Schopenhauer & Being Cheerful

Professor Christopher Janaway discusses the thought of Arthur Schopenhauer and his views on the suffering and futility of human life and the influence of love, art, morality and religion in a talk that was given at the University of Southampton a few years ago as part of the Philosophy Café series.
#philosophy #schopenhauer

[@dennyworthington6641]

One of my favorite Schopenhauer quotes is: "Directly after copulation, the devil’s laughter is heard.”

[@Wildrover82]

It certainly is. Lol.

[@LazyPanda89]

Post nut clarity 😆

[@kimyunmi452]

Yeah..the evil will got what it wanted..

[@aj5424]

Post nut regret..lol. Not clarity.

[@aydnofastro-action1788]

Wonderful. "Majesterial and uplifting tones." As Neitzsche describes , reading him is like walking in into a large Forrest and breathing in fresh air.

[@dragushcobaj4121]

He also described his philosophy as a decomposing corpse, just saying.

[@karl246111]

He's pure art in thinking

[@bernardliu8526]

This is the best exposition of Schopenhauer’s philosophy I have encountered.

[@sneakerbabeful]

Thank you, Sir.

[@ZYX84]

I’m a woman. When I make comments about Schopenhauer being my first true love. Jokingly of course… Although he was quite handsome when he was a young man… Although I heard he was also a virgin through his whole life… Either way, women dislike me when they find out I admire his mind. I still don’t understand why. He was provocative and he will always be.💜 This is why I love him so😊. And Nietzsche! Oh Nietzsche.. and you’re damn mustache⚔️😉

[@rhetoric5173]

Would they have found you attractive though?

[@alexanderfuchs8742]

not a virgin :D even had a kid in Dresden that died very young I believe ... if you recall at one point he gives the advice of dunking the dick in chlorine water after having sex with a prostitute to prevent STDs. would've been a terrible father 🤦‍♂😂

[@nicknorizadeh4336]

He had 2 children out of wedlock and numerous romantic affairs

[@Robertbrucelockhart]

He is well known to have been what was once called a “whoremonger.”

[@kalki0273]

@@nicknorizadeh4336 According to David Cartwright's biography, he also frequented brothels and even practiced his own form of "protection". "One dissolves a portion of chloride of lime in water and then, after coitus, bathes ones' penis in it, which in any case, will completely destroy any contracted poison".

[@ultraparadoxical7610]

Very nice précis!

[@maxpercer7119]

where is the cheerful part?

[@Bibibosh]

Someone please recommend me philosophy stuff about the following topics. Matter and energy Time and space Mind and freewill Gravity Inventions and creative ideas Money Computering and ai. All from before 1980 plz. I love philosophy prior to 1980 and 1920's

[@islaymmm]

Can someone inform me on some of the major objections to his metaphysics?

[@alexanderfuchs8742]

well ... there's a discussion of his essays on the freedom of the will and the foundation of ethics in that journal Hallesche Jahrbücher, the organ of the young hegelians (pretty hard to find and probably never translated) ... then there's stuff like Bertrand Russels history of philosophy where he is very critical of Schopenhauer and one thats more even handed by will Durant which is easy to find ... Heidegger and Adorno each tee off on him, the first in line with Nietzsche and the latter in line with Hegel mostly ... Nietzsches criticism can be found in beyond good and evil I believe. but Nietzsche doesn't critique his metaphysics but rather de- and then re-values it. as for the substance of the arguments: there's ofc the typical skepticism towards any attempt at a coherent metaphysics, which dont hold for Schopenhauer imo because his philosophy is inherently relativistic and neither idealism, subjectivism, culturalism, nor materialism, objectivism, naturalism can really critique Schopenhauer cause his whole attempt is to critique both using the other and then reconcile them ... then there's the criticisms of relativism coming from scientifics and moralists which dont hold because he proves how science can only enquire about relations between things and morality literally is the art of relating to other beings ... so I dont think there ever has been a good critique of his metaphysics as such. every attempt falls back into the Kantian dogma of the thing-in-itself being beyond the capacity to know ... which forms the starting point to Schopenhauers conception in the first place ... so then there's the possibility of critiquing him as relying on intuition rather than rationality to explore metaphysics ... but his critique of dogmatic metaphysics is its rationalism, relying on empty abstractions which is why the new metaphysics (starting from his own) should be build on the experience of incorporation in the world which is ofc the point at which he becomes The Godfather of existentialism and phenomenology ... in conclusion: most of modern criticism turns against blind faith in a divine will that governs us, against the idea of a rational unfolding of history and the life of the individual, focussing on some concept of overarching forces that are incorporated in organs of society, shaping peoples lives and undermining their capacity for rational and collective decision making. in my opinion Schopenhauer anticipates all of it and even inspired a lot of this critique. so one path of critique would be to return to classical scholastic dogmatism ( I mean, why not?) ... another, the more fruitful, could be to formulate a more political, sociological critique or rather expand Schopenhauers thinking into those fields ... because the thing is that he praises depersonalization and negation of the ego, and yet his philosophy is very much focussed on the individual... so I think its in line with his philosophy to pursue this path.

[@islaymmm]

@@alexanderfuchs8742 Thanks, in the video the professor mentioned that his metaphysics has some issues (well, no metaphysics has no issues of its own but his tone made me think it might be more problematic than we might expect) but never really talked about them so I was just curious. But I think I tentatively agree with how we should apply his philosophy to broader contexts especially in a world where his pessimistic view on striving Will seems very on point, if only to see what we'll get when we do that.

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

There're three that come to mind right now: 1) Some argue that for Schopenhauer the Will is the cause of Representation, but causality according to Schopenhauer can only exist within the world as representation (it is the form that applies to empirical objects; the first kind of object for the subject) and can only apply to it, consequently, the Will or thing in itself cannot be the cause of representation because it doesn't belong to it and is "toto genere" different from it. 2) In volume II of The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer states that the world is a "Gehirn Phänomen" or "a brain phenomenon". Some have criticized Schopenhauer's bringing of the brain into the picture as a concession to materialism. It has been argued that it involves an inescapable vicious circle since the brain is responsible for giving rise to the world as representation, but, at the same time, it is an object among objects and subject to the principle of sufficient reason, so which is it? 3) Schopenhauer argues that the Will can and should deny itself, but there have always been debates among experts as to how this could be possible. The nature of the Will is willing, and it cannot do anything other than willing; even if I will to deny my Will that is in itself an act of willing.

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

@@alexanderfuchs8742 Russell is very unfair to Schopenhauer and Durant's dismissal is just a very long genetic fallacy.

[@islaymmm]

@@paulheinrichdietrich9518 Thanks, this is what I wanted. I've read that one of the main points of his criticism against Kant was exactly that the thing-in-itself was the cause of the phenomena (at least according to his reading) and that the world as Will and the world as Representation are ultimately the same and more like the two sides of the same coin. Also that, although Schopenhauer often talks as if it's some kind of absolute, the Will is only the world as it is _for us_ . Quite a sharp distinction between it and Kant's thing-in-itself. So if 1) were to be a valid criticism it would have to mean that Schopenhauer never managed to go beyond Kantian metaphysics on a more general level as he set out, which may or may not be the case. For 2) I have a hunch that in Schopenhauer's time pretty much nothing was known as to how the brain functions because only recently are we gaining some understanding of it through neuroscience, so I'm not sure if it's perfectly reasonable to take that at face value. But then, it's also true these potential pockets of some kind of mysticism or speculative opportunity are being bitten away by science too. As to 3), this may potentially be the most problematic of these three in my eyes. Schopenhauer's idea about how man can do what he wills but cannot will what to will also seems to be contradictory, unless it's in the Will's nature to will its own ceasing.

[@aj5424]

If I took him to Rennaisance at the Ministry of Sound 1995 Xmas and gave him 2 X double speckled doves I reckon he would say that existence covers its cost at least for 8 hours anyway.

[@genxcurmudgeon166]

😂

[@bernardliu8526]

Scholars have pointed out Freud actually took a university course on Schopenhauer. Very disingenuous of him to deny Schopenhauer’s profound influence on him.

[@derhomunkulus8551]

He actually didnt. To quote him: "Very few people probably realized how momentous a step the assumption of unconscious mental processes would mean for science and life. Let us hasten to add, however, that it was not psychoanalysis that first took this step. There are well-known philosophers as predecessors to be mentioned, especially the great thinker Schopenhauer, whose unconscious 'Will' can be equated with the psychic drives of psychoanalysis."

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

Every German speaking intellectual of the late XIX century and early XX century read Schopenhauer.

[@bernardliu8526]

@@derhomunkulus8551, In respect of Freud’s explicit denial of having been influenced by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, vide Young, Julien, and Magee, Bryan.

[@XboxxxGuy]

Schopenhauer one of the greatest philosophers up with Marx, Hume, Ayer, Rorty, Wittgenstein and Nagarjuna.

[@philosophicast2122]

Not Marx

[@akelofgren9468]

Schopenhauer talk the hapiness of freethinker,not sophists,but that 'was in old time(according me),but 'TODAY IS NOT EVEN ARTISTS FREETHINKER',they early manipulate what we are allowed to think will feel so ,so l can see everywhere as pianist that it is ctastrophy enough not my thought

[@mustafakandan2103]

Good, but I feel atheism is not the best way of describing Schopenhauer's philosophy. In spite of his pessimism, there is something mystical (akin to Eastern spiritual traditions) in Schopenhauer. From what I remember, he claimed there is but one universal Will, manifesting itself in manifold existences. That is why he also argued that harming the other is harming oneself , and suicide is futile as this will not destroy the universal Will.

[@aj5424]

I've just spoke to Carl Young and he told me that this fella is projecting his Shadow onto others and needs to become a Jungian..lol.

[@bernardliu8526]

As Bertrand Russell pointed out, almost casually, that the phenonmenon of suicide puts paid to Schopenhauer’s sovereign thought : how is suicide even remotely possible if the entire universe is but a manifestation of his will-to-life ? (By the way, Freud actually attended a seminar on Schopenhauer during his university years, asserted by Prof. Julien Young.)

[@low3242]

Suicide is also an affirmation(as everything in life is an affirmation)

[@alexanderfuchs8742]

not a bad one actually. he forgets to points out that all of what Schopi says is either true or funny and often both. also I dont think repression is conceptualized as being a conscious act ... Esp not in Schopenhauer and also its not about repression of drives, but of traumatic memories, moments which shook us and fractured us, moments of irreconcilability with ourselves and in which place we construct narratives which channel drives in perpetuity, compulsory ... which is exactly the way analysis conceptualizes the personality disorder as such. additionally mania and depression are compulsions of will and of its negation ... in other words: dont study psychology, read Schopenhauer. good talk ... wish they wouldn't focus this much upon his pessimism. also there's much neater bows to be tied around epistemology+metaphysics vs. aesthetics+ethics as two distinct forms of intentionality ... but good talk overall

[@ZYX84]

⚔️. My goodness… I’ve been hanging out with my surfer friends on the point too long.😉 You speak eloquently, with precision. I enjoyed reading your reply and your comments. Thank you..🎩

[@low3242]

Schopenhauer was the most famous German philosopher until the WWI according to "The Pessimism Controversy, 1870-1890 by Frederick C. Beiser". Freud was a liar.