Brief biography of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's philosophy - briefly

Schopenhauer Arthur (1788 -1850)

German philosopher - idealist.
Born in Danzig (now Gdansk; Poland). He studied commerce, medicine and then philosophy. The father of the future philosopher hated Prussia and admired the free and reasonable England, in his opinion, even after the fall of independence hometown moved to Hamburg.

From 1793 to 1797 Arthur lived with his father in Hamburg, then spent two years in Paris, where he almost forgot German, to the joy of the father. In 1803 he entered a boarding school in England and two years later became an official in the Hamburg trading house. However, he strove for literary and scientific activity and in 1809. entered the University of Göttingen in Germany. Two years later he moved to Berlin, where he studied scientific activity and listened to lectures famous philosopher Fichte.

In 1819, Schopenhauer took up the post of privatdozent at the University of Berlin and worked together with Hegel. He was very arrogant and deliberately scheduled his lectures at the same hours as Hegel. The result was not long in coming: his lectures were not successful compared to Hegel’s, the audience was usually empty, Schopenhauer quit teaching and lived a measured life in Frankfurt, where he wrote his main work, “The World as Will and Representation,” in two books.

The philosopher interprets the world, on the one hand, as a “representation”, which consists of the “representations” of a subject and an object, and on the other, as a Kantian “thing in itself” or a blind “will to live” based on nothing. This will breaks up into many particles, according to the author - “objectification”, and each objectification strives for dominance.

Man, according to Schopenhauer, is the highest level in the hierarchy of “objectification” because he is endowed with rational knowledge. Based on the philosophy of Schopenhauer, we can conclude that each person recognizes himself as a cognizing individual, which means he has the entire will to live, and all other people appear before him as something independent of his will. This, according to the author, is where human egoism comes from.

The state, as the philosopher believes, is only a stabilizer of the private wills of people; the selfish motives of people are overcome in the field of art and morality.

Following Leibniz's ideas that there are many worlds and our world is one of them, Schopenhauer, nevertheless, considered our world<наихудшим из миров».

The philosopher believed that happiness is illusory, since even having achieved what he wanted, a person only experiences satiety and boredom. The world was not created for human happiness, and optimism is a mockery of people's suffering. Thus, Schopenhauer's teaching was, in fact, deeply pessimistic.

The philosopher died in Frankfurt am Main in 1860. His concept, which was not popular during his lifetime, became widespread in the second half of the 19th century, becoming one of the sources of the philosophy of life.

Plan

Arthur Schopenhauer

The main ideas of A. Schopenhauer

Pessimism and irrationalism of Schopenhauer

The importance of Schopenhauer in philosophy

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) belongs to that galaxy of European philosophers who were not “in the forefront” during their lifetime, but nevertheless had a noticeable influence on the philosophy and culture of their time and the subsequent century. He was born in Danzig (now Gdansk) into a wealthy and cultured family; his father, Heinrich Floris, was a businessman and banker, his mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, was a famous writer and head of a literary salon, among whose visitors was V. Goethe. Arthur Schopenhauer studied at a commercial school in Hamburg, where the family moved, and then studied privately in France and England. Later there was the Weimar Gymnasium and, finally, the University of Göttingent: here Schopenhauer studied philosophy and natural sciences - physics, chemistry, botany, anatomy, astronomy, and even took a course in anthropology. His real passion, however, was philosophy, and his idols were Plato and I. Kant. Along with them, he was also attracted by Ancient Indian philosophy (Vedas, Upanishads). These hobbies became the basis of his future philosophical worldview. In 1819, A. Schopenhauer’s main work, “The World as Will and Idea,” was published, in which he gave a system of philosophical knowledge as he saw it. But this book was not a success, because in Germany at that time there were enough authorities who controlled the minds of their contemporaries. Among them, perhaps the first figure was Hegel, who had very strained relations with Schopenhauer. Having not received recognition at the University of Berlin, or even in society, Schopenhauer retired to live as a recluse in Frankfurt am Main until his death. Only in the 50s of the XIX century. Interest in Schopenhauer's philosophy began to awaken in Germany, and it grew after his death. A peculiarity of A. Schopenhauer’s personality was his gloomy, gloomy and irritable character, which undoubtedly affected the general mood of his philosophy. It admittedly bears the stamp of deep pessimism. But with all this, he was a very gifted person with versatile erudition and great literary skill; he spoke many ancient and modern languages and was undoubtedly one of the most educated people of his time.

The main ideas of A. Schopenhauer

Below are the main ideas of Schopenhauer. In Schopenhauer's Philosophy, two characteristic points are usually distinguished: the doctrine of the ox and pessimism. The doctrine of the will is the semantic core of Schopenhauer's philosophical system. The mistake of all philosophers, he proclaimed, was that they saw the basis of man in the intellect, when in fact it - this basis, lies exclusively in the will, which is completely different from the intellect, and only it is original. Moreover, will is not only the basis of man, but it is also the internal basis of the world, its essence. It is eternal, not subject to destruction, and in itself is baseless, that is, self-sufficient. It is necessary to distinguish two worlds in connection with the doctrine of the will: I. the world where the law of causality reigns (i.e., the one in which we live), and II. a world where it is not the specific forms of things, not phenomena, that are important, but general transcendental essences. This is a world where we are not (the idea of doubling the world was taken by Schopenhauer from Plato). In our everyday life, the will has an empirical character, it is subject to limitation; if this had not happened, a situation would have arisen with Buridan’s donkey (Buridan is a scholastic of the 15th century who described this situation): placed between two armfuls of hay, on opposite sides and at the same distance from him, he, “having free will,” died would be from hunger, unable to make a choice. A person constantly makes choices in everyday life, but at the same time he inevitably limits his free will. Outside the empirical world, the will is independent of the law of causality. Here she is abstracted from the concrete form of things; it is conceived outside of any time as the essence of the world and man. He firmly declares that freedom should be sought not in our individual actions, as rational philosophy does, but in the entire being and essence of man himself. In our current life, we see many actions caused by reasons and circumstances, as well as time and space, and our freedom is limited by them. But all these actions are essentially the same in nature, and that is why they are free from causality. In this reasoning, freedom is not expelled, but only moves from the sphere of current life to a higher sphere, but it is not so clearly accessible to our consciousness. Freedom in its essence is transcendental. This means that every person is initially and fundamentally free and everything he does is based on this freedom. Now let's move on to the topic of pessimism in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Every pleasure, every happiness that people strive for at all times has a negative character, since they - pleasure and happiness - are essentially the absence of something bad, suffering, for example. Our desire stems from the acts of volition of our body, but desire is suffering due to the lack of what we want. A satisfied desire inevitably gives birth to another desire (or several desires), and again we lust, etc. If we imagine all this in space as conditional points, then the voids between them will be filled with suffering, from which desires will arise (conditional points in our case) . This means that it is not pleasure, but suffering - this is positive, constant, unchanging, always present, the presence of which we feel. Schopenhauer claims that everything around us bears traces of bleakness; everything pleasant is mixed with the unpleasant; every pleasure destroys itself, every relief leads to new hardships. It follows that we must be unhappy in order to be happy, moreover, we cannot help but be unhappy, and the reason for this is the person himself, his will. Optimism portrays life to us as a kind of gift, but if we knew in advance what kind of gift it was, we would refuse it. In fact, need, deprivation, sorrow are crowned with death; The ancient Indian Brahmins saw this as the goal of life (Schopenhauer refers to the Vedas and Upanishads). In death we are afraid of losing the body, and it is the will itself. But the will is objectified through the pain of birth and the bitterness of death, and this is a stable objectification. This is immortality in time: in death the intellect perishes, but the will is not subject to death. Schopenhauer thought so.

3. Aesthetic mysticism of Schopenhauer If the world is an “arena strewn with burning coals” that we must pass through, if Dante’s “Inferno” is its truest image, then the reason for this is that the “will to live” constantly gives rise to unrealizable desires in us; being active participants in life, we become martyrs; the only oasis in the desert of life is aesthetic contemplation: it anesthetizes, dulls for a while the volitional impulses that oppress us, we, plunging into it, seem to free ourselves from the yoke of passions oppressing us and gain insight into the innermost essence of phenomena... This insight is intuitive, irrational (super-rational) ), that is, mystical, but it finds expression and is communicated to other people in the form of an artistic artistic concept of the world, which is given by a genius. In this sense, Schopenhauer, recognizing the value of scientific evidence in the field of the theory of knowledge, at the same time sees in the aesthetic intuition of a genius the highest form of philosophical creativity: “Philosophy is a work of art from concepts. Philosophy was sought in vain for so long because it was sought on the road of science instead of on the road of art.”

4.Theory of knowledge The theory of knowledge is set out by Schopenhauer in his dissertation: “On the fourfold root of sufficient reason.” In knowledge there can be two one-sided aspirations - to reduce the number of self-evident truths to an excessive minimum or to excessively multiply them. Both of these aspirations must balance each other: the second should be contrasted with the principle of homogeneity: “Entia praeter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda,” the first with the principle of specification: “Entium varietates non temere esse minuendas.” Only by taking both principles into account at once will we avoid the one-sidedness of rationalism, which seeks to extract all knowledge from some A=A, and empiricism, which stops at particular points and does not reach the highest levels of generalization. Based on this consideration, Schopenhauer proceeds to analyze the “law of sufficient reason” in order to clarify the nature and number of self-evident truths. A historical review of those interpretations that previously gave the law of sufficient reason reveals many ambiguities, of which the most important, noticed among the rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza), is the confusion of logical reason (ratio) with factual reason (causa). To eliminate these ambiguities, we must first of all point out that fundamental feature of our consciousness, which determines the main varieties of the law of sufficient reason. This property of consciousness, which forms the “root of the law of sufficient reason,” is the inseparability of the subject from the object and the object from the subject: “all our representations are objects of the subject and all objects of the subject are our representations. It follows from this that all our ideas are in a natural connection with each other, which can be determined a priori with regard to form; due to this connection, nothing isolated and independent, alone, standing apart, can become our object” (in these words, Schopenhauer almost literally reproduces the formula of idealism that Fichte gives in the three theoretical propositions of the “Teaching of Science”). From the “root” four types of the law of sufficient reason branch out. The law of sufficient reason for “being” (principium rationis sufficientis fiendi) or the law of causality. The law of sufficient basis of knowledge (principium rationis sufficientis cognoscendi). All animals have a mind, that is, they instinctively organize sensations in space and time and are guided by the law of causality, but none of them, with the exception of humans, have a mind, that is, the ability to develop concepts from specific individual ideas - abstract ideas from ideas, conceivable and symbolically denoted by words. Animals are unreasonable - lacking the ability to develop general ideas, they do not speak or laugh. The ability to form concepts is very useful: concepts are poorer in content than individual representations; they are in our minds substitutes for entire classes, underlying species concepts and individual objects. Such an ability, with the help of one concept, to grasp in thought the essential features of objects, not only directly given, but also belonging to both the past and the future, elevates a person above the random conditions of a given place and time and gives him the opportunity to think, while the mind of an animal is almost entirely chained to the needs of a given moment, its spiritual horizon in both the spatial and temporal sense is extremely narrow, but in reflection a person can even “think away” the space itself. The law of sufficient reason for being (pr. rationis sufficientis essendi). Law of motivation (princ. rationis sufficientis agendi). Our volitions precede our actions, and the influence of the motive on the action is not known from the outside in an indirect way, like other causes, but directly and from the inside, therefore motivation is causality, considered from the inside. According to the four types of law, there are four types of necessity: physical, logical, mathematical and moral (i.e. psychological)

The indicated division of the law of sufficient reason into four types can be used as the basis for the classification of sciences:

A) Pure or a priori sciences: 1) the doctrine of the basis of being: a) in space: geometry; b) in time: arithmetic, algebra. 2) The doctrine of the basis of knowledge: logic. B) Empirical or a posteriori sciences: all are based on the law of sufficient reason for existence in its three forms: 1) the doctrine of causes: a) general: mechanics, physics, chemistry; b) private: astronomy, mineralogy, geology; 2) the doctrine of irritations: a) general: physiology (as well as anatomy) of plants and animals; b) private: zoology, botany, pathology, etc.; 3) the doctrine of motives: a) general: psychology, morality; b) private: law, history.

Understanding Sociology and Theory of Social Action

Weber called his concept understanding sociology. He believed that the purpose of sociological science is to analyze social action and substantiate the reasons for its occurrence. Understanding in this context denotes the process of cognition of a social action through the meaning that the subject himself puts into this action. Thus, the subject of sociology consists of all ideas and worldviews that determine human behavior. Weber abandoned attempts to use the natural scientific method in analysis and considered sociology a “science of culture.”

Social action, writes Weber, is considered to be an action that is meaningfully correlated with the actions of other people and is oriented towards them. Thus, Weber identifies 2 signs of social action:

meaningful character;

orientation towards the expected reaction of others.

Weber identifies four types of social action in descending order of their meaningfulness and intelligibility:

purposive - when objects or people are interpreted as means to achieve their own rational goals. The subject accurately imagines the goal and chooses the best option for achieving it. This is a pure model of formal-instrumental life orientation, such actions are most often found in the sphere of economic practice;

value-rational - determined by a conscious belief in the value of a certain action, regardless of its success, performed in the name of some value, and its achievement is more important than the side consequences: the captain is the last to leave a sinking ship;

traditional - determined by tradition or habit. The individual simply reproduces the pattern of social activity that was previously used in similar situations by him or those around him: the peasant goes to the fair at the same time as his fathers and grandfathers.

affective - determined by emotions.

According to Weber, a social relationship is a system of social actions; social relationships include such concepts as struggle, love, friendship, competition, exchange, etc. A social relationship, perceived by an individual as obligatory, acquires the status of a legitimate social order. In accordance with the types of social actions, four types of legal (legitimate) order are distinguished: traditional, affective, value-rational and legal.

Unlike his contemporaries, Weber did not seek to build sociology on the model of the natural sciences, attributing it to the humanities or, in his terms, to the cultural sciences, which, both in methodology and in subject matter, constitute an autonomous field of knowledge. The main categories of understanding sociology are behavior, action and social action. Behavior is the most general category of activity, which becomes an action if the actor associates a subjective meaning with it. We can talk about social action when the action is correlated with the actions of other people and is oriented towards them. Combinations of social actions form “meaning connections”, on the basis of which social relations and institutions are formed. The result of Weber's understanding is a hypothesis with a high degree of probability, which must then be confirmed by objective scientific methods.

Weber's method of sociology is determined, in addition to the concept of understanding, by the doctrine of the ideal type, as well as the postulate of freedom from value judgments. According to Weber, the ideal type captures the “cultural meaning” of a particular phenomenon, and the ideal type becomes a heuristic hypothesis capable of organizing the diversity of historical material without reference to some predetermined scheme.

Regarding the principle of freedom from value judgments, Weber distinguishes two problems: the problem of freedom from value judgments in the strict sense and the problem of the relationship between cognition and value. In the first case, it is necessary to strictly distinguish between established facts and their assessment from the ideological position of the researcher. In the second, we are talking about the theoretical problem of analyzing the connection of any knowledge with the values of the knower, i.e. the problem of the interdependence of science and the cultural context.

Pessimism and irrationalism of Schopenhauer

According to Schopenhauer's philosophy, this will is meaningless. Therefore, our world is not “the best of possible worlds” (as Leibniz’s theodicy proclaims), but “the worst of possible worlds.” Human life has no value: the sum of the suffering it causes is much greater than the pleasure it provides. Schopenhauer contrasts optimism with the most decisive pessimism - and this was fully consistent with his personal mental make-up. The will is irrational, blind and instinctive, for during the development of organic forms, the light of thought lights up for the first time only at the highest and final stage of the development of the will - in the human brain, the bearer of consciousness. But with the awakening of consciousness, a means appears to “overcome the meaninglessness” of the will. Having come to the pessimistic conclusion that the continuous, irrational will to live causes an intolerable state of prevailing suffering, the intellect is at the same time convinced that deliverance from it can be achieved (according to the Buddhist model) by escaping from life, denying the will to live. However, Schopenhauer emphasizes that this negation, the “quietive of the will,” comparable to the transition to Buddhist nirvana, into the silence of non-existence free from suffering, should in no way be identified with suicide (which the philosopher Eduard Hartmann, who influenced him, later began to call for).

The significance of Schopenhauer in the history of philosophy

Schopenhauer owed his success (albeit late) both to the originality and courage of his system, and to a number of other qualities: his eloquent defense of the pessimistic worldview, his ardent hatred of “school philosophy,” his gift of presentation, free (especially in small works) from any artificiality. Thanks to this, he (like the popular English and French thinkers he highly valued) became primarily a philosopher of “secular people.” He had many adherents of low rank, but very few capable continuers of his system. The “Schopenhauer School” did not emerge, but he still greatly influenced a number of original thinkers who developed their own theories. Of the philosophers who relied on Schopenhauer, Hartmann and the early Nietzsche are especially famous. These also include the majority of representatives of the later “philosophy of life,” whose true founder Schopenhauer has every right to be considered.

Literature:

1. Weber Max / Devyatkova R. P. // Great Soviet Encyclopedia: in 30 volumes / ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. - 3rd ed. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1971. - T. 4: Brasos - Wesh. - 600 s. 2. Lewis J. Marxist criticism of the sociological concepts of Max Weber. - M., 1981. 3. Aron R. Stages of development of sociological thought / General editor. and preface P.S. Gurevich. - M.: Publishing group “Progress” - “Politics”, 1992. 4. Kravchenko E. I. Max Weber. - M.: Ves Mir, 2002. - 224 p. - Series “The Whole World of Knowledge.” - ISBN 5-7777-0196-5.

Arthur Schopenhauer has been called the "philosopher of pessimism." His most famous work is a book entitled “The World as Will and Idea,” in which he decisively opposed the idealism dominant in the philosophy of that time, arguing that the will to live is both the main engine of human life and the main cause of his suffering.

Outwardly, Schopenhauer looked like a real philosopher. He was a thin man of short stature, with a large head and piercing blue eyes. He always dressed very well, he was

he was quick-tempered, never forgot his sense of self-esteem, and could not stand it when anyone disagreed with him on something. His parents were strong-willed, intelligent and unrestrained people. His mother was jealous of Arthur for his talents, which is why they constantly clashed. One day, during another quarrel, she pushed him down the stairs. His father, a successful businessman from Danzig, committed suicide in 1805. Schopenhauer admired his father and tried to continue his work, although he hated him with all his soul. When his mother suggested that he study philosophy, Schopenhauer immediately gave his consent. His widowed mother moved to Weimar, the “city of poets,” where she became a popular writer and hostess of a literary salon. In 1813, young Schopenhauer also moved to Weimer, although he did not approve of his mother’s frivolous behavior. He was simply shocked when he learned that she was living with a young man named Müller von Gerstenberg. His mother, however, insisted that her relationship with Gerstenberg was purely platonic, but Schopenhauer never saw her again.

At the same time that Schopenhauer was fighting with his mother in Weimar, he was having an affair with Caroline Jagermann, the leading actress of the court theater, the mistress of Duke Karl August. Schopenhauer tried to make sure that no one knew about their romance. Very little information about their love affair has been preserved. It is known, however, that Schopenhauer's attitude towards Caroline was very romantic. After the publication of his work The World as Will and Idea, Schopenhauer moved to Italy. There he gave free rein to his sensuality. Schopenhauer believed that sexual passion is “the most clearly expressed manifestation of the will,” and gave it complete freedom, admitting: “I am not a saint.” In Italy, where “the only sin is not to sin,” Schopenhauer met a rich, noble and beautiful woman. Only her name has reached us - Teresa. He even began to think about family life, weighing the pros and cons. Schopenhauer abandoned his intentions immediately when Teresa fainted one day before his eyes upon seeing Byron. Schopenhauer later wrote: “I was afraid that I would be cuckolded.”

Misogyny became increasingly apparent in Schopenhauer's character. He continued to have sexual relations with women, but treated them with undisguised contempt. He believed that the sexual impulse is “a demon that diligently perverts, limits and destroys everything around,” and that it is women who cause all this chaos. His philosophy explained that love is a deception committed by nature for the sole purpose of procreation. Schopenhauer wrote: “Only a man whose intellect is clouded by the sexual impulse can call the fair half

these short, narrow-shouldered creatures with large hips and short legs." He despised women and believed that they had one and only virtue - the sexual attractiveness of youth, which would fade very soon after marriage. Schopenhauer, however, did not miss the opportunity to charm some a young girl or young woman with her excellent manners and knowledge of languages and literature.

After one such joyful year, he returned to Munich, where he began to suffer from syphilis, which he already had in an advanced state. For several months, Schopenhauer was bedridden. He was terribly afraid that the disease would destroy his brain. When he felt better, he wrote a paper outlining his theory of tetragamy. According to this theory, two men should live with the same woman until she reaches an age when she is no longer able to bear children. After that, they both must marry a second, younger woman, while not forgetting to take care of their ex-wife. Later, his work "On Women", published in 1851 in the magazine Pererga, strengthened his reputation as a misogynist.

Despite everything, Schopenhauer still never completely excluded women from his life. In his diary you can find a mention of “Fräulein Meudon,” a beautiful actress. Schopenhauer courted her, won her love and again began to think about marriage. He believed that Meudon was suitable for him both as a wife and as a lover. Schopenhauer was thwarted this time by his innate caution and cynicism. He was truly in love, but he was, above all, a philosopher. His pessimism again took over, and the wedding did not take place.

Schopenhauer was firmly convinced that his philosophical works were doomed to immortality and had lasting value for all humanity. This confidence was more important to him than any number of children he could father in his life. He died of a lung hemorrhage, completely alone, at the age of 72.

Sexual desires sometimes made Schopenhauer feel resentful of himself. He, however, never suppressed these desires. He once said: “The more I learn about men, the less I like them. If I could say the same about women, everything would be just fine.”

The respectable Hegelian world of the first half of the 19th century seemed eternal and unshakable, but there was a person who saw the backdrop of this decoration and showed it to others. During his lifetime, Arthur Schopenhauer was little known, and his major work, The World as Will and Representation, began to sell well only a year before his death. His analysis of human motivation became a revelation for Europe, revealing the incomprehensible depths of the soul.

Pages of life

The philosopher was born into the family of an educated businessman, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer. His mother was a writer and ran a salon. Arthur's father gave him an excellent education. Before entering an elite gymnasium for future businessmen, he spends 2 years in Le Havre, and after graduation he studies in the UK for six months. It is difficult to say whether Arthur’s father was a cheerful person, since in the spring of 1805 he died or... There is a version that he committed suicide.

Arthur is not interested in a career as a merchant, but he himself does not yet know what to do. Having entered the medical faculty of the University of Göttingen, he soon moved to the faculty of philosophy. In philosophy he finds his calling. To listen to lectures from the best professors (Fichte and Schleermacher), Schopenhauer moved to Berlin. His successes are such that the University of Jena awarded him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1812.

The philosopher could not help but notice the devastation that the Napoleonic wars brought to his country, and the very personality of the French emperor aroused considerable interest. It was in him that he could see the unbridled will to power, which he described in his main work. However, Schopenhauer did not consider it necessary to mention Napoleon anywhere. Having received the position of privatdozent at the University of Berlin, he taught here until 1831. Here the extravagance of the thinker was revealed, which explains a lot in his philosophy.

Rivalry with Hegel, who worked at the same University of Berlin, brought only inconvenience. Having decided to compete with his colleague, Schopenhauer deliberately sets the hours of his lectures at the same time as those of Professor Hegel. The latter's audience was jam-packed, but only a few came to the gloomy pessimist and bachelor. Schopenhauer was green with envy and anger, and did not hide his contempt for the popular professor. However, Hegel was also not distinguished by generosity and did everything to push his brother out of the university.

Illness or genius?

In 1831, an epidemic occurred in Berlin, and Schopenhauer left the capital of Prussia, never to return here. In Frankfurt am Main he will write his essays, grumble at Hegel, keep a pistol under his pillow and refuse the basic blessings of life. In general, he will live the life of a real philosopher, without a wife and children, without the calling of his contemporaries, foreseeing his own posthumous glory. His character was characterized by extreme suspicion and fear of unknown enemies. Modern psychiatry might have cured Schopenhauer, but then we would not have gotten a great philosopher who saw in his fears the eternal tragedy of humanity.

He hid objects in hiding places, fearing that they would be stolen or treated with poison. He was afraid of diseases, himself and people. To get rid of depressing thoughts, Schopenhauer goes to travel around Italy, but even here he does not find peace. Capable of languages, he absorbs a lot of literature before it is translated into German. In Buddhism, the philosopher seeks an explanation for his mental torment. Consolation comes only from Plato and Immanuel Kant, whose philosophy he considered the highest manifestation of human genius.

The Royal Norwegian Scientific Society awarded him a prize for his competition work “On the Freedom of Human Will,” and Richard Wagner dedicated his opera cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung” to him. Having a distrust of people, he has a touching love for dogs and, in general, animals, and was one of the first to speak out for the rights of “our little brothers.” Schopenhauer seemed to know about his future fame, once saying that it didn’t matter to him where he was buried - they would still find him. He died of pneumonia on September 21, 1860 in Frankfurt am Main. On his grave there are only two words - Arthur Schopenhauer. This is quite enough.

Aesthetic mysticism

The desire for beauty is inherent in us by nature. But we are talking here not only about passive enjoyment of nature and works of art. Schopenhauer sees in the artist a rebellious soul, for whom creativity is salvation from oppressive thoughts and passions. Doesn’t he know how pleasant this liberation, albeit short-lived, that he found in writing and travel was. Power of intellect? What does this power mean without intuitive insights that come suddenly, but for good reason.

Motivation is the internal core and reason for all our actions aimed at understanding the surrounding reality. The law of motivation, along with the law of causality, the law of sufficient grounds for knowledge and the law of sufficient grounds for being, was considered by the philosopher in his doctoral dissertation “On the fourfold root of sufficient grounds.” The law of motivation in connection with human will will be developed by him in the immortal book “The World as Will and Idea”.

Reflecting on man and his place in the universe, Schopenhauer formulates his doctrine of the world will. In his scheme of being, she replaces God. He endows it with those divine qualities that he considers appropriate: unconsciousness, otherworldliness, unity and irrationality. Love and hatred, the struggle of natural elements, the thirst for reproduction and the feeling of hunger - all this has a cause in a single and eternal flow of will. Schopenhauer dwells in detail on the various stages of objectification of the world will.

The mechanistic world of Descartes and Newton forms the lowest level of objectification of the world will, which is so consonant with the “desiring” objects of Aristotle’s physics. Inert matter has an analogue of drive, forming a hierarchy of physical manifestations, from the simplest molecules to multicellular and higher animals. Quite unexpectedly, the philosopher introduces a semblance of Platonic ideas, in accordance with which volitional energy is embodied. There is no other way to explain the amazing purposefulness of organisms, the exact purpose of the organs of plants and animals, and the usefulness of instincts. However, the intelligent structure of individuals and species enters into an uncompromising struggle for existence, giving rise to sorrows and suffering. The world will falls apart into many individual pieces.

A weak sighted man on the neck of a healthy blind man

It is not humanity, according to Schopenhauer, that contains the world's will, but individual individuals. Thus, the law of motivation manifests itself in individuals, expressed in character and habits. The intellect is secondary in relation to the psychomatter of volition, explaining in reasonable terms everything that passion offers. The philosopher spares no color to show how often our emotions control the arguments of reason. The originally understood Buddhism was embodied in Schopenhauer in a pessimistic view of the human world. Suffering humanity is not able to stop the irrational will with the power of reason, because the will is immeasurably ancient. This is the strength and weakness of man. Any attempt to stop the flow of will leads to madness and death.

Schopenhauer vividly describes the infinity of suffering and the illusory nature of pleasure. Youth, which gives health and freedom, quickly passes, leaving behind, like a typhoon, mountains of broken shards and hopelessness. History is like a kaleidoscope, in which individual pieces come together again and again in a bizarre but meaningless way. Schopenhauer does not believe in either mental or moral progress, offering a purely Buddhist recipe - the denial of the will to live. However, he allows for the sublimation of will in the creativity of science, art and philosophy. So, man is the most unfortunate of all creatures, since in him the pulse of passion and the contradiction of wills have reached their greatest severity and pain.

The philosopher's view of sexual love fits perfectly into his picture of suffering humanity. An uncontrollable sexual instinct draws a man into a trap of endless suffering, which reveals itself in the shackles of marriage. He calls the latter an insidious invention of women, forcing a man into sublimation of a lower order. A woman in the eyes of Schopenhauer is the main culprit of the world's evil, for through her the will to live is affirmed again and again. Rejecting the Old Testament cosmogony, he agrees with the myth of the Fall and the need to limit freedom for women.

The obscurantism of a Buddhist and a misogynist did not prevent the philosopher from being a subtle connoisseur of works of art. Aesthetic pleasure became a habit for him since childhood, which Johann’s mother took care of. In any misogynist, contempt for the human female coexists perfectly with love for the mother, who for him is a special kind of being. Wanting to weaken the effect of annoying phobias, Schopenhauer travels a lot around Italy, enjoying ancient and medieval works of art. In his hierarchy of world will they appear as beautiful symbols. For example, architecture and fountains reflect the lower stages of objectification of will in the world, and the human spirit reveals its meaning in poetry, drama and tragedy. But music occupies a special place in Schopenhauer’s aesthetic concept, being “a snapshot of will itself.” Funny things in art show world disharmony in a way that is understandable to the mind.

The world after Schopenhauer

He knew how to write beautifully, which is why this philosopher continues to be read even one and a half hundred years after his death. Possessing a painfully high sensitivity, he caught the deep currents of new ideas and embodied them in his work. Without him, the great literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and the scientific discoveries of Albert Einstein would have been impossible. Buddhism and Vedic philosophy, uniquely refracted in his books, enriched European culture and contributed to the discovery of the spiritual world of India.

On February 22, 1788, the famous German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was born.

Schopenhauer is known as the "philosopher of pessimism", with his dark romantic ideas about the predominance of negativity in the world, the naturalness of suffering and the impossibility of achieving happiness. According to Schopenhauer, happiness does not exist because an unfulfilled desire causes pain, and a realized achievement brings only satiety. Any goals are meaningless: we “try to blow out a soap bubble as large as possible, although we know very well that it will burst.”

Another central teaching, the core of Schopenhauer's philosophy, is the key importance of will, desire and motivation in human life. Unlike other philosophers, who saw the fundamental basis of man in the intellect, the scientist put first place the will, an eternal, self-sufficient substance, not subject to death, which in turn determined the whole world.

The "philosopher of pessimism" - a nickname he first received after calling the existing world "the worst of all possible worlds" - admired the ideas of Kant and Cicero, the philosophy of Buddhism and the Upanishads, but criticized Hegel and Fichte. While not “in the forefront” of the scientific community during his lifetime, he nevertheless had a significant influence on subsequent generations of philosophers.

Biography

Schopenhauer was born in the Prussian city of Danzig (present-day Gdansk) into a wealthy, cultured family. His father, a banker and merchant, was an extremely educated man, a connoisseur of European culture, and often traveled on business throughout Europe. His mother was a writer and the owner of a literary salon, where many famous personalities, such as Goethe, frequented. When the boy was nine years old, his father sent him to a French school in Le Havre for several years. At the age of 11, the boy was sent to a prestigious gymnasium in Hamburg, where the sons of the most distinguished businessmen studied. At the age of 15, he went to study at Wimbledon (UK) for six months. Then came the Weimar Gymnasium and, eventually, the University of Göttingent, where Arthur studied philosophy and natural sciences. In 1811, the young man moved to Berlin, where he attended lectures by Fichte and Schleiermacher, and in 1812, when he was 24 years old, he was already awarded the title of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Jena.

In 1819, Schopenhauer published his main work, “The World as Will and Representation,” in which he outlined his views on will (the essence of true reality), and the entire contemplated world as a representation of our will. In 1820, the scientist began lecturing at the University of Berlin. However, neither his scientific work nor his lectures received such great attention as his colleague Hegel then enjoyed. Full of offended pride, Schopenhauer could not stay in Berlin for long, and left for Frankfurt am Main in 1831, although the official reason he called the cholera epidemic that broke out in Berlin. In a new place he lived completely alone until his death. Residents of the city knew him as a gloomy, unfriendly, always gloomy gentleman who did not like empty talk. He was a real misanthrope, seeing in man a wild and terrible animal, restrained only by the framework of civilization. He did not trust people and avoided them.

Although he was not popular during his lifetime, in 1839 he was awarded an honorary prize from the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society for his competition work “On the Freedom of Human Will.” This topic occupied Schopenhauer so much that in 1843 he republished his work “The World as Will and Representation”, adding a second volume to it.

On September 21, 1860, Schopenhauer died of pneumonia. Only two words were modestly carved on the philosopher’s gravestone: “Arthur Schopenhauer.” Only after the death of the philosopher, interest in his philosophy began to awaken more and more in the world, which received special development in the “decadent” wave of the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

10 interesting facts from the biography of Arthur Schopenhauer

1. Being a privatdozent in Berlin, the scientist was so arrogant that he specially scheduled his lectures for the same hour as Hegel’s lectures. However, he was never able to win over Hegel’s listeners and soon gave up lecturing.

2. Schopenhauer really did not like people, but he loved dogs. He had a poodle named Atma (World Soul), and on the walls of his office hung 16 engravings of dogs.

3. From time to time, the suspicious scientist hired correspondents to search for evidence of his fame.

4. Schopenhauer was not a good Christian. He believed in magic and spiritualism. The only “icons” in his office were a bust of Kant and a bronze Buddha.

5. Schopenhauer tried to copy Kant's lifestyle in everything, with the exception of his early rise. The scientist liked to sleep until noon.

6. In the 1840s, Schopenhauer became one of the pioneers of the first animal protection organizations that were then appearing everywhere in Germany.

7. Reading a lot, the philosopher, nevertheless, was critical of reading and perceived with contempt the “philosophers” and “scientists” who studied books and quoted the greats. He believed that other people's thoughts were harmful to the mind, and advocated independent thinking.

8. Schopenhauer proposed judging a person by how he spends his leisure time. According to the scientist, only a spiritually empty person can be bored and lonely with himself. Happy are those who, during leisure time, find something valuable in themselves.

9. Schopenhauer has a treatise “The Metaphysics of Sexual Love”, the main idea of which is: in the field of physical feelings, opposites are most often attracted (overweight - thin, tall - short, brown-eyed - blue-eyed, blondes - brunettes).

10. Schopenhauer’s compatriot Richard Wagner dedicated his opera cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung” to him.

15 quotes that got me hooked

In the first half of life, a person is possessed by a thirst for happiness, a characteristic feature of the second half is the fear of unhappiness. By this time, a clear consciousness grows in us that all happiness is illusory, and all suffering is real.
Are you complaining about the passage of time? It would not flow so uncontrollably if at least something in it was worthy of stopping.
Honor is external conscience, and conscience is internal honor.
Honor is objectively the opinion that others have of our courage, and subjectively the fear that this opinion instills in us.
Man is, in essence, a wild, terrible animal. We know him only in a state of taming, called civilization, and that is why the random attacks of his nature frighten us. But where the castle and chains of legal order fall and anarchy sets in. there he shows himself like that. what he is.
No animal ever tortures just for the sake of torturing; but a person does this - which constitutes the satanic trait of his character, which is much more evil than simple brutal.
The categorical imperative is a contradiction: every commandment is conditional. Only the laws of nature are unconditional. The moral law is completely conditional. There is such a world and such a view of life in which the moral law is devoid of all force and meaning. This, in essence, is the real world in which we live, and all morality is a negation of this world.

Intelligence leads to unsociability. After all, the more a person has within himself, the less he needs from the outside, the less other people can give him.

The cheapest pride is national pride. She discovers in the subject infected by her a lack of individual qualities that he could be proud of.
Modesty is a beneficial tool for idiots; it forces everyone to say to themselves that they are just as much an idiot as others, and as a result it turns out that there are only idiots in the world.
It must be admitted that there are few good features in the national character: after all, its subject is the crowd. Simply put, human limitations, perversion and depravity take different forms in different countries, which are called national character.
Every nation mocks the others, and they are all equally right.
To exclaim enthusiastically: “honor is higher than life” is, in essence, to assert: “our life and contentment are nothing; the point is what others think of us.”
For every person, his neighbor is a mirror from which his own vices look at him; but a person acts like a dog that barks at the mirror on the assumption that it sees not itself, but another dog.
Happiness is negative. We don't feel it. We feel positively only deprivation, which indicates the disappearance of happiness.