Frederick Copleston on Schopenhauer: Section 4

[chamlou]

Is it me, or is the best dialog of of all his shows? I think they should have pointed out that Copelston was a Jesuit priest at the beginning of the show so as to point-out at least that this time around, objectivity is not the energy of the show.

[peteface24]

@chamlou That Copleston had come to very different conclusions to Schopenhauer doesn't mean he wasn't objective. He had written a book on Schopenhauer in particular in addition to his famous general history of philosophy so was clearly a respected authority on the subject, in the same way that Peter Singer is a respected authority on Hegel even though he disagrees strongly with him. Incidentally, Anthony Kenny used to be a priest as well.

[WSilva832]

Excellent discussion.

[khashayar44]

Thanks very much for uploading this intellectually enriching discussion. Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel were absolutely on the right track.

[jerryhello100]

@Ziggy2016 Just let go man. Life will be better if you aren't always on the offensive.  We are all, ultimately, one; and therefore to call me a "faggit" [sic] you call yourself the same thing.

[jerryhello100]

@Ziggy2016 You're a clown, this is his show, nobody cares what you say.

[james0apple]

if they filmed this now it would consist of trendy haircuts moving their hands too much, looking up,down, in every direction and enthusiastically making vague and abstract statements about schopenhauer's personality and "what kind of man he was", while lauren laverne makes giggly ironic riposte's about how "he wasn't a smiles and sunshine type of bloke then! oh dear!" and it would last for 45 seconds before being interrupted by a performance by the kooks.

[nothingnesswithouten]

@james0apple Indeed, how true!

[riseup20twelve]

@james0apple ahaha brilliant mate!!

[SwordInAir]

@james0apple Yess, yessssss you are spot on. Agh, so spot on!

[ludocrat]

Small point: doesn't the assertion Magee makes on Schopenhauer's behalf that "in injuring you I somehow also injure myself" find its roots in Heraclitus where the very great old Greek talks about hurting horses (if memory serves)? Or have I got my Presocratic wires crossed?

[radaphhesig]

@ludocrat Pythagoras 

[MsRedjay]

The following clarification might help. Schopenhauer has it all muddled. If a Buddhist were to use Schopenhauerian terminology, s/he would say the following: There is, ultimately, only the "will", while the "world as representation", that is, the world as we experience it, is an illusion. It is merely a "representation" of the "will", although it is our misperception of this, and our attachment to this illusion, that causes all our suffering and is at the root of evil.... to be continued...

[MsRedjay]

It is not a case of the "will" denying itself through ascetic practices to realize nothingness, it is the "representations" use of ascetic practices to realize its nothingness, to realise that there never has been, and never will be, anything but the "will". I would also add that the artist's work is a more true expression of the "will", than "representation". Art is an attempt to get beyond the illusion, to see beyond the veil of "representation", and in this way similar to asceticism.

[DAToDATonian]

Big Crunch = ultimate denial of the will. Schopie's philosophy was, once again, ahead of its time.

[dinkolino2]

seems kind of self-contradictory, no?

[S2Cents]

@DAToDATonian

Big Crunch? As far as I can tell cosmologists overwhelmingly believe that the Universe looks like it is going to expand for ever, literally forever. Or until it finally "rips apart" or dissolves after literally everything including black holes disappear.

[soursourapples]

can a individuals denial of will also count as part of cosmic will? I think so. It can be two and the same.

[humaniticism]

Denial of will, is not some sort of conscious opposition to, refusal or rejection of the will.

Rather denial of will, through a changed mode of knowing,

proceeds from the inmost relation of knowing and volition in the man,

and therefore comes suddenly and spontaneously.

It is through the complete abolition of egoism that we arrive at finally resignation and denial of the will. 70 WWR

[eydos]

The answer to that last hard question I believe its: consciousness, as a system based on but separate from the will itself.

[archdeaconj]

Here McGee and Copleston get to the heart of Schoppenhauer's philosophy. This is the 'single thought' that Schopenhauer insisted 'World as Will and Representation' imparted viz. there is only one ultimate reality and each one of us is identical to that One. Note: not a part of but IDENTICAL to that One. There is only, according to Schopenhauer, one BEING, one 'pour soi' reality. The many is an illusion, phenomena, a Kantian mental construct, of the world of appearance.

[ejgiv]

No escaping the will? According to Schopenhauer humans possess not only "understanding" (Verstand), but also "reason" (Vernunft). The former we share with animals, the later is purely human, giving us the ability of abstraction which allows for language, concepts and rational knowledge. As I understand Schopenhauer, it is through the abstraction of reason that we can detach ourselves from the will.

[ejgiv]

No "view without value judgments"? (5:35) Hard to believe that educated men could postulate such nonsense. To give a simple banal example: I look at an object with four wooden legs and a board attached to it and conclude "It's a table". This is a judgment with no value to it at all. I am not saying "It's a good table" or "It's a bad table", but rather "It's just a table". Why can't we make value free judgments?

[LiberalVichy]

Take Heidegger's point here, though, about existence being centrally 'intentedness'. You must have a value judgment (which both Heidegger and Schopenhauer would say does not require conscious awareness of such a judgement) in order to direct your attention to the table, thoughts of the table, as opposed to anything else. You must, at least, think that the table-experience is worth 'looking into'. You can not exist as a conscious being without being 'up to something'.

[joesoccerus]

We'd have to be objective to have no value judgements. The table would have qualities that we'd judge immediately upon looking at it

[Untouchables155]

A robot can't deny itself!

[EinFremderAusElea]

According to Schopenhauer the will can reject itself based on its openess to insight.

There are of course many practical examples. For instance, a Sadist will use all fun once he realizes that the victim truly doesn't care.

Not the best of examples, but the point in question, that our desires depend on certain conditions to be met, explains how insight can and will, in the particular case, rid us of our will or, differently put, desolve the will.

[EinFremderAusElea]

err... *lose all fun* of course.

[theinternetscholar]

"You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing." - Schopenhauer, On the Freedom of the Will

I do agree. At every frame of reference in my life I will act on how I am naturally, my experience/learnings and intuition/feelings, and how I am in that situation as a whole. If the past frames as being the same, I am no more than a living character in my life's movie. But where's chaos, probability?

[vertex21]

Oh wow! Thanks so much for this flame0430. What a hilarious, but highly interesting interview.

[Sgirardacus]

Schopenhauer wrote about the differentiating levels of the objectification of the Will. It is interesting how the Will is our own bodies, which is then represented to our senses via Idea. The aesthetic transcendence, ascetic renunciation of the desires of the Will, and reflection of Platonic Forms, all seem to move our consciousness from the concrete to the abstract; in which, we escape the drive of the Will. This is however ephemeral. Here the Veil of Maya and Atman=Brahmin analogies may help.

[internationallawman]

It's not clear to me why the termination of the will results necessarily in "nothingness." A very obvious and simple alternative is "oneness" with the unity he posits. The end of duality.

Or simply describe it as ineffable, unimaginable but real.

Pretty standard mystical dodges, and perfectly valid and consistent. And so well-known and obvious that I can't understand why he rejects them without even a mention.

[lutzie200]

I think it's 'nothingness' in terms of the self, which is necessary to achieve the oneness he sees as the desirable state.

[TheIsFactor]

That is the challenge. If I have NO individual Will, how can i deny Will? How could i deny something I have no control over? I am Will! It is not me and Will.

Of all that i agree with Schoppy, this point, in my opinion, was a tremendous oversight, on his part. Or simply him being trapped by language, which happens the more you try to pin It/Life down.

In my philosophical theorizing, I believe there is no individual will, but, out goes individual choice, decision, etcetera!

[archdeaconj]

I DO have individual will, but the individual will is IDENTICAL to the Cosmic Will. These are one and the same.  I not so much have that ONE will but AM that Will. Yes, there seems to be many indivividual wills (or manifestations of them) but this is illusory, an aspect of the world as representation. The many is an illusion, the one ALONE is real. There is not in truth, even for Kant, many things-in-themselves, but ONE Thing--in- Itself. Resolving this paradox is the key to S.'s thought.

[Psychogenius018]

Copleston doesn't understand how the Will can deny itself because he isn't considering the other half of Schopenhauer's reality...Idea, Representation. Idea corresponds to consciousness. Consciousness develops and realizes the idea of NOT WILLING, this idea, born of Will, is not itself Will, BUT AN IDEA, a realization.

[tybaltyrant]

so the will isn't denying itself - it produces the IDEA of its self-denial or 'non existence'

this still doesn't explain how the will can deny itself...

[Psychogenius018]

Schopenhauer's "denial of the Will" is really an inaccurate phrase. There is no willing involved in this transcendent realization. It is not an act of denial, volition, or Will. The Will simply wills no more.

[archdeaconj]

In taking up this point about how the Will can deny itself, you say, 'Idea corresponds to consciousness'. What exactly do you mean by 'consciousness'? Are you talking about 'consciousness in its fundamental sense of pour soi, subjective existence? (In this sense, to say of an entity that it is conscious is to say that it is 'like something to be' that entity. Or are you talking about self-consciousness or consciousness in some other sense?

[Psychogenius018]

Self-consciousness...a being that has an awareness of it's existence.

[archdeaconj]

In that case, idea / representation does NOT correspond to consciousness - not in the sense of self-awareness. A blue patch, a particular smell, hardness, light, a pain, hunger: all count as idea with Schopenhauer. Idea is anything in the phenomenal world, anything experienced. And an entity does not have to have SELF-awareness to experience it. Yet Will is always present both in whoever has the idea and in the reality manifesting as the idea, which paradoxically for S, are ultimately ONE.

[mrfatd]

schopenhauer is the best philosopher ever

[losket1021]

any interviews with kripke?