out the Mandlebrot Set.
Amazing exposition, thank you
I heard the comment made by his mother was something more dramatic, like the following: "Certainly! Copies of your first edition will still be available for sale!" I also heard it was delivered during a soiree at her salon. Its historicity is likely dubious, but it's an entertaining anecdote.
Can you explain what his mother mean to that?
the woman he pushed down the stairs was his landlady .... there was a long backstory of her coming up the stairs to bother/harass him ... just saying ...
100%: So grateful for this podcast. thanks!!!
Life is science (theory about the world and experience, which tells you if you are right or not about your ideas).Pessimism is simply withdrawal from the world (the pain of a bad experience) as optimism plunges into the world (naive youth as opposed to experienced old age). Failure sharpens the mind, which leads us to concentrate on reality more in its finer details. Childhood does not discern as its perception of the world is more dispersed as in sleep (vague reality): sleep like thought and all periods of unconsciousness is a necessary withdrawal from the world, to reassess our position in the world. The monk withdraws from all contact possible but cannot teach us anything new because they don't interact with the outside world. Wars tell us that even if you want to avoid this state, you cannot because it can pursue you in its violent stupidity. Peace allows expression but wars and all forms of violence are about suppression. Like Wittgenstein said , the best book on philosophy would be a joke book (end of Tractus). This is because taking things seriously leads to conflict 'believe me!' Laughter is letting go and seeing the world as ridiculous - pursuing goals that make no sense in the final analysis, just perpetuate the myth of meaning, which Zen koans and indeed its general philosophy, says is nonsense. The East has older cultures than the childish West, which is why it has developed its philosophies in the way it has and what drew Schopenhauer to them in the first place.
What would Schopenhauer make of Nietchiche
Towards the end of this video I can't help but be reminded of the following quote by Jung: "Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness is the same as emptiness. The nothing is both empty and full. One may just as well state some or other thing about the Nothing, namely that it is white or it is black or that it exists or that it exists not. That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities." It makes me question the labeling of Schopenhauer as pessimistic, rather than gnostic. Of course, once one arrives at gnosticism, what the point of differentiation by words? It is what it is.
1:17:50 Schopenhauer says that life has no meaning, but didn't he say just earlier (1:00:00) that cause and effect exist just for our understanding; understanding for what?
Surely this implies that life has meaning, we are simply not aware of what this meaning is, and as of right now we cant know the meaning. Why were things designed this way; for our understanding?
he says this 'will' is a blind striving, and yet look at all the concepts it has given birth to. Also consider that when basic needs are satiated more complex emotional needs arise; is this the 'will's' doing? This does not seem random, it seems to follow a design, a sequence, but to assume that this progression is blind is to assume too much. We make assumptions about the structure without seeing the bigger picture. Perhaps the will drives all evolution, and because we misunderstand the requisites for evolution the striving of the will 'seems' blind.
when the spider starts to spin its web do you think it has an understanding of the grand design, or do you think it acts intuitively according to impulse? How does it know the web is complete; correspondence of feeling. Likewise man acts intuitively on impulse, unlike the spider humans mistrust their impulses. What seems to be a blind form of striving (the spinning of a web) serves a purpose, likewise do the actions and complexity of mankind's organisations seemingly serve a purpose, we have simply not realised what this purpose is, and as soon as we do we will better understand the grand design (perhaps we wont be so timid). evolution is progressive, and we can never better understand the purpose of this grand design without first taking a leap of faith (this requires that we trust in our biology).
the division of labour is such an evolutionary concept provided to us upon acting on impulse: intuitively we organised ourselves, and upon reflection we discovered what for. Intuitively we know that a square is not a triangle, only upon reflection do we start to better understand why.
seemingly what drives our evolution now is the selection of problems, after all, all progress entails the replacement of one problem (public transport) with a new more desirable problem (cost of registration): we call this progress, and the nature of this progress is the replacement of one problem with another slightly more desirable problem. Reason is typically used to debate the desirability of problems, but reason is not capable of determining what an advantage is: and so from this perspective the striving of reason is blind and the progress we make is arbitrary (a type of striving for the sake of striving which is incentivised and rewarded by biological systems: the will).
the will makes life meaningful: reason looks at the progress it has made and does not know to what end, thus it proclaims life is meaningless, this is an error. Indeed creation for creations sake seems absurd to us.
If Schopenhauer was the quintessential pessimist who was the essential pessimist? Moreover I would not use the word "essential" but rather the word "essence" as in 'his philosophy was the quintessence of pessimism,' which is more accurate in usage, but nevertheless I would still have to clearly define what "essence" is so I know what the "next thing to" (quint) really means. This may seem to be a quibble but especially in philosophy should we not seek absolute clarity and accurate nuance in the words we use?
What do I know?
Thank you so much, you're a great teacher. Please keep this kind of content coming.
Thank you for this.
Life is an endedless hunt for happiness that never comes and then you die.
Not quite happiness. Our primary drive is survival and when our survival is expanded or enhanced we are happy (body releases chemicals, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin. Our will is a drive for immortality, unlimited strength. All life forms have a life drive. We are slaves to this drive. This drive can not be satisfied and when the drive (desire) is obstructed we suffer.
@@mikekensington1705will to power
@@mikekensington1705Not necessarily. Some of our drives are directly in conflict with survival and others neither add nor detract from survivability. The will to survive is only a portion of what can be willed.
I really like Schopenhauer Mythology . I really like how you were able to communicate to us what his passages really mean even though you may not agree fully. Everything we need We already have but because it’s never enough we always feel incomplete. We are accountable when we are aware of the knowledge of truth and reality. We then are accountable for the change within ourselves. So we technically die in someway to be reborn. And that’s heavy in the beginning. I have more peace understanding and live a more harmonious life with the understanding that everything I need I already have.💕
1:03:30 you can have a "knower" without the known. solipsism is a valid metaphysical argument. since if all is illusion/delusion , there only needs to be the dreamer. the so called "objects" of the dream do not need to exist....
on the flip side, if there is only materialism or the buddhist "anatta", the illusion of a "knower" is just the passing impermanent sensations/experiences of the body and no eternal/permanent "knower" or "self". both arguments are equally plausible and impossible to invalidate.
Hearing such things is surreal, since I've thought them for over a decade--I'm 30.
My theory is Schopenhauer's "wills," but where the will that you are is your present (timeless) experience (qualia flavor), not to be confused with its structural representation.
Yeah I got, like, two syllables in and I totally subscribed. I mean, I don't even know what the content is, but you've got a voice made for radio.
Screw pot -- screw psychedelics -- forget beta waves or whatever: this is the stuff people should listen to for bliss.
So, am I to understand that the very lowest level of the will is gravity? So, continuing in order up the ladder, it would follow EM, weak and strong, electrons, protons, atoms and molecules, microorganisms, plants, animals, and people?
At each level we could sprinkle in additional, less important stages such as neutrinos, Higgs bosons, DNA, prions and viruses, and then perhaps rank each animal in accordance with its sentience. One could rank the entire known universe in this way. Is this useful? How would celestial objects fit into this scheme?
No copyright
Isn't the decision to negate the will just another part of it?
Seems to me the concepts of meditation and art (in the way described as "true art" by Schopenhauer) lack the need for knowledge, but imply basic and persistent observation and repetition. Where exactly does knowledge come into play in this case?
Maybe I didn't fully understand some of the ideas, but it's all fascinating, and I really appreciate the tremendous efforts you put into these videos. Thank you kindly
Nietzsche objected to the severest aspects of Schopo's viewpoint yet which of them lived to old age (sane) and which of them ended up in the madhouse?
Unfortunately, Nietzsche was born with a congenital disease that plagued him throughout his life. He had migraines from the time he was 12 until the end of his life, coupled with vomiting, nauseau and near blindness as the condition worsened. Eventually, he collapsed from a severe series of strokes. An alternative theory is a brain tumor, which would have effectively lobotomized him.
So, while it would be unfounded to attribute his philosophy as the cause of his loss of sanity - we might notice, on the other hand, that Nietzsche more than anyone would be predisposed to agree with Schopenhauer that life is characterized by ever worsening suffering. And yet, he still remained firm in his view that life was of the highest value. And what could be more severe of a belief than the idea that one’s life of intense pain, vomiting and incipient insanity must be lived over and over again, for eternity?
Ngl, Schopenhauer's solution to the Kantian prohibition is the only convincing one Ive ever seen.
He was an idealist. He has become part of the Canon of Idealism. His understanding of mind (will) and phenomena (perception) is profound.
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I like his daily schedule.
When you get older in life you realize everyone has their own bullshit , yours is as good as theirs and therefore follow your own mind.
It helps to frame it as a terrible experience that you get through and make the best of, rather than a joy that you are supposed to feel, but don't.
1:38:00 part 2
Thanks for this. I'm excited to check it out! Nietzsche is one of my heroes. Schopenhauer is someone I've worked at but haven't fully grasped yet. Thanks for the podcast - we need real means of thinking our way out of this horrorshow.
Cound t agree more
I second that.
@borsalinokizaru9862😂
In shadows deep, where thoughts entwine,
Schopenhauer's mind, a realm malign.
Rejecting life, a stark decree,
Does negation hold the key?
Influence profound on Nietzsche's pen,
A philosophical journey, where did it begin?
Plato's echo, Kant's embrace,
Metaphysical dance, a somber grace.
World as will, a ceaseless flow,
Representation, illusions sow.
A complex tapestry, Schopenhauer's lore,
Dare we delve where few explore?
Aesthetic pathways, will-less gaze,
Becoming subjects in life's maze.
Genius whispers, an ethereal call,
Through art and beauty, does liberation sprawl?
Indestructible being, a cosmic dance,
Happiness, a negative stance.
Negation's shadow, cast so wide,
Liberation sought on suffering's tide.
Three hours unfold, a lecture grand,
Reasoning through perception's stand.
Galaxies reduced to nothingness,
Will-less contemplation, an abyss.
Schopenhauer, pessimist profound,
In questioning verses, truths are found.
Deny the world, yet seek to know,
The paradoxical dance, where meanings grow.
Bravo! 👏👏👏
Man, thanks for sharing!
Poor Schopenhauer was the ultimate sad boy. Definitely got an awful lot in life, similar to Edgar Poe.
I read his writing "Studies in pessimism"
A majority of it, I'd say he makes some good points, but man, he sure didn't get to enjoy the vanity of life at all. 😅