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Pessimism
Immanuel kant's two 'world' distinction was between the phenomenal (the world as we percieve it) and the noumenal (the thing-in-itself). The phenomenal is constructed by our conscious, perceiving minds and is governed by reason. The noumenal is the ultimate reality that underlies every phenomenal representation. Kant believed the noumenal world to be inaccessible to human knowledge. Therefore, he believed the thing-in-itself was unknowable.
Arthur Schopenhauer suggested there is one noumenon we have immediate access to: our own will. Our will being the object of inner experience. This access to the noumenal world would enable us to have certain knowledge of the inner reality of nature. Since we can't live, intellectually or emotionally with the thought that the thing-in-itself is unknowable, and since will is the only thing other than phenomena of which we have knowledge, the will must be the thing-in-itself.
Will is the ultimate reality. It produces conflict among individuals, deludes us into believing that obtaining what we want is important, continually stimulates new desires, and generally inspires acts of evil. It causes us to suffer and cause suffering. Hence, Schopenhauer's philosophy is complete pessimism. He transformed the word welt (world) into the acronym: weh (woe), elend (misery), leid (suffering), tod (death).
Schopenhauer argues that: 1. Life consists of suffering; 2. Suffering is caused by desires; 3. Suffering can cease only through elimination of desire; and 4. The saintly life is the only way to eliminate desire. The only solution, he argued, was total chasity of the mind and body, together with absolute poverty. Schopenhauer accepted this life could be supremely blissful, but his own lifestyle was much different.
Posted: 31 Oct 2007