PESSIMISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF old crotchety
Immortalist
The noted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that evil
is positive rather than negative, that the world is basically and inherantly
evil. Happiness is experienced only during momentary respites between periods of
unhappiness -- and, in fact, happiness consists of this brief absence of pain,
this temporary interval separating one evil experience from the next. As in
popular fiction, the story must be ended when, after interminable vicissitudes,
the hero and heroine are happily wedded, for if the narrative continued, the
reality of repeated misfortune would eventually prove Schopenhauer's judgements
that "life must be some kind of mistake," and that "it is a sin to be born."
Pessimism. Schopenhauer's philosophy of Pessimism is based on the contention that
the world is an irrational blind force, without guidance, for there is no God to
direct it. Reality, a blind force, is a potent will, which in man takes the form
of insatiable instincts, drives, or desires. To satisfy a single desire leaves
man laden with a number of unsatisfied others gnawing at him; desires abound, but
satisfactions are relatively few. In real life most people experience either
frustration or, in the event of occasional success, complete boredom.
In Schopenhauer's words: "All willing arises from want, therefore from
deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it; yet
for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten which are denied.
Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is
short and scantily measured out. But even the final satisfaction is itself only
apparent; every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new one; both are
illusions.... No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but
merely a fleeting gratification; it is like alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps
him alive today that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow" [1].
Suicide provides no escape. In the first place, it is a final irreversible act
motivated by considerations which might turn out to be a gross blunder. In the
second place, the will, i.e., the tormenting forces of this world, is eternal,
and consequently will persist in the afterlife.
Escape from Evil (Human Salvation). For Schopenhauer, there is one means of
escape from the misery of this world -- extinction of desires. Repudiate the
desire for life, but not for life itself. Annihilate the will, desires and
instincts, and be content with nothingness, a state of Nirvana (absence of
desire). One might think that contemplation of Platonic Ideals (which, being
independant of space and time, are free from the sting of will and instincts)
could also bring relief, but this mode of escape can at best achieve only partial
salvation.
An Ethics of Sympathy. Schopenhauer recognizes the necessity for compassion.
Inasmuch as every person's life is tragic, and each experiences his special
torment, he must not condemn another for evil actions, but pity him. We are all
"in the same boat" caught where we do not wish to be, without much control over
our wretched state; therefore it is unwise to condemn a neighbor, and we should
show him compassion to help alleviate his condition. "It is this compassion alone
which is the real basis of all voluntary justice and all genuine loving-kindness.
Only so far as an action springs therefrom, has it moral value; and all conduct
that proceeds from any other motive whatever has none. When once compassion is
stirred within me by another's pain, then his weal and woe go straight to my
heart, exactly in the same way, if not always to the same degree, as otherwise I
feel only my own. Consequently the difference between myself and him is no longer
an absolute one"
http://www.geocities.com/c_ansata/IGP1.html
Albert
<snip>
Googlebot strikes again.
--
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express
it."
-- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"
Raan
--
></>
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:nJ6dnZ4h6c-...@comcast.com...
Tim
news:nJ6dnZ4h6c-...@comcast.com...gone but he did gone done cut and
paste the following since he lacks the ability to read and understand:
What's your point know nothing? Ahhh maybe that's your point - you want the
world to know you know nothing so you offer cut and paste with no effort of
your own to prove it. Way to go smokee.
Immortalist
"Albert" <alwa...@tcac.net> wrote in message
news:20040716180...@lfs.mydomain.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> no words in which to express
> it."
Schopenhauer's Critique of Kant
In several ways, Schopenhauer can be called a Kantian, but he did not always
agree with the details of Kant's arguments. As noted above, Schopenhauer's
teacher in Göttingen was G. E. Schulze, who authored in 1792, a text entitled
Aenesidemus, which contained a criticism of the Kantian philosopher, Karl
Leonhard Reinhold (1757-1823). Reinhold himself was a defender of Kant, and was
known for his Philosophy of the Elements (Elementarphilosophie) which was
expressed, along with some earlier writings, in Reinhold's 1791 work, The
Foundation of Philosophical Knowledge (Fundament des philosophischen Wissens).
Schulze's critique of Kant boils down to the following: it is incoherent to posit
as a matter of philosophical knowledge -- as Kant seems to have done -- a
mind-independent object that is beyond all human experience, and which serves as
the objective cause of our experience. Schulze argues that this position
illegitimately uses the concept of causality to conclude as a matter of strong
epistemological requirement, and not merely as a matter of rational speculation,
that there is some object -- namely, the thing-in-itself -- outside of all
possible human experience, that is nonetheless the cause of our sensations.
Schopenhauer concurs that hypothesizing a thing-in-itself as the cause of our
sensations amounts to a constitutive application and projection of the concept of
causality beyond its legitimate scope, for according to Kant himself, the concept
of causality only supplies knowledge when it is applied within the field of
possible experience, and not outside of it. Schopenhauer therefore denies that
our sensations have an external cause, in the specific sense that we can know
there is some epistemologically inaccessible object -- the thing-in-itself --
that exists independently of our sensations and is the cause of them.
These internal problems with Kant's argument suggest to Schopenhauer that Kant's
reference to the thing-in-itself as a transcendental object (or, for that matter,
as an object of any kind) is misleading. Instead, Schopenhauer maintains that if
we are to refer to the thing-in-itself, then we must come to an awareness of it,
not by invoking the relationship of causality -- a relationship where the cause
and the effect are logically understood to designate different objects or events
(since self-causation is a contradiction in terms) -- but through another means
altogether. As we will see in the next section, and as we can see immediately in
the very title of his main work -- The World as Will and Representation --
Schopenhauer believes that the world has a double-aspect, namely, as will (Wille)
and as representation (Vorstellung).
Schopenhauer does not believe, then, that the will causes our representations.
His position is that will and representations are one and the same reality,
regarded from different perspectives. They stand in relationship to each other,
in a way that is more akin to the relationship between a force and its
manifestation (e.g., as exemplfied in the relationship between electricity and a
spark) as opposed to the relationship between cause and effect. Rather than say
that the thing-in-itself causes our sensations, as if we were referring to one
domino striking another domino, Schopenhauer maintains that the relationship
between the thing-in-itself and our sensations is more like that between two
sides of a coin, neither of which causes the other, and both of which are of the
same coin and coinage.
Among his other criticisms of Kant (see Schopenhauer's appendix to the first
volume of The World as Will and Representation, entitled, "Criticism of the
Kantian Philosophy"), Schopenhauer also maintains that Kant's twelve categories
of the human understanding -- the various categories through which we logically
organize our field of sensations into comprehensible individual objects -- are
reducible to the single category of causality, and that this category, along with
the intuitive forms of space and time, is sufficient to explain the basic format
of all human experience, viz., individual objects dispersed throughout space and
time, causally related to one another.
Schopenhauer further comprehends these three (and for him, interdependent)
principles as expressions of a single principle, namely, the principle of
sufficient reason, whose fourfold root he had examined in his doctoral
dissertation. In The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer often refers
to the principle of sufficient reason as the principle of individuation, thereby
linking the idea of individuation with rationality, necessity, systematicity and
determinism, and using the two characterizations as a shorthand expression for
what Kant had more complexly referred to as space, time and the twelve categories
of the understanding (viz., unity, plurality, totality, reality, negation,
limitation, substance, causality, reciprocity, possibility, actuality [Dasein],
and necessity).
The World as Will
It is a perennial philosophical reflection, that if one looks deeply into
oneself, one will discover not only one's own essence, but will also discover the
essence of the universe as a whole. For as one is a part of the universe like
everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they
flow through everything else. So it is thought that one can come into contact
with the nature of the universe, if one comes into contact with one's own nature.
Among the most frequently-identified principles that is introspectively brought
forth -- and one that was the standard for German Idealist philosophers such as
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel who were philosophizing within the Cartesian
tradition -- is the principle of self-consciousness. With the belief that acts of
self-consciousness exemplify a self-creative process akin to divine creation
itself, and developing a logic that reflected the structure of
self-consciousness, namely, the dialectical logic of position, opposition and
reconciliation, the German Idealists maintained that dialectical logic mirrors
the structure not only of human productions, both individual and social, but the
structure of reality as a whole.
As much as he opposes the traditional German Idealists in their metaphysical
celebration of self-consciousness, Schopenhauer stands within the spirit of this
tradition, for he believes that the ultimate principle of the universe is
likewise apprehensible through introspection, and that we can philosophically
understand the world as various manifestations of this general principle. For
Schopenhauer, however, this is not the principle of self-consciousness and
rationally-infused will, but rather, what he calls simply "will" -- a mindless,
aimless, non-rational urge at the foundation of all of our instinctual drives,
and at the foundational being of everything. Schopenhauer's originality does not
reside in his characterization of the world as will, or as act -- for we
encounter this position in Fichte's philosophy as well -- but in Schopenhauer's
conception of the will as being utterly devoid of rationality.
Having rejected the Kantian position that our sensations are caused by an
unknowable object that exists independently of us, Schopenhauer notes importantly
that our body -- which is just one among the many objects in the world -- is
given to us in two different ways: we perceive our body as a physical object
among other physical objects, subject to the natural laws that govern the
movements of all physical objects, and we are aware of our body through our
immediate awareness, as we each consciously inhabit our body, intentionally
moving it, feeling directly our pleasures, pains, and emotional states. We can
objectively perceive our hand as an external object, as a surgeon might perceive
it during a medical operation, and we can also be subjectively aware of our hand
as something we inhabit, as something we can willfully move, and of which we can
feel its inner muscular workings.
From this observation, Schopenhauer asserts that our body is given in two
entirely different ways, namely, as representation (i.e., objectively;
externally) and as will (i.e., subjectively; internally). One of his intriguing
conclusions is that when we move our hand, this is not to be comprehended as a
motivational act that first happens, and then causes the movement of our hand as
an effect. Rather, Schopenhauer maintains that the movement of our hand is but a
single act -- again, like the two sides of a coin -- that has a subjective
feeling of willing as one of its aspects, and the movement of the hand as the
other of its aspects. He states in general that the action of the body is nothing
but the act of will objectified, that is, translated into perception.
At this point in his argumentation, Schopenhauer has established only that among
his thousands upon thousands of ideas, or representations, only one of them
(viz., the [complex] representation of his body) has this special double-aspected
quality. When he perceives the moon, or a mountain, he does not have any direct
access to the metaphysical inside of these objects; they remain as
representations that reveal to him only their objective side. Schopenhauer asks,
though, how he might understand the world as an integrated whole, or how he might
render it more comprehensible, for as things stand, he can directly experience
the inside of one of his representations, but of no others. To answer this
question, Schopenhauer takes a philosophical leap, and uses the double-knowledge
of his own body as the key to the inner being of every other natural phenomenon.
He consequently regards every object in the world as being double-aspected, and
as having an inside or inner aspect of its own, just as his consciousness is the
inner aspect of his own body. For such reasons, Schopenhauer flatly rejects
Descartes's causal interactionism, where thinking substance is said to cause
changes in a metaphysically independent material substance and vice-versa.
This precipitates a position that characterizes the inner aspect of things, as
far as we can describe it, as will, and ultimately, as a dimension of the
thing-in-itself, which in his critique of Kant, Schopenhauer had argued also has
a double-aspected relationship to our sensory experience. Hence, Schopenhauer
regards the world as a whole as having two sides: the world is will and the world
is representation. The world as will (for us) is the world as it is in itself,
and the world as representation is the world of appearances, of our ideas, or
objects. An alternative title for Schopenhauer's main book, The World as Will and
Representation, might well have been, The World as Reality and Appearance.
Similarly, his book might have been entitled, The Inner and Outer Nature of the
World, or perhaps, The World as Subject and as Object.
An inspiration for Schopenhauer's view that ideas are like inert objects is
George Berkeley (1685-1753), who describes ideas in this despiritualized way in
his A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) [Section 25].
A primary inspiration for Schopenhauer's double-aspect view of the universe is
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), who developed a similarly-structured metaphysics, and
who Schopenhauer had studied in his early years before writing his dissertation.
A subsequent, but crucial, inspiration is from the classical Upanishadic writings
of India (c. 900-600 BCE) which also express the view that the universe is
double-aspected, having objective and subjective dimensions that are referred to
respectively as Brahman and Atman.
After completing his dissertation, Schopenhauer was exposed to Upanishadic
thought in 1813 by the orientalist Friedrich Majer (1771-1818), who visited
Johanna Schopenhauer's salon in Weimar. Even more importantly, Schopenhauer's
appreciation for Upanishadic thought was augmented in Dresden during his writing
of The World as Will and Representation by Karl Friedrich Christian Krause,
Schopenhauer's 1815-1817 neighbor. Krause was not only a metaphysical panentheist
(see biographic segment above); he was also an enthusiast of South Asian thought.
Familiar with the Sanskrit language, he introduced Schopenhauer to both
meditative techniques and to publications on India in the Asiatisches Magazin. It
was during this time that Schopenhauer was able to study the first
European-language translation of the Upanishads, for in 1804, a Persian version
of the Upanishads (the Oupnekhat) was rendered into Latin by the French
Orientalist, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805) -- a scholar who was
also responsible for introducing translations of Zoroastrian texts into Europe in
1771.
Despite its general precedents within the philosophical family of double-aspect
theories, Schopenhauer's particular characterization of the world as will, is
nonetheless novel and daring. It is also frightening and pandemonic: he maintains
that the world as it is in itself (sometimes he crucially adds, "for us") is an
endless striving and blind impulse with no end in view, devoid of knowledge,
lawless, absolutely free, entirely self-determining and almighty. Within
Schopenhauer's vision of the world as will, there is no God to be comprehended,
and the world is conceived of as being utterly meaningless. When
anthropomorphically considered, the world is represented as being in a condition
of eternal frustration, as it endlessly strives for nothing in particular, and as
it goes essentially nowhere. It is a world far beyond any ascriptions of good and
evil.
In its essential meaninglessness, Schopenhauer's characterization of the world
differs from the views of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, all of whom fostered some
distinct hope that everything is moving towards a harmonious and just end. But
like these German Idealists, Schopenhauer also tries to explain how the world
that we experience daily, is the result of the activity of the central principle
of things. As the German Idealists tried to account for the great chain of
being -- the rocks, trees, animals, and human beings -- as the increasingly
complicated and detailed expressions of self-consciousness, Schopenhauer attempts
to do the same with respect to explaining the world in terms of will, albeit
through the human lens.
For Schopenhauer, the world that we experience is constituted by various
objectifications of the will that correspond first, to the general root of the
principle of sufficient reason, and second, to the more specific fourfold root of
the principle of sufficient reason. This generates initially, a basic two-tiered
outlook (viz., will vs. objects-in-general [i.e., reality vs. appearance]) that
is articulated into a three-tiered outlook (viz., will -- timeless, universal
objects -- spatio-temporal objects [reality -- appearance, universal level --
appearance, individuated level]), by further distinguishing between two levels of
appearance that correspond to two kinds of objects.
The general philosophical pattern of a single world-essence that initially
manifests itself as a multiplicity of abstract essences, which, in turn, manifest
themselves as a multiplicity of physical individuals can be found throughout the
world. For instance, it is characteristic of Neoplatonism (c. third century,
C.E., as represented by Plotinus [204-270]), and it also characteristic of the
Buddhist Three Body Doctrine [trikaya] of the Buddha's manifestation which
originated in the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism as represented by Maitreya
(270-350), Asanga (375-430) and Vasubandu (400-480).
According to Schopenhauer, corresponding to the level of the universal
subject-object distinction, the will is objectified first into a set of universal
objects or Platonic Ideas which constitute the timeless patterns for each of the
individual things that we experience in space and time. There are different
Platonic Ideas, and although this multiplicity of Ideas implies that some measure
of individuation is present within this realm, each Idea nonetheless contains no
plurality within itself and is said to be "one." The Platonic Ideas are in
neither space nor time, and they therefore lack the qualities of individuation
that would follow from the introduction of spatial and temporal qualifications.
So in these respects, the Platonic Ideas are independent of the specific fourfold
root of the principle of sufficient reason, even though it would be misleading to
say that there is no individuation whatsoever at this universal level, because
there are many different Platonic Ideas, and these are externally individuated
from one another. Schopenhauer refers to the Platonic Ideas as the direct
objectifications of the will, and as the immediate objectivity of the will.
The will's indirect objectifications appear when we continue to specify the
application of the principle of sufficient reason beyond its general root, and
introduce the forms of time, space and causality, not to mention logic,
mathematics, geometry and moral reasoning. When the will is objectified at this
level of determination, we have emerge as a result, the world of everyday life,
whose objects are, in effect, kaleidoscopically multiplied manifestations of the
Platonic forms, endlessly dispersed through space and time.
Since the principle of sufficient reason is -- given Schopenhauer's inspiration
from Kant -- the epistemological form of the human mind itself, the
spatio-temporal world is the world of our own objectification. The world's
spatio-temporal appearance is a reflection of the epistemological form of our own
mind, and to that extent, as Schopenhauer says, life is like a dream. As a
condition of our knowledge, Schopenhauer believes that the laws of nature, along
with the sets of objects that we experience, we ourselves create in way that is
not unlike the way the constitution of our tongues invokes the taste of sugar.
For if ears tongues and noses were removed from the world, as Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642) states in "The Assayer" (1623), then odors tastes and sounds would be
removed as well.
At this point, what Schopenhauer has developed philosophically is surely
interesting, but we have not yet mentioned its particularly remarkable and
memorable aspect. If we combine his claim that the world is will with his Kantian
view that we are responsible for the individuated world of appearances, we arrive
at an exceptionally novel outlook -- an outlook that depends heavily upon
Schopenhauer's characterization of the thing-in-itself as will, understood to be
an aimless, blind striving.
Before the human being comes onto the scene with its principle of sufficient
reason (or principle of individuation) there are no individuals. It is the human
being that, in its very effort to know anything, objectifies an appearance for
itself that involves the fragmentation of the will and its breakup into a
comprehensible set of individuals. The implication of this fragmentation, given
the nature of the will, is terrible: the result of the epistemological
fragmentation is a world of constant struggle, where each individual thing
strives against every other individual thing; the result is a permanent "war of
all against all" akin to what Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) characterized as the
state of nature.
Kant concludes in the Critique of Pure Reason that we create the laws of nature
(CPR, A125); similarly, Schopenhauer concludes in The World as Will and
Representation that we create the violent state of nature, for he maintains that
the individuation that the human being imposes upon things, is imposed upon a
blind striving energy that, once it becomes individuated and objectified, turns
against itself, consumes itself, and does violence to itself. His paradigm image
is of the bulldog-ant of Australia, which when cut in half, struggles in a battle
to the death between its head and tail. Our very quest for scientific and
practical knowledge creates a world that feasts upon itself.
Hence derives Schopenhauer's renowned pessimism: he claims that as individuals,
we are the unfortunate products of our own epistemological making, and that
within the world of appearances that we ourselves structure, we are forever
doomed to fight with other individuals, and to want more than we can ever have.
On Schopenhauer's view, the world of daily life is essentially violent and
frustrating; it is a world that, as long as our consciousness remains at that
level where the principle of sufficient reason applies in its fourfold root, will
never resolve itself into a condition of greater tranquillity. As he explicitly
states, daily life "is suffering" (WWR, Section 56) and to express this, he
employs images of frustration taken from classical Greek mythology, such as those
of Tantalus and the Danaids, along with the suffering of Ixion on the
ever-spinning wheel of fire.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
Immortalist
"Raan" <Raa...@One.org> wrote in message
news:v7%Jc.47182$RD4.2...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> --
Schopenhauer saw the worst in life and as a result he was dour and glum.
Believing that he had no individual will, man was therefore at the complete mercy
of all that which is about him. Now, whether his pessimism turned him into an
ugly person, or whether its just a case of an ugly person adopting the philosophy
of pessimism; -- I have no idea. But what I do know is that Schopenhauer had
nobody he could call family. "His pessimism so affected his mother's social
guests, who would disperse after his lengthy discourse on the uselessness of
everything, that she finally forbade him her home. He parted from her, never to
see her again." He never married, mainly because, I suppose, because any
self-respecting woman would withdraw in horror, upon finding out Schopenhauer's
view of women: they "are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of
our early childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and
short-sighted; in a word, they are big children all their life long." They are an
"undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short legged race ... they have
no proper knowledge of any; and they have no genius." As great a problem as
Schopenhauer was to himself, he was a brilliant conversationalist; "his audience,
consisting of a small circle of friends, would often listen to him until
midnight. He never seemed to tire of talking, even during his last days."2
To Schopenhauer life was a painful process, relief for which, might to achieved
through art or through denial. "The good man will practise complete chastity,
voluntary poverty, fasting, and self-torture." (Russell.) It was Schopenhauer's
view that through the contemplation of art, one "might lose contact with the
turbulent stream of detailed existence around us"; and that permanent relief came
through "the denial of the will to live, by the eradication of our desires, of
our instincts, by the renunciation of all we consider worth while in practical
life."3 Presumably any little bits of happiness we might snatch would only make
us that more miserable, such real and full happiness was not possible, "a Utopian
Ideal which we must not entertain even in our dreams." It is not difficult to
understand that this "ascetic mysticism" of Schopenhauer's is one that appeals to
the starving artist.
Schopenhauer was "a lonely, violent and unbefriended man, who shared his
bachelor's existence with a poodle. ... [He was of the view that the world was
simply an idea in his head] a mere phantasmagoria of my brain, that therefore in
itself is nothing."
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Schopenhauer.htm
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
news:4cWdnYycwvA...@edaptivity.com...
Philosophers upon whom Schopenhauer did have a strong effect, like Nietzsche and
even Wittgenstein, nevertheless could not put him to good use since they did not
accept his moral, aesthetic, and religious realism. Schopenhauer is all but
unique in intellectual history for being both an atheist and sympathetic to
Christianity. Schopenhauer's system, indeed, will not make any sense except in
the context of Kant's metaphysics. For the purposes of the Proceedings of the
Friesian School, Schopenhauer may be said to have made three great contributions
to the Kantian tradition, which supplement the contemporary contributions of
Fries:
He retained Kant's notion of the thing-in-itself but recognized that it could not
exist as a separate order of "real" objects over and above the phenomenal objects
of experience. Hence Schopenhauer's careful use of the singular rather than the
plural when referring to the "thing-in-itself." Kant left his "Copernican
Revolution" incomplete by describing the ordinary objects of experience as
phenomena while leaving the impression that in an absolute sense they were only
subjective, with things-in-themselves as the "real" objects. Schopenhauer
favorably compares Kant to Berkeley, even though both Kant and Schopenhauer
reject a true "subjective idealism" in which objects exist in no way apart from
consciousness. Schopenhauer's point was that, like Berkeley, phenomena are all
there are when it comes to objects as objects. What stands over and above objects
is something else. For Berkeley that was only God. For Schopenhauer it was the
Will as thing-in-itself.
Schopenhauer abolished Kant's machinery of synthesis through the pure concepts of
the understanding, substituting his fourfold "Principle of Sufficient Reason."
This misses much of the point of Kant's argument in the First Edition
Transcendental Deduction and would not count as an advance on Kant if it did not
also abolish the mistaken idea in Kant that Reason, as he conceived it, could
produce out of the mere formalism of logic a substantive content to morality,
aesthetics, etc. Schopenhauer does not have a very good substitute when it comes
to morality (as do Fries and Nelson), but he does in aesthetics, which leads to,
Schopenhauer's strong sense of aesthetic value, to which he gives an intuitive,
perceptual, and Platonic cast in his theory of Ideas. Schopenhauer gave
aesthetics and beauty a central place in his thought such as few other
philosophers have done. His aesthetic realism is a great advance over Kant's
moralistic denial of an objective foundation for aesthetic reality. Beyond that
lies a realistic appreciation of many religious phenomena that is superior to
Kant and conformable to insights that will later be found in Otto and Jung.
Schopenhauer could take religion seriously in ways that others could not because
of his pessimistic rejection of the value of life. This, indeed, embodies its own
distortions, but it is a welcome corrective, as Jung noted, to the shallow
optimism of most other philosophers. And it does faithfully highlight the
world-denying trend of important religions like Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism,
and Buddhism, which must be addressed by any responsible philosophy of religion.
http://www.friesian.com/arthur.htm
Immortalist
Summary
A close study of Schopenhauer's central work, The World as Will and
Representation, reveals that a number of Freud's most characteristic doctrines
were first articulated by Schopenhauer. A thinker always expresses something of
his culture, of course, but the parallels to be found between Freud and
Schopenhauer go well beyond cultural influence. Schopenhauer's concept of the
will contains the foundations of what in Freud became the concepts of the
unconscious and the id. Schopenhauer's writings on madness anticipate Freud's
theory of repression and his first theory of the etiology of neurosis.
Schopenhauer's work contains aspects of what become the theory of free
association. And most importantly, Schopenhauer articulates major parts of the
Freudian theory of sexuality. These correspondences raise some interesting
questions about Freud's denial that he even read Schopenhauer until late in life.
"For the Zeitgeist of every age is like a sharp east wind which blows through
everything. You can find traces of it in all that is done, thought and written,
in music and painting, in the flourishing of this or that art: it leaves its mark
on everything and everyone."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Longer article here;
http://www.carleton.ca/~abrook/SCHOPENY.htm
Tim
In the big factories where they make cereal, sometimes there is a little bit
more than they need. But this cereal doesn't go to waste. The extra cereal
is put into large bins. Every two weeks, it is sold to dairy farmers to feed
to dairy cows. Cows love cereal. They also like potato chips and even cotton
seed!
Cows are fed up to eight times a day. Their feed is a combination of hay and
silage. This mix is known as a TMR, or Total Mixed Ration. This TMR
generally consists of: hay, corn, barley, field grasses, cotton seed, bakery
or grocery by-products. Cows eat approximately 80 pounds a day at a cost of
$3.50, which varies with rising/falling feed costs. And cows drink 30 to 40
gallons of water each day. A cow is a ruminant with four compartments to her
digestive system.
A cow makes milk after she has a calf. The mother cow makes a very special
milk for her calf; it is called colostrum. Colostrum has extra vitamins and
protein and is very good for the calf.
Even after the calf is weaned, the mother cow still makes milk. In fact,
milk cows produce up to 8 gallons of milk per day. Milk is stored in the cow
's udder. The udder is a large bag with four teats. Now she is ready to be
milked.
The cows go to the milking parlor where the dairy farmer washes their teats.
A milking machine with four teat cups is attached to the cow and the milk is
cooled and pumped into a large storage tank. Milking never hurts the cow.
Raw milk is cooled to 38 degrees and is stored in refrigerated storage
tanks. A truck comes to pick up the milk daily and take it to the processing
plant. The truck driver sample tests the milk before pumping it into the
truck to make sure it's safe to drink. Milk trucks have very large shiny
metal tanks to carry the milk. Each truck has a special feature to keep it
cool, it's like a thermos on wheels... it's insulated.
Raw milk is sampled and checked again and then pumped from the milk truck
into a storage tank. Next, the milk is sent to the homogenizer and the
pasteurizer. Homogenized means the same all the way through. In this step,
the butter fat is broken up and mixed into the rest of the milk.
Pasteurization is quickly heating the milk to 145 degrees Fahrenheit, which
kills any bacteria that are in the milk.
There are many different milk and dairy products that fit into every diet -
from whole milk to skim. All types of milk are put into bottles and cartons
and taken to grocery stores for you to buy. Milk is good for you. In the
morning you probably have milk on your cereal. Did you know that cows love
cereal too?
http://www.moomilk.com/index.html
More fascinating facts:
The story starts at the farm
Dairy is the largest agriculture sector in Ontario, making up close to 20
per cent of the province's agricultural products.
Pure and nutritious Ontario milk starts with healthy cows, clean farms and
equipment and a refrigerated storage container.
Quality and Cattle
Milk is the most heavily safety-tested food in the Canadian food supply
system.
Ontario dairy farms are inspected regularly under Dairy Farmers of Ontario's
Raw Milk Quality Program to ensure that Ontario milk meets provincial
standards. Inspectors ensure that all surfaces and equipment are clean and
that milk is cooled efficiently. Inspectors also look for Grade A management
practices such as good cow housing, sufficient pasture area and exclusion of
milk from cows that are being treated for illness with drugs or antibiotics.
Ontario producers who do not consistently meet regulatory standards are
fined and eventually shut-off. Penalties and costs for milk containing
contaminants can be as high as $15,000.
Quotas are used by Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) to manage the supply of
milk in the province. A quota simply represents a producer's share of the
available market for milk and milk products.
One of the most common misconceptions about quota is that it limits
production-it does not. It establishes each farm's share of the domestic
market and, therefore, how much milk from each farm will receive domestic
price. About two per cent of Canada's milk, produced in excess of the
domestic market share, is sold as allowable exports under Canada's
international trade commitments.
Quota Exchange
The quota exchange started in 1980 as an equitable method of transferring
quota. The exchange is simply a means by which producers can buy and sell
quota.
The monthly exchange was chosen to meet the following objectives:
Provide equal opportunity for all producers to buy and sell quota;
Operate independently and with a minimum of DFO involvement;
Reflect the value of quota at all times;
Not be subject to manipulation or exploitation;
Allow quotas to move to the most efficient milk-producing areas;
Be the most cost-efficient system at the least possible cost.
The quota exchange operates by determining the price at which the volume of
quota offered for sale will be equal, or most nearly equal, to the volume of
quota bid for. Producers bid to buy or offer to sell quota by MILKLINE
(DFO's interactive phone system) or through the Internet via the Producer
Services section of this web site.
http://www.milk.org/farmto/index.html
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
>
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:ko-dnUCSEZs...@comcast.com...
> >
> > "Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
> > news:4cWdnYycwvA...@edaptivity.com...
> >
> > Philosophers upon whom Schopenhauer did have a strong effect, like
> Nietzsche and
>
> more than they need. But this cereal doesn't go to waste. The extra cereal
> is put into large bins. Every two weeks, it is sold to dairy farmers
>
meet its own needs, and most people have only as much mind as is necessary to
help their little will meet its needs and interests. Most people are like cattle
in that way, says Schopenhauer; they have only enough mind for their will to get
along satisfactorily in their little world.
http://home.myuw.net/tkerns/MyUWsite/waol-phi-website/lecsite/lec-schop-aesth.html
Only the prices for female breeding cattle could be somewhat better. Whereas in
other regions dairy farms with about 80 cows stop producing because of economical
difficulties, in Upper Bavaria family farms with much less dairy cows can produce
in an economically efficient way. This fact makes us very happy and enthusiastic
to do a lot more for you.
We think that our AI-station has added to this development, too.
To say it with Schopenhauer our activities were laughed at at first, then
criticised and now they are copied. This emulation makes us very proud, because
Fleckvieh breeding has become a very dynamic business through this. The
enthusiasm among the young farmers should be supported by the farmers’ self-help
organizations. New markets for the products coming from our dual purpose breed
are directly on the doorstep and with each cow that leaves a farm in Germany
because the farm is closed or due to the improvement of the performance of dairy
cattle in general the chances of the Fleckvieh breed get better. We are convinced
that the “good times” are just about to come and this is why we would like...
Could not the Nazis defend their murder of the Jews by saying "but we rounded
them up to be killed"? DG
Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize
the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with
inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun! Arthur Schopenhauer
(philosopher)
http://tabish.freeshell.org/animals/ARfaq/ARmorality.html
Tim
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
Only take two weeks to go through withdrawl from quiting smokee and hell that was
almost half a year ago. I escaped and all smokers can got to hell now baby cheese
cakes!
>
Tim
Yeah so how many fags did you have a day?
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
What difference does it make, all smokers should be tortured and then killed.
>
Tim
So you should be tortured and then killed?
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
Nope, I quit just before I made up that rule. But thanx for accepting it.
>
Tim
I think google bots should be tortured and killed. Don't accept it - just do
it!
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
NIKE, a shoe for all seasons?
>
Talks With Beagles
What your friend Schopenhauer needed was a project. A project is like
a hobby with one important difference: A hobby is something you do in
your spare time, while a profect is something you make time to do.
Many projects have a begining and an end, but they don't have to.
My favorite project is the development of my 80 acres of prime swamp
land to maximize it's productivity of wildlife and timber. The neat
thing about this project is that I will never finish it in my
lifetime. Indeed, nobody will ever finish it, because nobody will ever
know what the maximum productivity is. The idea is to keep making it
better and better. As good as it may become, there is always the
possibility that it can made better still. This is the kind of thing
that makes you want to get up in the morning and live forever or die
trying.
As I said in one of my stories: A fake sportsman is a rich playboy who
hunts and fishes because he has more time and money than he knows what
to do with. A true sporstman spends all his time and money on hunting
and fishing in the first place, so he knows he will never become a
rich playboy or a rich anything else. "To live is to hunt. To hunt is
to live." - Talks With Beagles
Tim
You better get a pair for when I come after ya. You'll need to run.
Immortalist
"Talks With Beagles" <talkswit...@nmo.net> wrote in message
news:40d2ba3.04071...@posting.google.com...
It can truly be said: Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are
the tormented souls. --Arthur Schopenhauer
"The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our
treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example
of western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of
morality." --Artur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860,
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
Do actually believe you could fight against me and my very large family let alone
my legal weapons? We may have to trace you now.
>
Tim
Yeah well if the rest of your family
(http://www.funlol.com/funpages/redneckfamilyphotos.html) is as dumb as you
are it'll take alot of you to find me.
Immortalist
"Tim" <a...@rag.dsj> wrote in message
Looks more like some Canadians used to pick me up hitch hiking in the early 70s
who never seen a hippie except on tv, they wanted to actually meet one.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=tongue
>
Talks With Beagles
> It can truly be said: Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are
> the tormented souls. --Arthur Schopenhauer
>
> "The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our
> treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example
> of western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of
> morality." --Artur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860,
As I suspected, the preceding quotes indicate that your friend
Schopenhauer was out of touch with reality. Just as being out in the
swamp too long can make you funny in the head (or so I've been told),
being cooped up in an office or other building for too long can cause
you to lose touch with the elemental forces of Nature from which we
all sprang. As with most extremes, the truth is probably somewhere in
the middle.
My experience with wild animals tells me that they rarely suffer
mental anxiety for very long. Once an imminent threat has passed, they
return to whatever it is they had been previously doing with apparent
lack of concern. When faced with a repetitive or continuous stress
factor, like traffic noise, they either become desensitized to it or
move away from it. We could take a page or two out of their book.
The belief that true sportsmen have no sense of morality or
responsibility towards their quarry is a common misconception among
non-sportsmen. This is probably because there are a lot of fake
sportsmen running around giving us a bad name. The anthropomorphic
fantasies of the Walt Disney types don't help our cause either. Truth
be known, true sportsmen are more concerned about the welfare of wild
animals than a lot of people are concerned for the welfare of their
fellow man.
We do not relate to animals as if they were human because they are not
human, and doing so would only confuse them and ultimately have a
negative impact on their survival. Animals do not relate to each other
exactly as humans relate to each other either. They have their own
social norms which are adapted to their survival and prosperity.
Sportsmen and conservationists try to enhance the survival and
productivity of certain species largely because we want something
around for our descendents to hunt when we are long gone. The most
effective efforts have been found to revolve around habitat
improvement, which also benefits many non-game species. This colateral
benefit is more than coincidental. The total hunting and fishing
experience involves more than just killing things. It's kind of a long
story; but briefly, it involves experiencing a small part of the
preditory heritage which caused our pre-human ancestors to cross the
line from animal to man. If Mr. Schopenhauer found that disturbing, he
should have tried crawling around on all fours and eating shit off the
ground. I believe he would have found that to be even more depressing
than his allegedly futile human existence.
For additional perspective on this subject, see:
members.nmo.net/talkswithbeagles/story3.html
BuddhaThu
My interest in Shopenhauer is in terms of history, esp. the lineage of
historical thoughts that weaved in together toward Wittgenstein's
point of view.
In Shopenhauer's understanding, the final reality is the metaphysical
will, which can be prior to human ***rational self-reflections***,
which is why Kant was in trouble for both Shopenhauer and for
Wittgenstein. For a philosopher, this is very hard to catch, because
it involves a contradiction of self-reflecting on various actions that
do not involve self-reflection. Although, logically, this is not a
possibility, it can still be explained. But please allow me to
elaborate further.
Take for example the analogy of the signpost. You can find this in
Wittgenstein's P.I. When most people come up to a stop sign, there is
no ***rational self-reflection*** of "I will stop." You do not even
need to interpret the sign. You just stop. But contrary to what
behavorist like Skinnner might have thought, this is not an
instinctual or a behavioral conditioning. There is definitely a will
there, although the will is non-self-reflective. You could just as
easily violate the sign to stop, and just as easily not self-reflect
upon it.
In this, signs like these that tell us to stop or give directions by
no way impinge upon your will. You can sit there and self-reflect
whether or not the sign can take you where you want to go, but you do
not sit there and plan or even interpret what the sign will mean. You
social conventions has already done that for you.
In my view, nature has equipped us with a mind that can incorporate
our will without thinking, that is in a way non-instinctual, (defined
as without will), but at the same time non-reflective and rational,
(meaning it will take time to think and to compute it.) It goes by way
of initiating your efficient survival goals. If one do this,(that is
self-reflect on everything we do), then nature has made a mistake in
incoporating a highly inefficient mechanism for your survival.
In this, a will has many different levels. We most of the time can
only recognize two. There is istinct, which is the total absence of
will, and self-reflection, the will of philosophers. But the will of
everyday life is also a will, where consciousness is present, but with
no self-reflective "I" present. Strange that hardly anyone devotes to
too much time studying this. But then, I like I said before, it is
hard to catch. It can be quite interesting, and I have developed many
insights in my work on this, esp. in various forms of speech acts. In
this, the mind can process and initiate information so fast that you
hardly even notice it in your every day to day affairs.
In the everyday survival game this is important. When I take a walk, I
will not self-reflect on every single step. I just walk. But that does
not mean that I am not aware or not exerting my will to walk. The "I"
is just not there when I am doing these daily routine things. Why
should I???
This also works with acts of compassion such as a fireman or a
complete stranger rushing into a burning building to save someone he
does not know. The act, like the signpost, can be completely automatic
-- that is without reason or cause in a Humean sense. But if you
interview the man, and he may not give you a rational reason or cause
as to why he did it, he is still exerting a will. And it certainly
cannot be "instinctual" because he was aware of it and exercised a
will. He just did not rationally self-reflect on it.
Sometimes, there will be cases to when we would need to self-reflect,
i.e. a new or novel situation we have encountered. But if it is a day
to day routine, or a not to day to day routine such as saving a
person's life, self-reflection need not be there, only a will which
comes prior to a "self."
Thanks for the nice post. I never self-reflected deeply upon
Wittgenstein's connection to Shopenhauer this deeply before.
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<nJ6dnZ4h6c-...@comcast.com>...
Talks With Beagles
well is that you didn't self reflect on them too much. Too much
thinking can drive you nuts; or so I've been told. All kidding aside,
I like your interpretation much better than Scopenhauer's.
What you are describing would be called "the subconscious mind" in
psychological circles. This is the part of you that runs on
"automatic". It controls involuntary functions such as breathing, and
also comes into play when you do a repetitive task like walking. The
subconscious can be programmed or trained by practicing a repetitive
task, or even by thinking about it a lot. A young child learns how to
walk, and after that doesn't think about it so much. Even while you
are operating subconsciously, the conscious mind always stands ready
to interve; say if you are about to walk into a solid object or off a
cliff.
I believe it is this programming of the subconscious that you call
"will without self reflection". The reason you are able to rise to an
emergency and save somebody's life is that your subconscious has been
programmed to hold human life to be valuable and worthy of saving.
This unboubtedly comes primarily from your early conditioning; but it
is also possible to program yourself, either deliberately or by
"mindless" repetition or habit. The resulting behaviour pattern is not
exactly an instinct; more like a conditioned reflex.
It is also possible for others to deprogram and reprogram your
subconscious without your consent, if you are not paying attention or
your conscious will has been "broken" by mental or physical torture.
This is the essence of the "brainwashing" techniques employed by the
Red Chinese during the Korean War. Such techniques, along with the
relatively more humane advertising which we are subjected to every
day, can have the effect of programming your subconscious for you; but
only if you let them. They work best on people who don't have much of
a conscious will to start with, or have been trained to suppress it by
social conditioning.
The bottom line is that I agree with you when you say that you are
using your will even when you don't appear to be doing so. If you
don't excercise your conscious will much, you tend to revert to
default behavior which springs from both inborn and conditioned
reflexes. "To not decide is to decide." - source unknown
BuddhaThu
although at a groser level.
You are very good and advanced at calling it a "subconscious mind."
Too many people including Freud and Jung would allude to it as this
mysterious "unconscious mind." But seriously, if you are "unconscious"
or knocked out, then by definition you are not conscious, then by
further definition, you are not aware or even alive. If you can recall
your experience of walking or rushing into a burning house with a
deliberate will to save someone, then you have awareness, although you
may not be in deep self-reflection at the time.
I have problems with Freud and Jung, although more with Freud. He is
the one that talks about this "instinctual intentionality" within your
"unconsciousness." Both are grammatical errors on their part. Instinct
has nothing to do with intention or will. Unconsciousness has nothing
to do with anything called experience.
As an aside note, sometimes I do suspect that Wittgenstein did some
reflection on Shopenhauer while he wrote out both his Tractatus and
P.I. The Analogy of the Signpost, where the sign (idea) do not
conflict with the will has a direct connotation with Shopenhauer's The
World as Will and Idea.
Keep in mind that signs do not necessarily program people in a
strictly deterministic way. That is why it is not a condition behavior
response system.
They are keys to you exercising your will and your freedom. Signs
limit your choices down so that you are able to exert your will and to
choose. Without signs, without limitations on your choices, how then
are you able to choose? You would need infinite time in order to
choose, and no one but a God can do that. Whitehead also held a
similar view on his metaphysics. Both Whitehead and Wittgenstein were
at Cambridge, and believe it or not, I am pretty sure they spoke and
were familiar with one another. I can draw direct one to one
comparison between their ideas. They were both logicians. They were
both mathematicians and into language. They just took different
routes. It is too bad that both camps never talked to one another to
see the similarities of their issues.
I have to go. Got a great date with a swimming pool. See you around
:-)
talkswit...@nmo.net (Talks With Beagles) wrote in message news:<40d2ba3.04072...@posting.google.com>...
> softspok...@yahoo.com (BuddhaThu) wrote in message news:<d984cfeb.04072...@posting.google.com>...
> >
Talks With Beagles
> You are quite right. I would rather call it more an intuitive mind,
> although at a groser level.
>
> You are very good and advanced at calling it a "subconscious mind."
> Too many people including Freud and Jung would allude to it as this
> mysterious "unconscious mind." But seriously, if you are "unconscious"
> or knocked out, then by definition you are not conscious, then by
> further definition, you are not aware or even alive. If you can recall
> your experience of walking or rushing into a burning house with a
> deliberate will to save someone, then you have awareness, although you
> may not be in deep self-reflection at the time.
You know, I always wondered about that. I suppose I chalked it up to a
translation error or something, but what you say makes more sense.
Freud had a fascination with dreams that bordered on the occult, which
I suppose was common in his day and age.
>
> I have problems with Freud and Jung, although more with Freud. He is
> the one that talks about this "instinctual intentionality" within your
> "unconsciousness." Both are grammatical errors on their part. Instinct
> has nothing to do with intention or will. Unconsciousness has nothing
> to do with anything called experience.
I agree. Reflexive behavior is what you default to when your decline
to exercise your will. Many people refer to all reflexive behavior as
"instinct", which can be confusing. To be more precise, we should
distinguish between inborn reflex and conditioned reflex.
> As an aside note, sometimes I do suspect that Wittgenstein did some
> reflection on Shopenhauer while he wrote out both his Tractatus and
> P.I. The Analogy of the Signpost, where the sign (idea) do not
> conflict with the will has a direct connotation with Shopenhauer's The
> World as Will and Idea.
>
> Keep in mind that signs do not necessarily program people in a
> strictly deterministic way. That is why it is not a condition behavior
> response system.
Signs can trigger reflexive behavior, but the behavior is not always
uniform from person to person. I once rode in a vehicle with a guy who
absolutely never stopped for "stop" signs. It was a scary ride! I
asked him about it, and he replied; "There are no cops around here."
If he had driven this way during his licensing test, he never would
have passed; so I assume that he knew the difference. For some reason,
he had chosen or had allowed himself to be conditioned to this
dangerous practice after he had obtained his license.
On the corner near my former residence, there occur several wrecks a
year, some of them fatal, all attributed to people failing to stop at
a stop sign. The county put up large signs a quarter mile before the
corner that said "Stop ahead - cross traffic does not stop!" They
eventually installed "rumble strips" in the pavement, but the wrecks
keep happening. Now this is a small town, and everybody knows about
this dangerous corner. The wrecks almost always involve local people
rather than tourists. Go figure!
>
> They are keys to you exercising your will and your freedom. Signs
> limit your choices down so that you are able to exert your will and to
> choose. Without signs, without limitations on your choices, how then
> are you able to choose? You would need infinite time in order to
> choose, and no one but a God can do that. Whitehead also held a
> similar view on his metaphysics. Both Whitehead and Wittgenstein were
> at Cambridge, and believe it or not, I am pretty sure they spoke and
> were familiar with one another. I can draw direct one to one
> comparison between their ideas. They were both logicians. They were
> both mathematicians and into language. They just took different
> routes. It is too bad that both camps never talked to one another to
> see the similarities of their issues.
>
> I have to go. Got a great date with a swimming pool. See you around
> :-)
>
I assume that your date is with a person at the swimming pool, not
with the swimming pool itself. But then again, I suppose it depends on
what you mean by "date". Ain't English a funny language?
Sarcasm aside; I think it is important to remember that words and
mathmatical symbols are only representations of material things and
events. We define things for the convenience of communication.
Changing the name of something doesn't, in and of itself, affect the
actual material properties of the thing; although it may affect our
understanding of those material properties. You can call a cow a horse
if you want to, but it will still go "moo".