Schopenhauer and the Will

Pessimism

• Enlightenment optimist promised rational cures
  • The French Ideal
    • Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity
    • Eldorado
  • The American Ideal
    • Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
    • Constitutional government
• The European reality
  • Reign of terror
  • Napoleon wars
  • Decimated countryside, poverty, disillusionment
  • Industrialization negative impact
  • Return of the Monarchy

Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea

• "The world is my idea"
  • External world known only through OUR senses and ideas
  • Appearances
• The Will - "Nature has produced intellect for the service of the will"
  • Strong, instinctive, vital force
  • The will is the commanding force NOT the intellect
  • The Will to live…
  • Instinctive urge vs. conscious reason
• Freedom?
  • Enlightenment - The innate freedom of man
  • Schopenhauer - Man as slaves to the will
• Suffering
  • The will in conflict with the idea creates suffering
  • Eternal desire - eternal suffering

The Schopenhauer's paradigm in other manifestations

• Darwin
• Freud

Tristan and Isolde

• A Medieval love story rediscovered by the Romantics
• The Wagner Opera
  • Tristan, the King's noble knight
  • Isolde, captured in war by Tristan to marry the King
  • A double suicide goes awry with the drinking of a love potion
  • Reason (idea) dies and the will rules their lives

   

Humanities Resource of Mark Hunter