Schopenhauer's philosophy of pessimism
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2024
- Philosophy professor and co-host of Overthink podcast Ellie Anderson explains philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's belief that life is suffering, and what distinguishes humans from other animals.
This video was created for Professor Anderson's Spring 2021 "Continental Thought" course at Pomona College. The text referenced is The Essential Schopenhauer, ed. Wolfgang Schirmacher.
For more from Ellie, check out Overthink podcast!
Overthinkpodcast.com
He's a genius..." If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it "
But he is assuming a self. If there is no self, then there is no self focus (self focus, could also be called depression) then the self is not either assuming the world around it.
Attention can arise then, and experience the world as it is, unexplained, arising moment by moment.
He assumes the world would be uninteresting because he is also assuming a knower(self) of the world, that would not ever be surprised or see anew.
prophecy, prophetic about how another will feel and think in the future
Yes he's a true genius
@@jonber9411 Shaddap. There is no assumption that there is a self. What would you call your «you» then?
His theory is quite similar to that of Lao Zhi.
Schopenhauer and Camus are my touchstones against suicide.
They both have such empathy for the human condition, that their understanding and description - without the usual "enlightenment" pablum - is the salve that stings at first, but consistently delivers relief.
Nicely said
@@LuisFlores-mc2tc What he say?🤔
Same🙏
Cool & perfectly said
Schopenhauer was the final push I needed to commit to a meditation practice. Understanding his idea of the Will consoled why I'd found it so difficult to just be, and not do.
from my experience, commitment is not necessary once you fully realize the benefits of meditation. you just end up naturally gravitating towards it.
Schopenhauer is one of my favorite writers.
Schopenhauer is my man. A true visionary.
The Beast of the Realm Human Condition.
Heck yeah !
my life is a continuous experience of mental emotional suffering so I agree with him. and in the end I will die, which will probobly be my most heroic experience.
Agreed💯
Our very existence is premised upon lack, insufficiency and our constant response to this. If I dont eat, sleep, work I die. If I dont have good friends, meaningful activities or a thriving sex life i suffer. If I am born to bad parents, end up with disease or burdened with some physical or psychological ailment I experience pain. If I am deprived of the many needs and wants that I was endowed with by mother biology, I suffer. This very premise is awful as the capacity to take control of all these matters can be, for many, impossible. We are bullied into action by fear and suffering. We rely on out minds ability to cloud its own judgements by fantasy, wishful thinking, etc.
We are whipped with the lashes of universal will to move us towards nothing.
Yea Michael Jackson
Thankfully, life is relatively short and we shouldn't take it for granted. Even though suicide is always available, the vast majority of people don't do it. Because they find pleasure, meaning and joy in life.
You put it spot on! This is exactly why suffering will always be a hughe part of life, not everything but hughe
@@dvforever They don't. They're just too cowardly to kill themselves. This is what Shakespeare means with Hamlet's soliloquy. Even most of us pessimists and antinatalists don't off ourselves.
The guy had a point!
I have to say that after 62 years of living that Schopenhauer's observation below is spot on.
"“When you find human society disagreeable and feel yourself justified in flying to solitude, you can be so constituted as to be unable to bear the depression of it for any length of time, which will probably be the case if you are young. Let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration. If you do that, you will not live so much with other people, though you may appear to move amongst them: your relation to them will be of a purely objective character. This precaution will keep you from too close contact with society, and therefore secure you against being contaminated or even outraged by it. Society is in this respect like a fire-the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.”
The Grand Master - Arthur Schopenhauer ❤
When you realize that humans are no different from any other living organism or earth, everything starts to make perfect sense. We’re not special and we don’t have some kind of special destiny
Define "special".
I don't recall Dolphins cracking the atom, or a case of Budweiser either. Our consciousness is universally the most special feature of an animal possible. When you meet our makers, they will apologize for donating it to those unworthy of it.
I loved your capacity to explain such abstract and deep philosophy in such clear and didactic way. Congratulations! 👏
I would like to add that Schopenhauer's view about the vail of Maya and the lack of reason of existence has a connection with the knowledge theory of Kant, to whom the causality rule exist only in our minds, it is a way to know the world, not necessarily the rule of the world itself. That's why we can say that the world exist "without reason". And from this comes everything else, all the absurdity of life.
The didactic proficiency mostly comes from the use of the dancehall siren which communicates the profoundness of Schopenhauer's despair like words never could.
@@babak.shakuri who wrote the text?
He sounds like my spirit animal. Crossing my fingers for a lecture on Cioran.
I found this strangely comforting
Seeing the smile and liveliness on your face while discussing Schopenhauer is quite an irony.
The more she elaborated the more I liked it. Schopehauer is my type of philosopher. I can't help agreeing with this guy on every point. Pessimism is cool.
Well done.
I hope you’ll summarize Peter Wessel Zappfe and Thomas Metzinger in the future.
"If devils and demons have come into this world, they have taken on human forms, and are now atoning for the crime"
Schopenhauer
I'd believe that. It just makes sense.
You're brilliant. This channel was definitely one of my best finds of 2022!!
Memory is a real drag.
I love Schopenhauer. Hard to argue with his philosophy.
It is self defeating if it is as she says. If life is meaningless then no reason for his views at all.
I always appreciate your thoughtful analysis. You have a real gift.
I love this channel, I cannot stop watching even I am an accounting nerd. Thank you, keep up good work.
I agree with Schopenhauer on his outlook, but I must say your video presentation does bring me joy.
Gotta say, though, E.M. Cioran makes Schopenhauer look like an optimist
Cioran is amazing! The only difference is that Schopenhauer writes that the Cioran style nihilism will be upsetting if it wasn't for the truth that we have the immortality within us.
Philip Mailander makes Cioran look like a baby
Best explanation of Rustin Cohle I've seen.
A great presentation. I might add that Schopenhauer on one hand describes the blind force of will as something which must be overcome through a renunciation of will to life (i.e. saints, monks, Buddhist priests, etc.) but in Book 3 of Volume one when discussing what appears as his aesthetic hierarchy places music as the highest form, stating it is the pure embodiment of the Will as opposed to other genres which merely embody the Platonic Ideas which he views as a mediation between Will and Representaion. I have found this exaltation of Will in music, something I'm sure Wagner loved to read, compared to his normal negative view of Will to almost be contradictory. It seems that given his beautiful sublime principle as well as music capturing a pure essence of Will that when the veil of maya is removed from his own creation, he is a little divided over Will the moment the arts are involved. Also, what I have always reflects his true brilliance is his analysis of Kant's Critique in his 100+ page appendix. The irony is that both Hegel and Schopenhauer touch on an issue of making the noumena outside the catagories when causality is intrinsically implied by the thing in itself affecting our intuition of data. On this not these opposite thinkers meet. In Hegel's case I am referring to his remarks throughout Science of Logic. When they get out of their own respective systems there is an interesting overlapping of how the critique Kant's Critique.
Arthur is the Man! Thanks very much.
This was awesome. Thank you for sharing this lecture.
This was very clear and well-presented. Thanks.
Leibniz's old claim (this is the best of all possible worlds) also took some heavy fire from Voltaire's _Candide,_ which would've already been old-school in Schopenhauer's day. Given that he was fluent in French, I'd be less than surprised to find that the phrase was somewhat a reaction to Candide. Of course this is speculative and anecdotal, but the little book sure stuck in my craw; one only need read it once and the failure of Leibniz's solution to the problem of evil will become apparent. Loved his calculus notation, tho.
Also, another great pessimist thinker is Leopardi. His book Zibaldone was recently translated into English.
Fantastic overview. I am a Schopenhauerian. I get drugged up on antidepressants, magnesium and melatonin every night and listen the "The Sufferings of the World" as I drift off to unconsciousness. Basically, I think he sums up our terrible circumstances perfectly. It is funny that Hegel and Schopenhauer had a philosophy seminar scheduled at the same time, and everyone went to Hegel's, leaving Schopenhauer's lectures totally empty.
Hello, fellow sufferer.
@@donaldmcronald8989 thanks, Great timing. I have just finished my evening drugging and am drifting into blessed unconsciousness where all suffering temporarily disappears.
@@duhbigcat1848 how is your week going? I hope you've slept well. Its funny what you say because i find realesement in schoops pessimism or better said in my case his resignation, his rejection of the will because i dont have to take anything of this thing called reality seriously because in the end its all one big f***ing dream. Yes the suffering of others is a weight on this world but we wouldnt be without suffering. i dont have to believe the bullshit fairy tales that everything will be all well and good one day and so i should act for that sacred situation and so I find peace and rest in this nihilism.
I'm basically the same. It is no wonder that people used to prefer what Hegel had to say over Schopenhauer's wisdom, but I have a feeling that that is slowly beginning to change.
I smell fatalism and see cowards
Thanks!
I liked the clear and easy way to show us schopenhauer. Congratulations.
I am enjoying watching and learning from your monologue.
Compelling argument, however, I like how you group your red books together.
This is very well done
I love the sound effects
Great review!
No way!? I didn't even see you covered Schopenhauer! I love it.
Once I learned that Will can be exchanged with Force or Energy, I really started to understand him. Will sounds like there is a subject, but there is none. Instead, there is the vital force that governs our lives for good and bad. As Dostoyevsky said in Notes from Underground, our reasons stands for 1/20 of who we are.
Well done - very clear
I enjoy these talks very much. It’s interesting that, so far, only the talk on pessimism includes the cartoon eyes and figures of evil. It’s a display of how verboten it is to espouse doom and gloom here. The red eyes and such are a defense mechanism: don’t take me seriously about this, folks. Nevertheless, as usual, great job explaining the material so cogently.
Two of my favourite writers, McCarthy and Houellebecq are inspired by Schopenhauer.
I’m very curious about him.
lmao Schop is everywhere
Schopenhauer has influenced a generation of thinkers haha
So interesting . Thanks .
I can't say that I disagree with any of Shopenhauer's philosophical positions. It's somewhat liberating.
Great video and a whole discussion can be had on this, very well put together Ellie.
*Schopenhauer did live with dogs -- who loved him*
By far the best presentation on A. Schopenhauer I have heard!
Thank you!
Brilliant overview
Yeah she's smart I like it .
Nicely put
Love Shopenhauer so, so, much.
Schopenhauer is absolutely right
"When you are absolutely certain, you are certainly wrong"
@@archiewoosung5062 Please, Don't seek attention by commenting in my opinion. I Don't like attention seekers.. 🙂
@@archiewoosung5062 gladly. I Don't like butt sniffing dogs and bark to people for no reason 🙂
Nah. Animals get bored all the time. So he’s at least wrong about one thing and I bet it’s just the tip of a wrongness iceberg. Sorry if you’re feeling down though. Might I recommend some Viktor Frankl?
Ditto.
Great video! Really good explanation and delivery of information. Just subbed 😊
True
Thanks for this wonderful channel.
I tend to agree with Schopenhauer.
Love seeing those books there. I can see some french editions (Folio & NRF from Gallimard), some even have those yellow Gibert stickers
@Down with Corporate Amerika haha. In this case it seems like they have Simone De Beauvoir in French. VIVE SIMONE I guess :D
Schopenhauer was NOT a Pessimist ~ he was a Realist.
If Schopenhauer feels to be on to something to you, the next place you should go is David Benatar. I would recommend The Human Predicament
Thanks.
You are my favorite of all times
wow what a beautifully short and detailed introduction to schopenhauer's philosophy I've been meaning to study his works, can you guys please tell me which book should I start with
There's a Penguin Classics book called "Essays and Aphorisms" which is really good. It's a collection of some of Schopenhauer's essays and it's a great introduction to his thought, while not getting too deep into the nitty-gritty technical side like in "World as Will and Representation", his magnum opus.
Gosh, I must be related to this guy😊 Very good breakdown, of the deep and somewhat dark material for us brain-dead, but eager to learn folk👍
new favorite youtuber
Animals have an amazing ability to suffer. The literal kind when they're slaughtered, when they experience a loss in their tribe, when they're stuck in a situation and know there's no way out and see their fellow animals disappear and understand that they're next...
I think you’d find your claims difficult to objectively substantiate.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 It's very clearly recorded and observed🙂
@@starlightwhispers6781 What do you mean by 'clearly recorded and observed'? As it stands, that's a statement you've just made up. Point me in the direction of where it's 'clearly recorded and observed' so that I can examine the evidence.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 Watch Earthlings and Lucent to start with
@@starlightwhispers6781 Well, there probably won't be any point in spending too much time on this. The film is clearly designed to appeal to the emotions. When you watch such images, you respond to them in an empathic way, in other words, you transfer how you feel onto the animals. This is deliberate, you cannot sit back and watch such a film without making all kinds of human judgements about the animals, what is happening to them, and how they feel.
A film like this forces the animal to suffer by proxy - humans would suffer under these conditions, therefore so must the animal. The problem is that you have absolutely no idea what is going inside the animal's head. No idea at all about how it is interpreting its environment. Unless you can definitively say that you know what is consciously occurring inside an animal's mind, you cannot draw valid conclusions about that state of mind. You are forced to guess, to hypothesise, and films such as these will force you to guess in a very obvious way.
NOTE: I am not saying animals do not suffer. I am saying that I do not know what they are experiencing, and it may well be a state of mind which I have no way of understanding.
I agree with all of those points. but In the same sense, I am stuck in awe at life and reality since I was a child. But now I'm getting older and life is going by. I think about my mortality a lot. I think about time and why I was meant to exist. Why any of us exist now, at this moment. And that countless others lived their lives thinking the same thing for hundreds of years. It's mystifying that we all share this weird state of existence. And that's why I think our friends or anyone we care about will always be connected to our experience, even beyond death. It's the most light one could enjoy, love. If anything can make you do dumb things, promise things based on hope, it would be love.
In all this I find if I have that, I can be brave enough for the progression of time and my demise.
At 7:17 "nothing is separate" . Schopenhauer corrects Kant's idea of each phenomenon having it's own Ding an Sich
...thing in itself... by saying the NOUMENON cannot be multiple, but only ONE.
Yep, the Will
Professor Anderson could make my life meaningful....
Despite how pessismistic Schopenhauer sounds in your, I must say, very compelling introduction here (nice and concise and pithy!), the fact he was so deeply influenced by Buddhist and Hinduist philosophy makes me want to seek out his writings and see for myself whether he takes their teachings in only a negative way (pessimism-nihilism) or whether that inherent negativity he found there leads him back round to a more affirmative view on existence within the context of this greater 'dependent origination' awareness or not. It's something I feel that the Western existenialists I am somewhat familiar with - Camus and Sartre for example - miss the mark on when they tackle similiar subjects such as being and nothingness.
I am more familiar with Nietzsche's philosophy, and he often references Schopenhauer throughout his works as both a great influence upon him yet also a great example of the kind of philosophy Nietzsche's own thought leads him to ultimately reject, but it never struck me that Nietzsche really ever understood or grappled with Buddhist or Hinduist philosophies in his admittedly only few references to them throughout his works, so what he took away from Schopenhauer in this regard could well have been the source of his negative views therein, especially so if Schopenhauer only remained a pessimist even after studying them.
Pessimism and/or Nihilism are very far away from the life-affirming conclusions drawn in the likes of Zen Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta to use just two examples amongst what is after all a pair of very sprawling traditions with many different threads and slants in that of Buddhism and Hinduism. How the West met the East and vice versa is by far one of the most pivotal moments in human cultural history that we are really only just still beginning to realise the greater implications of, and what this continuing cultural exchange is going to mean in the future to come is an exciting prospect to mull over!
Actually, Schopenhauer is very inspiring to me, especially in his "Wisdom of life" and "Maxims". He is higly intelligent and I would say he is more realistic then pesimistic. Worth reading. I've learned a lot!
Hey, can I ask about your favourite philosophical books? If that's not too much to ask..
I'm still a beginner and I want to learn more.
You say Schopenhauer's conclusions are very far away from Buddhist traditions, but I am not so sure. While it is true that Buddhism says life is suffering but that there is a way out of suffering through enlightenment, many in that tradition admit that very, very few people ever reach enlightenment. I don't recall the name, but one Japanese Zen master said there may only be a thousand who have reached enlightenment ever. The corollary of that, then, is that life is suffering for most people most of the time, which is not so different to what Schopenhauer had to say
I don't think he took anything negatively from Hinduism rather put it out the eat it has been described MAYA
Strong ppl can be pessimistic while optimistic is for those that re on the way to be strong. Only tragic would be weak mind meet pessimism. It’s like memento Mori, it reminds you everybody dies, intelligent ppl will cherish their days and not waste their times, less intelligent ppl would take it as dark and negative.
I would have love to meet Schopenhauer only to be left disappointed.
Wow, as if a beauty from an old master's brush came alive and talking about pessimism of Schopenhauer.
Love your channel, subscrubed!
the picture seems to be stretched.
Influenced True Detective, well one of them.
5:20 Interesting how his perspective on happyness as being highest when falling asleep instead of when waking up. When I have been my most depressed, I have felt the best right after waking up, since then I have been the least aware of my life. I have witnessed this with a ex girlfriend also that had depression. She was the happiest in the morning. This is also why I want to sleep more when I have depressive periods.
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all of it 8:37
It is bad today, tomorrow will be worse, and so on until the worst day of all.
Great explanation to something too deep, but in my opinion, so real (or under the vail).
This makes me wanna read Schopenhauer
Would love to hear any comments you might have on Emil Cioran or Fernando Pessoa
He thought that the best thing is to deny the will. There is no good in all of the strivings of the human will. We are living in a nightmare spectacular.
Listening to you is opposite of suffering
"...has a reputation for being a pessimist" Made me bust out laughing
Could you load something up from E. Cioran
Schopenhauer has the same thoughts as I do 😆
You would be considered intelligent.
I didn't start thinking like this until sometime.....? after 2004 haha, I still do honest to God believe my outlook would be not so black pilled without it .
FYI some species of ant have slaves. Also, I am definitely happiest in that state of falling to sleep wherein I do not feel my body yet not quite unconscious. I can feel the relaxedness of my body. I do not feel fear or pain. It is like being on opioids and it's the only time I am ever really comfortable
Since I have always worked to become a more logical thinker, I have studied many different philosophers, even a couple you have not covered in videos, and disagree with all of them on some points. You are, by far, the best philosophy professor I have ever heard. As an old "ex-hippie," about to turn 70, I find myself now understanding life backwards, to paraphrase Kierkegaard. Thanks for your videos, and keep up the excellent work, Professor Anderson.
If you have ever studied eastern philosophy such as Lao zhi, the truth is already there, we don’t need to ‘think’ to use logic, but ‘awaken’. If Suffering is the reality, happinese is the opposite of suffering, so that the less suffering is more ‘happiness’. The theory is not dark and negative, but inspiring indeed
If happiness is an illusion, and a terrifying chaos lies just below the surface, and these are the unalterable facts of life, and nothing can be done about it, why are you telling us this?
Hex! What is the purpose? Better to live the illusion and think you are happy if in no way thd truth give happiness or joy. But if he said all of life has no meaning like the video stated then why say any?
The video editing 🤌🤌
Schopenhauer is what you get when you have a substantialist hearing about Buddhism. In Buddhism we don't say that ""life is suffering"; Maya does not relate to chaos and order; we do not refute conventional varities, etc.
Good video, that is.
Good video. I have not seen many young women doing videos on Schop.
Ha! I've not seen _any,_ but I certainly didn't expect this one to be so, well, impartial. Maybe she didn't get around to Schop's "On Women" yet.
love her face
nice presentation. like the non teliological fact. enjoy pessimism to the max and truly sleep on it.
Can you recomand me some of the most well-written books of Mr.Arthur ?
Some people here says "I'd rather be delusional and happy than realistic and miserable "
Ok good for you , but who gave you the right to make another being into that state of exhistance .
I like the little ambiguity/slip here where "My feelings of pleasure, for Schopenhauer, max out..." is one interpretation and "my feelings of pleasure for Schopenhauer max out..." is another. The spoken comma, a funny thing...
I would really appreciate it if you could link the books you’re working from in the description
This was originally created for a course, so it was linked to a syllabus with reading list (this is why our older videos don't have them, such as this one). I recommend The Essential Schopenhauer reader
I see french books to your left. What is the title of the big Gallimard? Beauvoir?
I would call him politically incorrect rather than pessimist, based on the books I read. The only reason people focus on his pessimism is that the, let's call them, negative aspects of life he focuses on are almost completely absent from the cultural debate on the west. That says more about that debate than about him.
For instance, he calls honor the currency with which soldiers are payed with, given that the state doesn't have enough funds to compensate them monetarily. I don't consider that pessimist, I consider it insightful and accurate, in a world that pretends the opposite.
He tended towards pessimism somewhat as an emotional undertone, sure, but overall he was trying to accurately describe a corrupt society, and you can't do that without breaking a few eggs. The word pessimism doesn't encapsulate what he did very well, in my opinion.
Very well thought out!
There is something about Schopenhauer and Cioran that’s very peaceful and calm
Rust Cohle, True Detective
I totally agree with schopenhauer. At least based on this video since I've never read him