To browse Academia. The aim of the dissertation is firstly to analyse how pessimism came to be established as a philosophical concept by Schopenhauer and a later generation of pessimistic thinkers, and secondly to investigate how Nietzsche understood pessimism. After Duhring and Hartmann, philosophical pessimism was generally understood as the notion that the value of life is negative, which means that non-existence is necessarily preferable to existence. This notion of On what grounds could life be made worth living, given its abundant suffering? Friedrich Nietzsche was among many who attempted to answer this question. His reading of pessimists such as Eduard von Hartmann, Olga Plumacher, and Julius Bahnsen — as well as their critics, such as Eugen Duhring and James Sully — has been under- explored in the secondary literature, isolating him from his intellectual context. In this paper I provide such a detailed analysis. According to the first, the success of a revaluation cannot be guaranteed on strictly argumentative grounds and can in principle bring about a revaluation that proceeds in the opposite direction than the one desired. I then examine two strategies that Nietzsche can be seen to employ in his attempts to revalue the hedonistic perspective itself and explain why they too are unsatisfactory. The analysis illuminates the nature of the dialectical stand-off between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and clarifies the limitations of Nietzschean revaluations as a philosophical tool. This book "attempts Arthur Schopenhauer Gay Animals explore new territory", namely the Pessimismusstreit, the pessimism controversy in 19th-century Germany. Although all parties to the controversies discussed here acknowledge Schopenhauer as the instigator of philosophical pessimism, and his shadow looms across the whole period, the start date ofthe year of Schopenhauer's death, gives the clue to the substance of the book. It is really about Julius Frauenstädt, Eugen Dühring, Eduard von Hartmann, Philipp Mainländer, Julius Bahnsen and numerous figures who took sides in a complex and tenaciously fought set of debates. Beiser especially draws attention to two female participants, Agnes Tauber and Olga Plümacher, who analysed pessimist theories and defended Hartmann's theory in particular. Tauber was thought to be a man by contemporaries, because she published as A. Tauber, which also served to conceal the fact that she was married to Hartmann. But it is Plümacher who is most appraised Arthur Schopenhauer Gay Animals Beiser, for her "solid and lucid" book Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwartwhich places Arthur Schopenhauer Gay Animals in the history of thought and culture and documents contemporary debates in some detail. It must be said, however, that Plümacher might have taken issue with the title of Beiser's book: as she explains in her article in the journal Arthur Schopenhauer Gay AnimalsWeltschmerz is an affective state, an "unreasoned pessimism", distinct from "philosophical pessimism, which, uninfluenced by subjective feelings, rests exclusively on objective observation". It is the latter rather than the former that Beiser, like Plümacher before him, sets out to document. In passing Beiser notes the fact that Nietzsche read Plümacher's book with some attention. However, he expressly excludes Nietzsche from systematic discussion despite the book's time span ending with the year of Nietzsche's death. He finds "a disproportionate emphasis on Nietzsche in recent scholarship", which "reveals an astonishing lack Arthur Schopenhauer Gay Animals historical sense and philosophical sophistication" There are two claims here. The first is plausible: that we shall understand Nietzsche better if we replace him in the complex contemporary environment, rather than isolating him as a privileged, unique figure. The second claim is that the other thinkers of this period are as interesting and rewarding to study as Nietzsche. This last point naturally cannot be judged by those who are yet to study the other thinkers. But Beiser's claim may be overblown; he acknowledges throughout that his dramatis personae were already more or less unknown once the twentieth century was underway, and of Hartmann he says, "For all his philosophical importance for his age, it is not surprising that we have forgotten him" Nietzsche, by contrast, is studied because he has been a live concern for successive waves of philosophers, cultural figures and political movements down to our day. And if scholars come to recognize the great interest and sophistication that is to be found in Hartmann et al. Incidentally, Beiser cannot resist referring to Nietzsche, and does so some thirty-five times, usually to suggest that someone else anticipated him Mainländer on the death of God, for example. I shall distinguish two of his arguments for that view, and argue that both of them are unsound. Both arguments involve premises grounded on a problematic view, namely, that desires have no objects. I shall then propose a way of fixing both arguments. The solution involves substituting the view that desires have no objects with the view that we have a desire to have desires. International Journal of Philosophy, I attempt to present a more holistic and more detailed account of Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophical premises and their implications. The discussion begins with Schopenhauer's claim that the world is representation and with the discovering of the Will. It continues by examining the implications of the Will, which leads to the argument against existence itself. 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Secondly, pessimism is sometimes given a historico-philosophical interpretation. After Luther and Goethe there was still a third step to be made. This part of the investigation differs slightly from the first two in terms of methodology. But then Hartmann redefined it in a way that made the notion of historical decline to also be a form of pessimism. But the very question suggests its own answer.
Chapters in this book (26)
In this project, I analyze and compare the works of three German authors: Hermann. It seems the only choice I. Nietzsche advance in their respective oppositions to utilitarianism. What, then, am I to do, being an innocent dilettante in such controversial and/or venerable matters? Creed. Hesse (), Arthur Schopenhauer (), and Friedrich Nietzsche . This thesis examines the moral philosophical commitments that Kant, Schopenhauer and. Following this descriptive account, Yudanin explores freedom's evolutionary history, explaining how it developed in the course of the evolution of species.Nietzsche was in Nice the following winter and he "found" the third part. I will attempt to determine what conceptual content the various pessimists and anti-pessimists attribute to pessimism, taking into consideration what associations and connotations of the term that they are using in their rhetoric. On the other hand, if we try to say: "This man is virtuous, but he is a stranger to Compassion"; or: "he is an unjust and malicious man, yet very compassionate;" the contradiction at once leaps to light. Reception [ edit ]. Compassion is a matter of character. It manifests itself as a representation as that is the common form of all knowledge , but it goes much deeper. Not only does the compassionate individual realise this, but he acts on this realisation. If we assume that Schopenhauer understood pessimism in this way we cannot get his philosophy right. The masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom, but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and give themselves airs. The reason for this Schopenhauer sees in vanity, which makes men prefer beauty over intelligence. Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Nauckhoff ]. Hence it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake about a man, it is because at the beginning of our acquaintance with him we confound his defects with the kinds of perfection to which the are allied. In particular, I will be investigating the relation to this tradition of its perhaps most creative critic, Friedrich Nietzsche. It has some textual support too: Schopenhauer does express this opinion. Dies macht es gehaltvollen Leuten insipid; während Plattköpfe sich so recht darin gefallen. Rather than state various claims about virtues and the present age and religion and aspirations, Zarathustra speaks about stars, animals, trees, tarantulas, dreams, and so forth. Optimism is the notion that the world justifies itself through its existence. By being translated into concepts, the thought can be raised to the level of abstract knowledge Wissen or abstrakte Erkenntnis. The faculty of understanding the senses is a tool of the will. The will is transcendental. The clown then leaps over the rope-dancer, causing the latter to fall to his death. Citations [ edit ]. Saunders notes that the editiones Bipontinae were "a series of Greek, Latin and French classics published at Zweibraecken in the Palatinate, from and after the year One of them, J. I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth , and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! The first is plausible: that we shall understand Nietzsche better if we replace him in the complex contemporary environment, rather than isolating him as a privileged, unique figure. The ascetic furthermore sees that the world is a ceaseless and goalless striving, and that life therefore has to be characterised by suffering and death. This is what determines the difference between a thinker and a mere scholar. Nun giebt es keinen gewaltigeren Unterschied als den zwischen Sein und Nichtsein. It is empirically oriented rather than aiming at proving a thesis. He gathers a group of disciples, but ultimately abandons them, saying that he will not return until they have disowned him. Still, he owed his considerable fame to one work only: Philosophie des Unbewussten But it is not the sum of the experiences that Schopenhauer is interested in, but in their essence. Added on Jan Last updated Jan Link to this post No comments Topics: commentary , experience , knowledge , reflection , textbook , understanding More quotes by Schopenhauer, Arthur. At the time — I must confess — I could not help thinking that he did too formidable a job; with hindsight it is clear to me that his perceptive criticism has enabled me to write a much better dissertation.
