Arthur Schopenhauer & Will

Schopenhauer allows that we have a curious relationship with our bodies, for they are the only slice of reality that can be known both as phenomena (eg., when I look at my bleeding foot) and as noumena (eg., when I feel the pain). In other words, the body may be known either as object or as subject. Schopenhauer then declares that when we experience the subject intuitively, in-itself, we find that its ultimate nature of 'will'. Human reality, phenomenally speaking, is known by the idea of body, but noumenally speaking it is will: "The body is given in two entirely different ways.... It is given as an idea in intelligent perception, as an object among objects and subject, to the laws of objects. And it is also given a quite a different way as that which is immediately known to every one, and is signified by the word 'will'.

Here we seethe metaphysical principle that inform the title of Schopenhauer's major work, 'The World as Will and Idea' This metaphysical principle expresses a distinction between reality and appearance: The world as will is the real world, whereas the world as idea is the world of mere appearances. Physical objects, our bodies included, are the objective manifestations of space, time, and cause-effect. And the same holds for our thoughts as well. Bodies, thought, reason itself are grounded in will. Everything in reality is g rounded in the cosmic will, which Schopenhauer insists is without meaning, origin, or destiny. It is fundamentally blind and irrational. The perception that nature is rational (the Enlightenment view) is illusory. In rality the world is will alone -- a driving, struggling force field of urging after nothing in particular. Just to be is the purpose. Reality is the will of being raging against annihilation

Is nature rational? No, it is willful. Are humans rational? Ultimately humans are willful too. Reason is no more than rationalization of the will. So what can be said of the Enlightenment doctrine of unlimited progress toward happiness through the application of reason? This is the ultimate deception. Reason, science, law, the state, religion are all devices we use to gratify the urges of the ego. They actually create and sustain the illusion of the world as idea. And they can offer no more than "palliations and anodynes" in the forms of names, and theories to disguise the true pain, suffering, and misery that is nature. Artistic genius can do more than theory to provide relief from the veil of illusion, for art is less rationalized and therefore less deceptive than theory. But it is true philosophy (ie., the philosophy of Hindu Upanishads) that has the most to offer. The ultimate goal or philosophy is not to reinforce the deceptions of reason with sophistical arguments but rather to undeceive humanity by derationalizing the will to the point of silence::

"From this we can understand how blessed the life of a man must be whose will is silenced, not merely for moment, as in the enjoyment of the beautiful, but for ever, indeed altogether extinguished, except as regards the last glimmering spark that retains the body in life, and will be extinguished in death... He now looks back smiling and a rest on the delusions of this world, which now stand before him as utterly indifferent to him... Life and its forms now pass before him as a fleeting illlusion, as light morning dream before half-waling eyes, the real world alelady shining through it so that it can no longer deceive." Page 59

Schopenhauer's concept of 'Will' should not be understood in the common sense as simply wanting something for oneself, but is much more than that. It is essence of what it means to be human. Previous to Schopenhauer, much of the philosophical tradition places mankind as the thinking animal, as a rational, conscious being, but Schopenhauer saw consciousness as the mere surface of our minds. Under the conscious intellect is the unconscious will which is a striving, persistent force. .... ~ Page 18 (Except: Nitsche -- Essential understanding - Author Roy Jackson)