Eric Choi PHL-211

Questions – Arthur Schopenhauer’s Pessimistic Idealism

1. How does Schopenhauer carry on Kant’s Copernican Revolution?

Highly influenced by Kant’s philosophy, Schopenhauer brought Kant’s Copernican Revolution
to its conclusion by replacing the casually inconsistent First Cause of God with ideas or
representations (vurstellung).

2. What are the two aspects of the world that we experience according to Schopenhauer?
Phenomenon of representations and the noumenal world (ding an sich).

3. Explain Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the will to live.

Will is the unseen force behind all nature, the energy of existence, of which the body itself is a
manifestation. Schopenhauer writes that as the ill is the thing-in-itself, the visible world, or the
phenomenon, merely mirrors the will. Self-definitionally, life is certain to the will-to-live. As
such, the individual comes to life from the principium individuationis, suffers the loss of this via
an inevitable death, and return to nothing.

4. What is the relationship between our body and the will?

The body is a physical manifestation of the will-to-live.

5. What is the human condition according to Schopenhauer? Do you agree with him?
The human condition is an apparently bleak one, in which life is a temporary condition from
nothingness. I personally agree despite some granular pantheistic exception, but hope that
scientific innovation may ensure a sense of continuity for one’s will.

6. How may we find liberation from the suffering and meaninglessness of existence?

Schopenhauer finds the will to be the cause of suffering, due to its insatiable nature. However, by
subsuming the will to the cosmic will, one may attain a lasting departure from suffering. A
lesser, temporary solution is by aesthetic contemplation.

7. According to Schopenhauer, what should be our attitude toward our death?

Ego-less resignation.

8. Examine Schopenhauer’s closing statement (of his book): “What remains after the
complete abolition of the will is, for all who are still full of the will, assuredly nothing.
But also conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real
world of ours with all its suns and galaxies, is—nothing.” What does he mean?
The solution to suffering is to disavow one’s egoistic will and surrender entirely to the cosmic
will.
Eric Choi PHL-211

9. What is the meaning of Joseph Campbell’s illustration of the policeman risking his life
for the man who attempted suicide?

A man acting selflessly to and for another is the true hero.

10. Discuss Schopenhauer’s ethics. What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Its strength is that it is idealistically true. Its weakness is the slight health risk with a
misapplication of the sexual impulse for those who may over-apply Schopenhauer’s lesser
solution to suffering.

11. Assess Schopenhauer’s philosophy. How plausible is it? Discuss the problems with his
system. What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Entirely plausible, as its metaphysical foundation rest on Kant’s Copernican Revolution. Some
problems may be that if misinterpreted, it may represent a ‘philosophical Prozac’ for some. Its
strength is its plausibility, and its weakness is the danger of real-world misapplication by the
overzealous.