Frederick Copleston on Schopenhauer: Section 3

[yaarge2]

Thanks for posting these videos.

[leparditas]

i was Schopenhauer in my previous life now my name is diferent but my mindset

changed quite a bit lol

[briyo2289]

@tetromino7, His main work is called the World as Will and Representation. This is where you will find his worldview. There are two volumes of this work and the fourth part of the first volume deals with morality and suffering, The second volume is complimentary essays and the prose is exquisite. The essay "On the Vanity and Suffering of life" is the best short essay where he deals explicitly with the topic. If you are interested in philosophy reading S is a very rewarding experience. Enjoy!

[tetromino7]

where can this prose regarding suffering be found?

[childericking]

@tetromino7 Studies in Pessimism is a good compilation that includes some of his best essays on suffering. I wouldn´t recommend The World as Will and Representation to begin with, as it requires a lot of preliminary reading.

[codester1111]

To add to Schopenhauer's picture of this living nightmare our species and every other have their existence resting on a blood soaked pedestal of conflict known as evolution. Its the sad and terrible perception that nature colored our minds to see once we see things objectively.

[nigelrugby]

People probably don't realize that Copleston not only wrote one of the most intensive histories of philosophy in the English speaking world, but he was very much a renowned scholar on Schopenhauer. Magee really wanted to hear himself talk this time around (which is rarely a problem).

[nontheistdavid]

I cannot understand how Copleston can be so knowledgeable about philosophy and yet remain a Christian.

[childericking]

@nontheistdavid Perhaps the only reason he studied philosophy was to learn how to support his Christian views and argue against those who criticize them. I have not read his works, but judging by this interview, he does not seem to be very concerned about the discussion of ideas.

[1844Freddy]

Mr. Magee is an absolute expert on Schopenhauer's philosophy. Magnificent.

[Urdoxa]

its fascinating that schopenhauers philosophy is a blend of idealism with a certain process metaphysical vision

[akaskyscraper]

@Ziggy2016 lol.

[DanielSahne]

old men talking about boring stuff... who cares

[alifeofreason]

Magee knows much more about Schopenhauer than Copleston! :D

[akaskyscraper]

copleston's smirks are annoying. hints of narcissism.

[S2Cents]

Society, or at least Western societies couldn't possibly embrace pessimistic view of reality Schopenhauer presents and I'm not sure how useful it is to me either.

Need to consider it a bit more. Sure, I agree up to an extent, but wholehearted acceptance is another thing.

[Shadapaga]

@S2Cents lol @ philosophy being useful, so wrong.

[S2Cents]

@Shadapaga It should be useful in *someway*, no? I.e. not personally destructive, unenlightening, harmful towards the greater good, whatever that is, etc. Schopenhauer said to go get yourself a priest if you're looking for what people these days call "self help" but nonetheless there is, I should think, something wrong if a philosophy offers proscriptions on how to conduct oneself and is not very useful in this way.

[Shadapaga]

@S2Cents you made no sense, philosophy is not self help

[S2Cents]

@Shadapaga Like Schopenhauer said. Right. Read what I fucking wrote.

[joaocarlosmarin]

I don't think energy could be a better word than will. I guess that Schopenhauer says that we perceive the movent and energy of noumenon as will in phenomenal world, and we thinl that we can control ourselves. Will is a human inner perception of the noumenon, the most evident and direct.

[otakurocklee]

I don't like Magee's analogizing of physics' energy to Schopenhauer's Will...

I think Copleston was right to point this out. Magee's attributing a metaphysical reality to energy that science does not do. Energy in the scientific sense is not in any metaphysical sense real.

[elpymppe]

When FC says "certainly" at the very end, he sounds just like Yoda, eh?

[otakurocklee]

lol! you're right!

[EuclidianProposition]

Their conversation is starting to seem more and more like an outline of volume 1 of The World as Will and Representation, yet I cannot stop watching it.

[EuclidianProposition]

0:53 - 1:26 "Hey, Science... How do you like dem apples?"

[ejgiv]

The idea of indestrucible energy was not a conclusion of the 20th century as Magee says, but rather a discovery of the first half of the 19th century! Robert Mayer proved that matter continually changes its form and is never created or destroyed in the 1830s. Later he was copied by Hermann Helmholz in the 1840s. Schopenhauer seems to have ignored many of the advances in physics.

[darvishjo]

YouTube provides a fine opportunity for self-assertion with this little comment box in which I can insert electronic characters.

[TripolarProductions]

'The stars are matter, we are matter, but it doesn't matter.'

[ManilaSyndicate]

It's obvious Copleston suffered from depression.

Heh, Magee was probably yakking so much so as to kill time.

[vertex21]

Copleston's da BOMB!

[lebannen21]

I disagree

[simka321]

Quite so!

[elephantinpajamas]

The idea that matter is really energy is an ancient concept, e.g., that God spoke the world into being, hence, material existence arises from vibration which itself is really a matrix of higher meaning. Schopenhauer is rediscovering a religious sensibility first traversing the dark forrest of unilluminated physicality and its drives till he arrives at what is uniquely human, i.e., his godlike nature, man's essential need to be a bestower of good in the world.

[lutzie200]

Schopenhauer described human existence as a tragedy, with the character of a comedy in its venality and pathos. Humans for him were the ultimate expression of The Will. For him, humans bestow evil and suffering.

[WSilva832]

@lutzie200 I don't think humans are the ultimate expression of anything. We're a class of apes that evolved out in the open savannah of Africa. I sometimes wonder how much the theory of evolution by natural selection would have inflected Schopenhauer's philosophy; particularly in regards to his evocation of the platonic "ideas."

[theinternetscholar]

8.30

René Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" comes to mind . . . the oil on canvas painting of a pipe with the text "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe)

[lutzie200]

I think Schopenhauer would have hated Magritte. S's view of contemplation of art and its ability to temporarily free ourselves from the torments of the will is only through 'beautiful' art i.e. classical art that links us to Platonic ideas.

[theinternetscholar]

also like the Romantics?

[lutzie200]

Yes I guess - but he hated allegorical art and 'coding' of any kind in art (from my reading). He liked his aesthetic self loss to be direct and unconscious.

[archdeaconj]

Yes, for Schopenhauer any kind of coding is antithetical to the aesthetic experience. It is only art that transports you to realm of something like the eternal Platonic forms that counts as art (and for that reason I imagine he would have approved of Bach). Otherwise, for S., it is not art. Further, an object in the phenomenal world (leaves falling from a tree, the stars, rain falling etc.) will do just as well, if viewed aesthetically i.e. in detached contemplation of the universal will.

[theinternetscholar]

6min, the definition of a pessimist . . .although it's probably true

[djat]

WWR - a rich book indeed. Still have yet to read the sequel. Nice to see in the flesh at last Mr Copleston.

[lutzie200]

I just bought volume 2, but I believe it's really just an expansion of the ideas in vol 1.

[JimmySmers]

Volume 2 is written better.