Essential Schopenhauer by Wolfgang Schirmacher

7/22/2019 Essential Schopenhauer by Wolfgang Schirmacher

1/9

Living Disaster: Schopenhauer for the Twenty-first Centu

Life is "o t worth litJi"y! 'Ibis is tbe tbougbt mo.>1 a5.>OCiated witb tbe German phvirtually unacknowledged wben be died one bundred fifty years ago. Increasinglymask of a pessimist Scbopenbauer was a Zen master and arguably the greate>.1 mp1roused more tban two tbousand years of We>.1ern pbilosopby from its delusion amateriality- the life of the body, rather than the mind- was the driving force of exist

Scbopenbauer bas box-ome synonpnous "itb a tborougbly pessimi.-.1ic world,e x e m p l i f i ~ . . . J by Leibniz, be proclaimed we live "in tbe wo..,,1 of all po5!


2/9

under suspicion and we besin questioninS. At tbis stage, we are tbe most buman wSchopenbauer, called humans tbe "non -


3/9

Buddhism into the Western philosophical deba te. Given that Christianity, the &bopas a "va le of tears" and paradise as a mere promise "a fter deatb," Scbopenbauer'spresented as ",,-elation. But as Aristotle Obsel"\ffl , a pbilosopbers power lies not ioffering tbe unexpected, as artists do. Pbilosopbers ta ke the trivial, turn again to sr


4/9

an}thing you want if you just se t your mind to it; but tbis does not cbange your beinterms of your fate, as Scbopenbauer pu t it. We are tbrown into social circumstainfluence ap pearance, intelligence, an d future bealth, without our consent Or the sligof crap," J. D. Salinger , a kindred spirit of Scbopenbauer, called it in 1he Catcher inworld are born into circumstances tb


5/9

Schopenhauer called happiness just a moment i>L>tween misfortunes and Our beliefsufferinS we see around uS the sreatest of all lies: Victim an d victimizer a re onSchopenhauer, the French philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus acksuilty" and affirmed that the issue of suicide is a k


6/9

cardinal rule of th e mystics. Literally, "my;,1ic " means spea k no t of silence," becauseveryday chatter of the culture industry "ill transform into idle talk what is potent onwith decisiw under..tandins. The saSes of humankind- from the Zen masters toWe.-.1ern philosophers such as Spinoza - abided by the obvious truth of silence: Dfollow their examples. Ewn Karl Marx, arsuably the mO.>"t politically influential philhis famous Ek",,.,nth 'lbesis on Feuerbach: "Philosophers haw hitherto i n t e r p r < - > \ ~ - dchanSe it!" It is this life chanSe which can besin only in sinSularity that Schopenwhich he dared only hint. In the end , "the will turns" in all human beings, and "noth

&hopen hauer was not alone in the hermeneutical limitation lead ins him to cocontext shaped by cireum.-.tances we, since Hegel, haw called "bistorical conditions"existential." And how biased philosophers can be is demonstrated by Schopenhauethis reader. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer's philosophy of disaster is a Senuine anextreme chanSe concomitant "ith modern technoloSY. 'I be "war aSainst nature" haresponsible for the human ~ " O n d i t i o n itself. It is not Homo sapiens who had to redHomo senerator, who realizes in ubiquitous life t ~ ' C h n i q u e s - f r o m media to biotechcireumstances. &hopenhauer under>.100d the sinsularity of the e""nt of humanity, thoutside, only, by definition, a mislead ins representation; the "ill in me opens iAddressinS the book of Genesis with its story of how God looked upon His creatioSood, Schopenhauer bet:am e ,-"Onscious of how offensive to all ;,ufferers of th


7/9

nw jl;eneration is born into a different ..d e of life . . , h n i q whieh can be trustedba rely visible. "lbe toddlers of today "ill accept as self-L."ident what fo r many peopwould be close to an abomination. Schopenhauer made the dc;;perate sujl;.gestion thprocreation only prolonjl;S sufferinjl;. But he hone.t1y admitted he would not be ablcontrol Homo generator put this debate to rest, an d sex is perceiwd increasinjl;ly as!"C'.\arding bodily acti\ity of being-with. Raising children also has an excellent chancewho are jl;ood at it and enjoy mentorinjl; an offsprinjl;. But the "biolojl;ical clock" will fjl;enerator take pre,."edent. Ewn for death, the mObt effectiw threat to each indi\idthrough the bad, throujl;h the jl;ood days, jl;reets death as its jl;enuine life ending. Cpaternali.>tic an d deny uS the choice of our own death, one can obse["\"e a quiet rebea


8/9

the inherent promise to delay aging, owreome illness, and, one day, ewn cheat deathof the will in nature, cunningly made up by a corruptible mind eager to ease our dhiat least its science has beautifully crafted laws, and futu re even ts can be predicted to a

Schopenhauer's affinity "ith German Romanticism is manifest in the exception hwhom "ideas" were by ddinition not ,isible, Schopenhauer considered ar t "materializit presents the condition of life in detail. For Schopenhauer , ar t is not represen tation,an invitation to ' t i l l n e s s , an d a meditatiw break where the "ill is


9/9

pleasure in how unnecessary suffering diminishes. Un repen tant realism "ill alwaysunavoidable suffering.

The texts of this reader present the elSCntial Schopenhauer for our century. /leg ibasic condition of being and, at the same time, insisting on the rationality of the diSchopenhauer proce..-ds to his philosophy of art. As the "materialized idea" ("uI!is- "ithout engaging uS in its suffering. 'l be ewnt of art, for creator and audience a/lut this ~ ' t a t e is momentous. and we human bcinp are e n g a g ~ - d anew in living the i

~ l . l f f e r e r s animals not excluded. Schopenhauer's wisdom can guide uS on how to li'lbe low for humanity en tails Our moral refusal of living according to the ""ill-to -livnot a mere metaph)"lical question but rather that it shapes daily life.

'Ibis reader contains a fw changes "ith regard to the orij;inal translated texts for tIt is ~ " O m p o s e d of both /lritish and American translations, but American e l l i n has barcane references and quotes were omitted, many footnotes have been incorporated ina seemingly outdated phrase or usage has been !"'->!ained for its

Essential Schopenhauer by Wolfgang Schirmacher

Documents

Transcript of Essential Schopenhauer by Wolfgang Schirmacher