ALFRED SCHOPENHAUER

Schopenhauer was born in Dantzig, Germany in 1788. His father was a merchant noted for his ability, short temper and liberal views. He died it appears, by his own hand. Our young philosopher did not take to his father’s business.

His mother was an intellect. She became one of the finest novelists of her time. She too was temperamental and irritable. After her husband’s death, she took to free love.

The son didn’t like it one bit. Arguments were frequent. It went to such an extent that once she pushed him down the stairs.

That was it. Schopenhauer separated from her and never saw her again. She died after 24 years.

After this episode, Schopenhauer changed inside out and became a terrible misogynist. He had no father, no mother, no friend, no family, no child, and was absolutely alone for the rest of his life. His poodle ATMA” was his only companion. His critics called the poodle “SECOND SCHOPENHAUR!

In this mental turmoil he penned his masterpiece “The World as Will and Idea.” As his luck would have it, no publisher accepted it.

Noise made him mad. He said the amount of noise a person can take is directly proportional to his intellectual poverty. More the ignorance, more the sound absorption.

Whenever he went to an English pub in Germany he would place a gold coin on the table and then drink his usual quota. After this, he would take the gold coin and put it back in his pocket, paid his bill and walkout! One observant waiter asked him about this strange practice. Schopenhauer replied that the day the people around him in the pub spoke anything other than women, horse and dogs; he would put the gold coin in the Poor Box!

Universities ignored him and his works. Yet he was confident that he would be recognized.

True to belief Lawyers, Physicians, and Merchants found in him a true philosopher, who narrated a remarkable discovery of the actual life of human beings.

The whole Europe, which was disillusioned with its life turned to this great philosopher’s work at last. Further Science had attacked theology, social issues of poverty and the biological stress on the struggle for existence. This lifted the downtrodden Schopenhauer at last.

He was of the opinion that however much we investigate the outer world, things can be known only as images and names.

Consciousness is the outer layer of our mind. Under this is primordial “will” The will is the only permanent and unchangeable element in the mind.

The various actions of the body is nothing but the action of the “Will” Intellect tires, but the “Will” never. Intellect needs sleep, but the “WILL” doesn’t.

The “will” to live is primordial. How dear life is all to living beings! The will doesn’t care whether you are happy or miserable. Will has no pity. This way the will drives one to destruction.

The “will” conquers death in reproduction. The ‘will” drives the reproductive organs to win over death. “Will” works blindly and in independent of knowledge. Its business is to perpetuate the species. The ‘will does not care whether the living species are happy or not.

If the word is “will” then it is a suffering “will” It indicates want. Its grasp is greater than its want. Desire is infinite. But fulfilment is limited. Aristotle said the same thing.

Life is evil and pain is its foundation. Life is evil because life is a war of wants.

An optimist realizes this when he goes round hospitals, prisons, and their torturing chambers.

We are unhappy married, unhappy unmarried. Optimism is a bitter mockery of human woes. The fear of death is the beginning of philosophy. Man makes innumerable philosophies and theologies.

There can be no victory over the “will” until it is super ceded by knowledge and intelligence. Genius is the highest form of “will-less” knowledge. Most Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others were endowed with “will-less” knowledge.

Now coming to “World as my idea”; Schopenhauer accepts Immanuel Kant’s theory that the external is known to us only through our sensations and ideas. Sensations change to perceptions and then to ideas which firmly stay in our minds.

At the bottom of Schopenhauer’s unhappiness is the rejection of normal life. What hatred in women one mishap had generated in this great unfortunate soul.

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As told by:

Vishwam Vishnu Seshadri