The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism

The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism PDF Author: Dennis Vanden Auweele
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351721593
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This book connects Schopenhauer’s philosophy with transcendental idealism by exploring the distinctly Kantian roots of his pessimism. By clearly discerning four types of coming to knowledge, it demonstrates how Schopenhauer’s epistemology can enlighten this connection with other areas of his philosophy. The individual chapters in this book discuss how these knowledge types—immediate or mediate, representational or non-representational—relate to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, ethics and action, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and asceticism. In each of these areas, a specific sense of pessimism serves to disarm a number of paradoxes and inconsistencies typically associated with Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessismism shows how Schopenhauer’s claim that he is a true successor to Kant can be justified.

The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism

The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism PDF Author: Dennis Vanden Auweele
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351721593
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This book connects Schopenhauer’s philosophy with transcendental idealism by exploring the distinctly Kantian roots of his pessimism. By clearly discerning four types of coming to knowledge, it demonstrates how Schopenhauer’s epistemology can enlighten this connection with other areas of his philosophy. The individual chapters in this book discuss how these knowledge types—immediate or mediate, representational or non-representational—relate to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, ethics and action, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and asceticism. In each of these areas, a specific sense of pessimism serves to disarm a number of paradoxes and inconsistencies typically associated with Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessismism shows how Schopenhauer’s claim that he is a true successor to Kant can be justified.

Studies in Pessimism

Studies in Pessimism PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description


Studies in Pessimism

Studies in Pessimism PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: 谷月社
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule. I know of no greater absurdity than that propounded by most systems of philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt. Leibnitz is particularly concerned to defend this absurdity; and he seeks to strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism.[1] It is the good which is negative; in other words, happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end. [Footnote 1: Translator's Note, cf. Thèod, §153.—Leibnitz argued that evil is a negative quality—i.e., the absence of good; and that its active and seemingly positive character is an incidental and not an essential part of its nature. Cold, he said, is only the absence of the power of heat, and the active power of expansion in freezing water is an incidental and not an essential part of the nature of cold. The fact is, that the power of expansion in freezing water is really an increase of repulsion amongst its molecules; and Schopenhauer is quite right in calling the whole argument a sophism.] This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful. The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781540866455
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
Studies in Pessimism is a collection of Arthur Schopenhauer's essays, which unites his principle discussions of philosophical pessimism; a trait which was his most definitive. Over his career, Schopenhauer developed a unique, atheistic philosophy, whose ethical and metaphysical properties formed a quintessential pessimism. Identifying a confection of absurdities in life, and using human history to evidence and reinforce his beliefs, Schopenhauer philosophizes that human existence consists mainly of blind and aimless striving. A core tenet of Arthur Schopenhauer's thought was that the human will had no end goal or purpose. Although the will can vigorously strive at any level of its manifestation, the lack of - indeed, the impossibility of - an ending renders its efforts purposeless and fruitless. Furthermore, contends Schopenhauer, the wills of beings compete with one another: this competition creates conflict, misery and struggle. This book contains nine of Schopenhauer's essays discussing pessimism, each of which contains a topic pertinent to his overarching philosophy. Since he first published his essays on pessimism, many commentators and scholars have identified similarities between Schopenhauer's beliefs and the Buddhist faith. Buddhism holds that human striving is insatiable, and that the solution is nonexistence. By 'nonexistence' the Buddhists, and Schopenhauer, do not mean suicide - for this does not tackle or end the root cause of the suffering - but instead a continual moderation of desire. By stymieing worldly desires, and excluding the chaotic mentality of want and striving from life, a person can enjoy a more peaceful and happy existence resigned from the tumultuous striving which underlines everyday human existence.

The Pessimist's Handbook

The Pessimist's Handbook PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: Lincoln, University of Nebreaska Press
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 856

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The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781437869996
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. He responded to and expanded upon Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world. His critique of Kant, his creative solutions to the problems of human experience and his explication of the limits of human knowledge are among his most important achievements. His metaphysical theory is the foundation of his influential writings on psychology, aesthetics, ethics, and politics which influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud and others. He said he was influenced by the Upanishads, Immanuel Kant, and Plato. References to Eastern philosophy and religion appear frequently in his writing. He appreciated the teachings of the Buddha and even called himself a Buddhaist. He said that his philosophy could not have been conceived before these teachings were available. He called himself a Kantian. He formulated a pessimistic philosophy that gained importance and support after the failure of the German and Austrian revolutions of 1848.

Studies in Pessimism

Studies in Pessimism PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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On The Suffering of the World - Schopenhauer

On The Suffering of the World - Schopenhauer PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: Lebooks Editora
ISBN: 6558942887
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
The work " The Suffering of the World" comprises a selection of Arthur Schopenhauer's later writings. These texts, produced in the last decades of Schopenhauer's long life, reveal a unique type of philosophy expressed in a singular style. Avoiding the dry, all-encompassing academic philosophy tradition predominant at the time, Schopenhauer's texts mark a shift towards a philosophy of aphorisms, fragments, anecdotes, and observations, written in a literary style that is at once antagonistic, resigned, confessional, and filled with fragile contours of intellectual memoirs. Here, Schopenhauer allows himself to pose challenging questions about the fate of humankind, the role of suffering in the world, and the gap between the self and the world that increasingly defines human existence to this day. More than ever, everyday discussions revolve around the influence of passions (or the unconscious, in contemporary language) in our lives: what is the root of depression, suicide, and panic disorder? Why do these issues appear more than ever nowadays? In other words, today it is acknowledged that there are non-rational instances that greatly influence our lives, and that somehow, we need to deal with them. Thus, Schopenhauer's view of a being not strictly rational seems more relevant than ever. Schopenhauer consistently surprises the unsuspecting reader positively. He is a p hilosopher who undoubtedly deserves to be read.

The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics

The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199297223
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Schopenhauer's two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morals form his complete system of ethics. Their doctrines are here presented in more accessible, self-contained form than in his larger work, and in a new translation, introduced by Christopher Janaway, that preserves Schopenhauer's style in modern English.

The World as Will and Idea 2

The World as Will and Idea 2 PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: 谷月社
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
In boundless space countless shining spheres, about each of which, and illuminated by its light, there revolve a dozen or so of smaller ones, hot at the core and covered with a hard, cold crust, upon whose surface there have been generated from a mouldy film beings which live and know—this is what presents itself to us in experience as the truth, the real, the world. Yet for a thinking being it is a precarious position to stand upon one of those numberless spheres moving freely in boundless space without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings who throng and press and toil, ceaselessly and quickly arising and passing away in time, which has no beginning and no end; moreover, nothing permanent but matter alone and the recurrence of the same varied organised forms, by means of certain ways and channels which are there once for all. All that empirical science can teach is only the more exact nature and law of these events. But now at last modern philosophy especially through Berkeley and Kant, has called ] to mind that all this is first of all merely a phenomenon of the brain, and is affected with such great, so many, and such different subjective conditions that its supposed absolute reality vanishes away, and leaves room for an entirely different scheme of the world, which consists of what lies at the foundation of that phenomenon, i.e., what is related to it as the thing in itself is related to its mere manifestation. “The world is my idea” is, like the axioms of Euclid, a proposition which every one must recognise as true as soon as he understands it; although it is not a proposition which every one understands as soon as he hears it. To have brought this proposition to clear consciousness, and in it the problem of the relation of the ideal and the real, i.e., of the world in the head to the world outside the head, together with the problem of moral freedom, is the distinctive feature of modern philosophy. For it was only after men had spent their labour for thousands of years upon a mere philosophy of the object that they discovered that among the many things that make the world so obscure and doubtful the first and chiefest is this, that however immeasurable and massive it may be, its existence yet hangs by a single thread; and this is the actual consciousness in which it exists. This condition, to which the existence of the world is irrevocably subject, marks it, in spite of all empirical reality, with the stamp of ideality, and therefore of mere ...