A pessimistic philosopher, an irrationalist who denies most concepts and ideas - this is exactly how Arthur Schopenhauer appeared to the general public. But what made him like this? What pushed you towards this particular worldview? He always believed that will is the cornerstone of life, the driving force that breathes life into us and commands the mind. Without will there would be no knowledge and intellect, no development of man into what he is now. So what pushed him down this path of thinking?

Childhood years

The future philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose birth date was February 28, 1788, was born into the family of a businessman and writer. From a young age, the father tried to instill in the boy a love for his work, but did not succeed. Arthur received his education sporadically: several months in Le Havre, with his father’s business partner at the age of 9, then studying in Runge, at an elite school at 11, and by the age of 15 the young man moved to study in the UK. But the travel did not end there, and in a short period of time he visited several more European countries over the course of 2 years.

Family

The relationship between Schopenhauer's parents was difficult. In the end, his father left the family and later committed suicide. The mother was such a frivolous and cheerful person that the pessimist Arthur also did not have the patience to live with her side by side, and in 1814 they separated, but continued to maintain friendly relations. This helps the young philosopher make many interesting and useful acquaintances among the bohemians of that time.

Adult life

Having a fairly large amount of money bank account and living on interest, Arthur Schopenhauer goes to study at the University of Göttingen at medical specialty. But after two years he transferred to the University of Berlin and changed the faculty to philosophy. It cannot be said that he was a diligent student. The lectures did not attract him, and the visit left much to be desired, but he studied the questions that really worried the future philosopher on all levels, trying to get to the essence of the problem. Such, for example, were Schelling's idea of ​​free will or Locke's theory of secondary qualities. Special attention Plato's dialogues and Kant's constructions were awarded. In 1813, Arthur Schopenhauer defended his doctoral dissertation on And after that he began working on his main work.

Philosophical works

It is worth considering how an unusual person was the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Interesting facts opened up to researchers who sorted through his personal notes. As it turned out, professional dissatisfaction, a thirst for fame and weakness infuriated the writer, which is why offensive and often unfair attacks against alleged competitors appeared from his pen.

In 1818, the first book, “The World as Will and Representation,” was published, but it went completely unnoticed by either the general public or the scientific community. The publisher suffered losses, and the philosopher suffered wounded pride. In order to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes, the young German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer decides to lecture at the University of Berlin. But since Hegel was teaching there at the same time, the students ignored the young assistant professor with his gloomy outlook on life. Not wanting to be an object of ridicule or pity, the writer leaves for Italy, away from the bustle of the university. But a year later he returns again to try his luck on the teaching path. Even the death of his opponent in 1831 did not make the course more popular, and the young man left teaching forever.

Moving. Life from scratch

Having left Berlin due to the cholera epidemic and moved to Frankfurt am Main, a new bachelor is “born” - Arthur briefly and rarely, but still flashed in his life. Thus, he received a prize from the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society for his article. His publications were also not popular, and the reissue of the book, now divided into two volumes, again turned out to be a failure. Negativism, misanthropy and despair grew more and more in Schopenhauer. He began to hate all philosophers wholesale and each individual, especially Hegel, who infected all of Europe with his ideas.

Revolution

“And tomorrow there was war...” No, of course, there was no war, but after the revolution of 1848-1849, people’s worldviews, their problems, goals and views changed greatly. They began to look more soberly and pessimistically at the reality around them. This allowed opportunities to arise that Arthur Schopenhauer did not fail to take advantage of. Philosophy was briefly able to fit into aphoristic expressions and advice that appealed to compatriots. The publication of this book brought the philosopher the fame and glory that he so dreamed of.

Late Glory

Now Schopenhauer Arthur could be satisfied with his fate. His house was full, entire pilgrimages were made to his places of residence. Universities gave lectures on his philosophy, and there were also personal students. In 1854, Wagner sent him his famous tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelungs” with an autograph, a sign of attention that biographers considered especially important.

Five years later, a re-edition of “The World as Will and Ethics” was published, and a year later his articles, essays and aphorisms were republished. But the author no longer saw them. Pneumonia caught him suddenly, and Arthur Schopenhauer died on September 21, 1860. Brief biography, published later, managed to convey the truthfulness of the words of the late philosopher: “The sunset of my life became the dawn of my glory.”

Pessimistic philosophy became popular in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was at this moment that will began to mean a lot to people who survived the fire of the Revolution. According to these postulates, suffering is good and satisfaction is evil. The philosopher explained this position quite simply: only dissatisfaction allows us to feel our needs and desires more acutely. When the need is satisfied, suffering does not disappear for some time, but it cannot be removed forever, which means life is a series of suffering from birth to death. And as a conclusion from all this, Schopenhauer’s philosophical idea says that in a world like this, it is better not to be born at all. She had a significant influence on the worldview and perception of historical events of such figures as Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Albert Einstein and Leo Tolstoy. Each of these people in one way or another influenced the development of society and changed the opinion of their contemporaries about what life should be like. And all this could not have happened if not for Arthur Schopenhauer, rejected and forgotten in his youth.

a) Irrationalism rejected logical connections in nature,
perception of the surrounding world as a whole and
natural system, criticized Hegel's dialectic and
the very idea of ​​development.

b) The main idea of ​​irrationalism is that
the world around us there is scattered chaos, there is no
integrity, internal patterns, laws
development, is not controlled by reason and is subordinate to others
driving forces, for example affects, will.

c) Prominent representative irrationalism was Arthur
Schopenhauer(1788 -1860). In his work he performed
against the dialectics and historicism of Hegel, called for a return
to Kantianism and Platonism, but by the universal principle
proclaimed his philosophy voluntarism, according to
which is the main one driving force, which determines everything in
the surrounding world is will.

d) In his book “The World as Will and Representation” the philosopher
displays logical law of sufficient reason.

According to this law true philosophy must proceed not from the object (like materialists), but also not from the subject (like subjective idealists), but only from representation, which is a fact of consciousness. - In turn, representations (and not objective reality and not the cognizing subject) are divided into object and subject. It is at the core object of ideas and lies the law of sufficient reason, which breaks down into four independent laws: law of existence - for space and time; law of causality - For material world; law of logical reason - for knowledge; the law of motivation for human action.

Conclusion: The surrounding world (representation of an object) is reduced to being, causality, logical basis and motivation. The subject's representation does not have such a complex structure. Human consciousness carries out cognitive process through the representation of the subject by: direct cognition; abstract (reflective) cognition; intuition.

e) The central concept of Schopenhauer's philosophy is will. Will, according to Schopenhauer, is the absolute beginning, the root of all things, an ideal force capable of determining and influencing all things. Will is also the highest cosmic principle that underlies
of the universe.

e) Functional purpose Voli. She: lies at the core
consciousness; is the universal essence of things. When explaining will as the universal essence of things, Schopenhauer relies on Kantianism, namely on Kant’s theory, by virtue of which only
images of things in the surrounding world, and their inner essence
is an unsolved riddle (“a thing in itself”).

g) Schopenhauer uses this theory from the standpoint
voluntarism: the surrounding world is only a world of ideas in the human mind; the essence of the world, its things, phenomena is not a “thing in itself”, but will; the world of phenomena and the world of essence are, respectively, the world
ideas and the world of will; just as a person’s will determines his actions, so the general will operating throughout the world, the will of objects and phenomena, causes external events in the world, the movement of objects, the emergence of phenomena; will is inherent not only in living organisms, but also in inanimate nature in the form of “unconscious”, “dormant” will; “The world around us, in its essence, is the realization of will.” In addition to the problem of will, Schopenhauer also considers other “urgent” philosophical problems - human destiny, freedom, necessity, human capabilities, happiness.

h) In general, the philosopher’s view of these problems is pessimistic. Despite the fact that Schopenhauer laid the will at the basis of man and his consciousness, he does not believe in man’s ability to dominate not only nature, but also his own destiny. The fate of man is in the general world chaos of things and phenomena and is subject to universal necessity. The will of an individual person is weaker than the collective will of the surrounding world and is suppressed by it. Schopenhauer does not believe in human happiness.

i) Philosophy of Schopenhauer(his doctrine of the fourfold law of sufficient reason, voluntarism, pessimism, etc.) was not understood and not accepted by many of his contemporaries and did not have much popularity, but it played a big role in the development of non-classical idealistic philosophy (irrationalism, symbolism, “philosophy of life ") and positivism.

4. "Philosophy of Life" by Friedrich Nietzsche.

The continuator of Schopenhauer's philosophical traditions was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche is considered the founder of a “philosophy of life” related to irrationalism.

a) Core concept this philosophy is
the concept of life, which is understood as the world in its aspect
given to the knowing subject, the only
reality that exists for a specific person.

b) The purpose of philosophy, according to Nietzsche, - to help a person realize himself as much as possible in life, to adapt to the world around him. At the heart of both life and the world around us lies will.

c) Nietzsche identifies several types of human will:

- “will to live”;

The will is within the person himself (“inner core”);

Uncontrollable, unconscious will - passions, attractions,
affects;

- “will to power.”

d) The last type of will - “will to power” -
philosopher devotes special attention. According to Nietzsche, "the will to
power" is to a greater or lesser extent inherent in everyone
to a person. By its nature, the “will to power” is close to
instinct of self-preservation, is the external expression
hidden within a person the desire for security and
the driving force behind many human actions. Also
according to Nietzsche, every person (as well as the state)
consciously or unconsciously strives to expand its
“I” in the external world, expansion of the “I”.. Philosophy of Nietzsche
(especially its main ideas - the highest value for humans
life, "will to live", "will to power") was
predecessor of a number of modern Western
philosophical concepts based on problems
man and his life - pragmatism, phenomenology,
existentialism, etc.

5) "Philosophy of Life" by Wilhelm Dilthey.
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 - 1911) also belonged to
representatives of the direction "philosophy of life".

a) Dilthey subjected criticism of Hegel's philosophy, in which all the diversity of the surrounding world and the uniqueness human life came down to thinking (idea). Instead of thinking (ideas), Dilthey proposed to base philosophy on the concept "life".

6) Life is a person’s way of being in the world. Life has
such features as: integrity; the presence of a diverse spiritual origin; inextricable unity with the higher world.

c) According to Dilthey philosophy must stop
"scholastic" discussions about matter, consciousness,
dialectics, etc. and focus all attention on studying
life as a special phenomenon in all its manifestations.

d) Dilthey paid great attention socio-political problems and questions of history. The philosopher rejected the concepts according to which history is predetermined and natural process, going to
side of progress. According to Dilthey, history is a chain of accidents, chaos, a whirlpool that draws both an individual and entire nations into itself. It is impossible to influence the course of history.

Photographer Andrea Effulge

Arthur Schopenhauer, even among famous and significant philosophers, is a controversial and outstanding person, of course, standing out for his views. The thinker was more than a century ahead of the philosophical sentiments of his time, which largely explains his limited fame. Until old age, even having created his main works and formulated his philosophical views, Schopenhauer remained very limitedly known only in certain circles, but he still received well-deserved recognition, or rather, his works in the field of science.

In this article I will try to present the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer briefly, despite the breadth of his views and creative fertility. For me personally, this philosopher is close not so much to his conceptual views as to his personal worldview, style of life and being, but these are personal details. The works of this thinker influenced many outstanding philosophers, and F.W. Nietzsche called him the leader of tragic discontent and showed solidarity with the views of Schopenhauer.

The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, nicknamed the philosophy of pessimism, largely coincided in an invisible dispute with the classical philosophy dominant in his time, which affirmed unstoppable and unlimited progress, supported by successes in science and technology. At the same time, the philosophy of the misanthrope Schopenhauer criticized the love of life and affirmed the irony of the struggle for existence with inevitable defeat in the form of death. That is, irrationalism in Schopenhauer’s philosophy criticized German classical philosophy and its objective idealism. The fruits of this intellectual struggle were the establishment in the irrationalist philosophy of Schopenhauer of three postulates in understanding the world:

• The collision of mystical intuition of knowledge and classical theory knowledge. Schopenhauer argued that only art, where the creator is deprived of will, is capable of being a real mirror, truly reflecting reality, that is, wisdom is not a product of some kind of education obtained by abstract study and thinking, but the achievement of concrete thinking;
• Refutation of theories of progress and statements that the world is rationally and harmoniously designed, and its movement in every sense is the embodiment of this intelligent design. The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, from a truly misanthropic point of view, criticized the rationality of the structure of the world, and even more so the special and initially free place allocated to man in this world. The thinker believed that human existence is primarily torture;
• Based on the previous two postulates, it seems logical for Schopenhauer’s irrationalist philosophy to consider existence as a criterion and methodology in understanding the world.

The problem of man in the views of the thinker is that man is not some abstract object of knowledge, but a being included in the world, a suffering, struggling, corporeal and objective being. And also very dependent on all these objective factors.

Another manifestation of irrationalism in Schopenhauer's philosophy was the consideration of wisdom, where it was presented as intuitive knowledge, free from the power of the will; refusal of the volitional act in cognition and provided the necessary weak-willed intuition necessary for exploring the world. Such weak-willed intuition could best be embodied in art: only a mind that has achieved genius in art, which is the embodiment of weak-willed contemplation, can be a true mirror of the universe.

Despite criticism of German classical philosophy, Schopenhauer highly valued rationalism itself and Kant in particular; in his office there was a bust of the German thinker, as well as a statuette of Buddha, since Arthur Schopenhauer found the philosophy of Buddhism very worthy. Motives and consistency with Asian philosophy in general, and with the philosophy of Buddhism, are clearly visible in Schopenhauer’s philosophy itself: the achievement of a weak-willed state and the renunciation of individuality is similar to the desire for nirvana, asceticism as a path to achieving the meaning of existence and overcoming the will is reminiscent of the views of Taoism and much more.

Schopenhauer's philosophy, in short, is more ethical and aesthetic than, for example, metaphysical; she considers many things, including knowledge of the world, from the standpoint of moral and aesthetic views, declares irrationalism, talks about everyday life and the existence of a particular individual, his morality, and so on. Despite all this, Schopenhauer’s philosophy is not called pessimistic for nothing, because the existence ordinary person he viewed it as a transition from boredom and idleness to suffering, and retention in these states by the will acting as a pest.

After all that has been said above, the reader may be shocked by the statement that in fact, in its albeit irrationalistic essence, Schopenhauer’s philosophy is a “philosophy of life.” Yes, this is so, the views of Arthur Schopenhauer, despite all the pessimism that comes through from them, are a philosophy of life; I'll explain. The fact is that the saying applies to the views of this thinker: “Having - we don’t appreciate it, having lost - we mourn.” Schopenhauer claims that everyone, absolutely every person, having three greatest values, does not protect them until they lose them; these values: freedom, youth and health. Moreover, the value of “youth” included the concept of initiative, motivation, aspirations and everything that is inevitably associated with this concept - “youth”. The philosopher in his works urged everyone to take a completely different look at their existence, overcome illusions and learn to appreciate these three great blessings given from birth: freedom, youth and health. And then every moment of existence will sparkle with new colors, become beautiful and valuable in itself, without the participation of anything obviously superfluous. That is why, despite pessimistic sentiments, Schopenhauer's views are a philosophy of life. And by understanding the value of every moment and overcoming illusions, each person can begin to achieve genius in art and achieve a true reflection of the Universe.

I hope that after reading this article you, the reader, have understood a lot about this, albeit not the most famous philosopher, but no doubt worthy of attention, and also that a misanthrope with pessimistic views can be an apologist for the philosophy of life, as was the case with Arthur Schopenhauer . Of course, it is impossible to briefly outline the philosophy of Schopenhauer, like that of any outstanding thinker, in detail, so I suggest you familiarize yourself with his main works: “The World as Will and Idea”, “On the Fourfold Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason”, “On Freedom” human will”, “Aphorisms of worldly wisdom”, “On the justification of morality”, “Parerga and Paralipomena (applications and additions)”.

Philosophy of A. Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) – German philosopher, one of the first representatives of irrationalism. Schopenhauer believed that the essence of personality is the will, which is independent of the mind. This will is a blind desire, which is inseparable from a bodily being, namely a person. It is a manifestation of a certain cosmic force, the world will, which constitutes the true content of all things.

The peculiarity of his teaching is voluntarism. Will is the beginning of any existence; it gives rise to phenomena, or “ideas.”

The interests of the will are practical interests; the satisfaction of these interests is the goal of science. Perfect knowledge is contemplation, which is free from the interests of the will and has no relation to practice. The field of contemplation is not science, but various types art based on intuition.

Schopenhauer formulated the doctrine of freedom and necessity. The will, being a “thing in itself,” is free, while the world of phenomena is conditioned by necessity and obeys the law of sufficient reason. Man, as one of the phenomena, also obeys the laws of the empirical world.

Schopenhauer views human life in terms of desire and satisfaction. By its nature, desire is suffering, since satisfying a need leads to satiety and boredom, and despair arises. Happiness is not a blissful state, but only deliverance from suffering, but this deliverance is accompanied by new suffering, boredom.

Suffering is permanent form manifestations of life, a person can get rid of suffering only in its concrete expression.

Thus, the world is dominated by global evil, which is ineradicable, happiness is illusory, and suffering is inevitable, it is rooted in the “will to live” itself. Therefore, for Schopenhauer existing world- “the worst possible.”

Schopenhauer sees the way to get rid of evil in asceticism. Schopenhauer was a proponent of a violent police state.