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There is wisdom in taking a gloomy view, said Schopenhauer — and this lecture from Academy of Ideas shows why he earned the title of philosophy’s great pessimist. He looked inward and found the engine of existence: an endless, blind striving he called the will to live. Every desire begins in lack, every victory fades, and the cycle keeps turning toward death. Yet he offered paths of release — art that lifts us out of wanting, and a discipline of renunciation that cuts the threads of desire. Schopenhauer described the honest diagnosis; the choice of what to do with it remains ours.
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There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of hell,
and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.
At the age of 21, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was browsing a bookstore when he
stumbled upon Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophical treatise, The World as Will and Representation,
the chance discovery of this book would radically change Nietzsche’s life, or as he wrote,
I don’t know what demon whispered to me, take this book home. Back at home, I threw myself
into the corner of a sofa with my new treasure and began to let that dynamic, dismal genius
work on me. Nietzsche was not the only great thinker influenced by Schopenhauer at an early
age. In his late teenage years, Carl Jung searched for thinkers who could satisfy his intense thirst
for knowledge, and in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, and Reflections he wrote that
The great find resulting from my researches was Schopenhauer. He was the first to speak
of the suffering of the world, which visibly and glaringly surrounds us, and of confusion,
passion, evil. Here at last was a philosopher who had the courage to see that all was not for the
best in the fundaments of the universe. He spoke neither of the all-good and all-wise providence
of a creator nor of the harmony of the cosmos but stated bluntly that a fundamental flaw underlay
the sorrowful course of human history and the cruelty of nature in this video we explore
schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of the world and his thoughts on how to respond to the sufferings
and evils of life subject to the limitation of human knowledge my philosophy is the real solution
of the enigma of the world,” wrote Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer’s philosophical goal was a lofty one.
In his words, he wanted to lay bare the true nature of the world by obtaining knowledge of
the ultimate and foundational reality underlying all phenomena. This transcendental reality,
which is posited to exist beyond space and time and to eternally underwrite all that exists,
is often referred to by philosophers as the ground of being.
The reason Schopenhauer wanted to uncover the true nature of reality is because he thought that in
doing so, he could understand why our world is full of so much misery and evil. Or as he wrote,
Not merely that the world exists, but still more that it is such a miserable and melancholy world
is the tormenting problem of metaphysics. The problem that confronts us when we tackle
metaphysical questions is that our experience of the world is confined to our sense perceptions.
When we perceive a tree, a bird, a mountain, or another human being, we see only outer appearances
and not the inner essence or foundational reality that manifests them. Our perceptions, in other
words, cannot penetrate beyond the surface of things. Because of this problem, the philosopher
Immanuel Kant proposed that it is impossible for us to arrive at knowledge of the true nature of
reality, or in his terminology, we cannot obtain knowledge of things in themselves.
What things may be in themselves, I know not, because a thing is never presented to me
otherwise than as an appearance, explained Kant in Critique of Pure Reason, or as Roger
Scruton wrote in Kant, A Brief Insight. How can I know the world as it is? I can have knowledge
of the world as it seems, since that is merely knowledge of my present perceptions. But can I
have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of how it seems? To put the question
in slightly more general form, can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge
of my own point of view? According to Schopenhauer, Kant’s error lay in the fact that he overlooked
that there is one object in the world whose inner nature we directly experience, that being
ourselves. When we look at ourselves in a mirror, we perceive our body in the same way we perceive
other objects as a mere appearance but we also experience our mind and body from within and this
experience in the words of schopenhauer is infinitely more familiar and more intimate than
anything else to obtain knowledge of the true nature of reality we should therefore direct our
focus inward and explore the nature of our inner reality or as schopenhauer wrote on the path of
objective knowledge we shall never get beyond appearances we shall therefore remain at the
outside of things. We shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature and investigate
what they are in themselves. So far, I agree with Kant. But we ourselves are the thing in itself.
Consequently, a way from within stands open to us to that real inner nature of things to which
we cannot penetrate from without. It is, so to speak, a subterranean passage, which places us
at once within the fortress which it was impossible to take by assault from without.
When we look within, what we discover is that our inner nature is characterized by what
Schopenhauer called an endless striving. We want, need, wish, long, and yearn for one thing after
the other. Whether conscious or unconscious, desiring and striving constitute the essence
of our being, lies at the foundation of all our actions, and according to Schopenhauer,
all our desires exist in the service of two ends, survival and reproduction. Our drive to survive
spawns the desires for well-being, health, pleasure, and comfort, while our drive to
propagate ourselves produces sexual desire and a striving for status, recognition, money, and fame.
Or as Schopenhauer states, the human being wills unconditionally to preserve his existence,
wills it unconditionally free of pains, wills the greatest possible amount of well-being,
and wills every pleasure of which he is capable. In observing the behavior of other organisms it
is apparent that their essence too is defined by an endless striving for survival and reproduction.
As Schopenhauer wrote, what nature aims at and attains in man is indeed essentially the same
and not more than what is also its goal in the brutes, nourishment and propagation. Or as he put
it elsewhere, in the case of the plant, insect, animal, as well as the human being, willing and
striving constitute their entire essence. Schopenhauer went as far as to argue that a
sort of proto-willing and striving can be observed in the inorganic realm, for example, in the
processes of gravitation, magnetism, and crystal formation. The elementary forces and energies that
make up inorganic objects, he therefore proposed, share the same inner nature as human beings and
all other organisms, or as he wrote,
impulse with which masses of water rush downwards, the persistence and
determination with which the magnet always turns back to the North Pole, the
keen desire with which iron flies to the magnet, the vehemence with which the
poles of the electric current strive for reunion. If we observe all this, it will
not cost us a great effort of the imagination to recognize once more our
own inner nature, even at so great a distance. It is that which in us pursues
its ends by the light of knowledge but here, in the feeblest of its phenomena, only strives blindly
in a dull, one-sided, and unalterable manner. As Schopenhauer concluded that all things in this
world have willing and striving as their inner essence, he proposed that the ground of being
or foundational reality which transcends and manifests this world is a metaphysical force
which has endless willing and striving as its fundamental essence. He called this force the
will to live or simply the will and in his words the will is the being in itself of everything in
the world and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon or as he further theorized everything
presses and strives towards existence let anyone consider this universal desire for life let him
see the infinite willingness facility and exuberance with which the will to live presses
impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment. In such phenomena,
then, it becomes visible that I am right in declaring that the will to live is that which
cannot be further explained, but lies at the foundation of all explanation.
While others have proposed that the ground of being which transcends and creates this world
is conscious or intelligent, Schopenhauer described the will as unconscious, or as he put it,
it is a blind impulse to live to exist or as christopher janaway further clarifies
the will the world manifests itself endlessly as individuals which endlessly strive nothing
in the world strives or tends as it does for any ultimate reason it is not to fulfill any
rational purpose or because there is a good end state to be attained that plants or crystals grow
or that objects gravitate towards the earth. And since throughout nature the striving for
existence is blind, not essentially mediated by consciousness, this must apply also to my essence.
The true core of the personality is not the self-conscious eye or subject of knowledge,
but rather the will, which is fundamentally blind and without knowledge. We each exist as an
individual organism that blindly and for no good reason gravitates towards survival and sexual
reproduction. The individual human being perseveres in living and has an urge to bring further
individuals into life, but does not really know why. As everything in this world is a manifestation
of the will, Schopenhauer argued that individuality and separateness is an illusion. In reality,
all is one, or as the philosopher Frederick Copleston wrote. Influenced by Indian thought,
he read a Latin translation of a Persian version of the Upanishads. Schopenhauer declared that the
multiplicity of phenomena is only appearance, maya. They are the mere appearances of the one
will, which is in truth the sole reality. Yet as all organisms are trapped in the confines of maya,
instead of perceiving that all is one, egoism is the natural state. From its own perspective,
every organism is situated at the center of the universe and instinctively feels that its own
survival and well-being is more important than the survival and well-being of everything else.
This disposition of egoism is essential to everything in nature,” wrote Schopenhauer,
or as he put it elsewhere, the human being makes himself the center of the world
and considers his own existence and well-being before everything else.
In fact, from the natural standpoint, he is ready for this to sacrifice everything else.
He is ready to annihilate the world in order to maintain his own self,
that drop in the ocean, a little longer.
As the resources needed for survival and reproduction are limited, in their state of
egoism all organisms are locked in constant conflict. As the ancient Greek philosopher
Heraclitus put it, war is the father of all. To survive, every organism must kill and consume
some other life form, be it plant, insect, or animal, and in the competition to secure
reproductive mates, violence and deception are the norm. As Schopenhauer put it,
every organism competes with the others for matter space and time it speaks to the genius of
schopenhauer that he penned his ideas nearly half a century before charles darwin spoke of the
struggle for existence and of the competition and conflict that drives natural and sexual selection
or as carl jung wrote schopenhauer’s philosophy was confirmed not only by the early observations
i had made of diseased and dying fishes of mangy foxes frozen or starved birds
of the pitiless tragedies concealed in a flowery meadow, insects that tore each other apart piece
by piece, and so on. My experiences with human beings, too, had taught me anything rather than
belief in man’s original goodness and decency. From our egoistic perspective, all this conflict
and cruelty is the product of individual organisms preying upon one another. However, since every
organism is a manifestation of the will in reality what is unfolding in this world is the one will
pressing itself into existence under the guise of different life forms only to then fight and feed
on itself the will must live on itself wrote schopenhauer for there exists nothing beside it
and it is a hungry will in this world the will is both the hunter and the prey the torturer and the
tortured the deceiver and the deceived the killer and the killed or as julian young writes the world
will is the perpetrator of all this horror so it is evil but since it is the world it is also
the victim of its own evil it bears all the suffering it itself creates since every part
of the world is part of the world organism every time an animal sinks its teeth in the flesh of
another the world will sinks its teeth in its own flesh as this world is full of so much cruelty
evil and suffering, the idea that it was created by a moral and loving God is, for Schopenhauer,
absurd. The will, wrote Schopenhauer, is not divine but demonic. Although the will is a blind
and amoral force and not a being, if one were to personify it as a deity, one would, in the words
of Schopenhauer, have to admit that a God who should presume to transform himself into such a
world, would certainly have been inevitably troubled and tormented by the devil. Or as he
continued, for whence did Dante get the material for his hell, if not from this actual world of
ours? The world is hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the
devils in it. But it is not only in the struggle to survive and reproduce that the wretchedness of
life presents itself. For in our daily existence the endless striving and desiring that constitutes
the essence of our being, predestines us to suffer. Every desire is an expression of something
we want, need, or lack, and thus every desire is accompanied by some degree of dissatisfaction,
frustration, or pain. If we fail to satisfy a desire, it continues to make us suffer,
but if we satisfy it, our only reward is a brief period of respite before other desires arise to
fill the temporary void. But even in those rare moments we exist absent any desire, instead of
experiencing peace of mind all too often we experience anxiety, unrest, or boredom. Because
we are at essence beings who endlessly desire and strive, lasting satisfaction or happiness
is an impossibility. Suffering and dissatisfaction is our default state. Or as Schopenhauer explained,
All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this
to an end, yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied.
Further, desiring lasts a long time. Demands and requests go on to infinity. Fulfillment
is short and meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent.
The wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one. No attained object of willing can
give satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines. Therefore, so long as our consciousness
is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant
hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never obtain lasting happiness
or peace. To make our situation even worse, the final goal which awaits us in this perpetual
cycle of desiring and striving is death, be it by the slow decay of our mind and body
or an unexpected illness or accident. Seen as a whole, even the best lived life is a
a tragedy. Life is deeply steeped in suffering, and we cannot escape from it, writes Schopenhauer.
Our entrance to it takes place amid tears. At bottom its course is always tragic, and its end
is even more so. For those who resonate with this pessimistic vision of the world and the human
condition, Schopenhauer advised, there is only one thing to do. We must remove ourselves from
the cycle of endless desiring and striving that condemns us to a life of suffering. One way to do
this is through aesthetic appreciation. For when we experience something beautiful, be it a work
of art, a natural landscape, a song, or a philosophical idea, we are temporarily torn
away from our egotistical preoccupation with desire and for a brief time liberated from our
default dissatisfied state. Or as Schopenhauer wrote in The World is Will and Representation,
Aesthetic pleasure in the beautiful consists, to a large extent, in the fact that we are raised
for the moment above all willing, above all desires and cares, we are, so to speak, rid of
ourselves. And we know that these moments, when, delivered from the fierce pressure of the will,
we emerge, as it were, from the heavy atmosphere of the earth, are the most blissful that we
experience. From this we can infer how blessed must be the life of a man whose will is silenced
not for a few moments, as in the enjoyment of the beautiful, but forever, indeed completely
extinguished, except for the last glimmering spark that maintains the body and is extinguished
with it.
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While aesthetic appreciation provides brief respite from the torment of endless striving,
According to Schopenhauer, true liberation lies in ethical renunciation.
This involves embracing a life of asceticism and self-denial, rejecting the world, and
detaching ourselves from our desires by relinquishing the pursuit of their fulfillment.
Schopenhauer referred to this ascetic path as the denial of the will to live, and in
his words, it involves ceasing to will anything, guarding against attaching one’s will to
anything and seeking to confirm in oneself the greatest indifference to everything.
As the sexual impulse is the strongest and most powerful manifestation of the will, the
one that perpetuates this earthly scene of horror, Schopenhauer maintained that voluntary
and complete chastity is the first step in asceticism or the denial of the will to live.
Embracing a life of voluntary poverty, renouncing material possessions, and subsisting on the
smallest and simplest of rations are also essential aspects of the ascetic path. The more
one rejects desires and refrains from striving, the closer one comes to attaining the only form
of peace possible in this world. Or as Schopenhauer wrote of the ascetic, nothing can worry him
anymore, nothing more can excite him, because he has cut all the thousand threads of willing that
keep us bound to the world, and which, as craving, fear, envy, and anger, drag us here and there in
constant pain. Or, as he continues, every fulfillment of our wishes won from the world
is only like the alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he may starve again tomorrow.
Resignation, on the other hand, is like the inherited estate. It frees its owner from all
care and anxiety forever. Schopenhauer’s asceticism is not an unrealizable philosophical ideal,
for throughout history there have existed individuals who have renounced this world
and, to varying degrees, removed themselves from the endless cycle of desiring and striving
in search of lasting peace. Or as Schopenhauer acknowledged,
What I have here described with a feeble tongue and only in general terms is no philosophical
fable, invented by myself and only of today. No, it was the enviable life of so many saints
and beautiful souls among Christians, and still more among Hindus and Buddhists and also among
the believers of other religions. Schopenhauer’s ascetic solution, however, is unlikely to
resonate with most of us. Carl Jung, for example, wrote that,
Schopenhauer’s somber picture of the world had my undivided approval, but not the solution
of the problem. Most of us do not want to reject this world and live absent goals and
desires. Rather, we want to cultivate the ability to embrace and affirm it, and to throw
Throw ourselves headlong into life, even with a full awareness of its sufferings, tragedies,
and evils.
In the next video, we are going to explore Nietzsche’s response to Schopenhauer and
his ideas on how it is possible to live with an awareness of the terrible truths of existence
and still say yes to life.
I had to struggle almost solely with my great teacher Schopenhauer, wrote Nietzsche.
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