Arthur+Schopenhauer

Laura Cardona Franco Solano Arthur Schopenhauer

-Born on 1788-1860 in Germany -He was known for his pessimism -Some of his famous works consist of: “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason” “The World as Will and Representation”
 * o This work represented many of Schopenhauer’s arguments.
 * o He refers to his readers that this is just a necessary beginning point for his further writings.
 * o This the central and most important work of Schopenhauer

WILL -This was one of his main investigations on Individual motivation -critized the idea “Zeitgeist” set by Hegel, the idea that society consisted of a collective consciousness which moved in a distinct direction. -He believed that humans were motivated by only their own basic desires “Wille zum Leben” -To Schopenhauer human desire was illogical and directionless and so was all human action in the world.

ART AND AESTHETICS -For Shopenhauer human desiring “willing” and craving cause suffering or pain. -Shopenhauer believed that the one way to escape this suffering or pain is through aesthetic contemplation. -Aesthetic contemplation allows one to escape this pain because it stops one from perceiving the world as mere presentation. -What this causes is that one becomes one with the world and therefore is no longer seen as an individual with the pain of individual will but becomes a subject of cognition. -Art was seen by Schopenhauer as the best way to represent this Aesthetic contemplation because it tries to depict ones immersion with the world. Music is the purest of the art form because it depicted Will itself as an individual object.

ETHICS -Compassion, Malice, and Egoism were the three moral incentives that Schopenhauer proposed in his Moral Theory. -Compassion being the major motivator to moral expression -Malice and Egoism are corrupt alternatives.

PUNISHMENT -Choices are not made freely -The choices people make are results of a particular motive of a person’s unchangeable character. -If there is no free will then should crimes be punished? -The state punishes criminals to prevent future crimes says Schopenhauer -Schopenhauer with this supported capital punishment in order for the safety of the people. -He said that those who removed capital punishment should first remove murder and then capital punishment. -he believed that people could no be improved and therefore they could only be influenced by stronger motives than those criminal motives. -Real reform is not possible said Schopenhauer

SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY } Kant’s Idealist School } The division of total reality into what was susceptible of being experienced and what was not; } the insistence that the forms and frameworks of all possible experience were dependent on the contingent nature of our body. } Believed that Kant was right to divide total reality into the phenomenal and the noumenal, but that the noumenal could not possibly consist of things (in the plural) as they are in themselves.

FAMOUS QUOTES } “Life without pain has no meaning.” } “We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.” } “…so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears… we never obtain lasting happiness or peace” } “The world is my representation” } “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” } “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” } “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” } “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”

INFLUENCE } His influence has been strong among literary figures (poets, playwrights, essayists, novelists and historians). Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Jorge Luis Borges, Jacob Burckhardt, Joseph Conrad, George Gissing, Franz Grillparzer, Thomas Hardy, Gerhardt Hauptmann, Friedrich Hebbel, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, Joris Karl Huysmans, Ernst Jünger, Karl Kraus, D. H. Lawrence, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Stephane Mallarmé, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Edgar Allan Poe, Arno Schmidt, August Strindberg, Italo Svevo, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Frank Wedekind, W. B. Yeats, and Emile Zola. } In the field of philosophy: } Henri Bergson } Julius Bahnsen } Eduard von Hartmann } Suzanne Langer } Philipp Mainländer } Friedrich Nietzsche } Hans Vaihinger } Theory of music, along with his emphasis upon artistic genius and the world-as-suffering, was also influential among composers } The Dada Movement reiterates feelings that Schopenhauer's philosophy had embodied about a century earlier. } His ideas are also reflected in Freud's surrealism-inspiring psychoanalytic thought and his conviction that human history is going nowhere. } Later Hegel and Marx showed similar beliefs.

SOURCES } [] } [] } [|http://][|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation] } [|http://][|www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Schopenhauer.htm] } [|http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/#][|8] } []