Philosophy and aphorisms of Arthur Schopenhauer. Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophy

10.10.2019

PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF A. SCHOPENHAUER

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ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788 - 1860) belongs to that galaxy of European philosophers who during their lifetime were not “in the lead”, but nevertheless had a noticeable influence on the philosophy and culture of their time and the next century.

He was born in ᴦ. Danzig (now ᴦ. Gdansk) in a wealthy and cultured family; his father, Heinrich Floris, was a merchant and banker, his mother, Johann Schopenhauer, was a famous writer and head of a literary salon, among whose visitors was W. Goethe. Arthur Schopenhauer studied at the commercial school ᴦ. Hamburg, where the family moved, then privately studied in France and England. Later there was the Weimar Gymnasium and, finally, the University of Göttingen: here Schopenhauer studied philosophy and the natural sciences - physics, chemistry, botany, anatomy, astronomy, and even took a course in anthropology. Philosophy, however, was a real hobby, and Plato and I. Kant were idols. Along with them, he was attracted by ancient Indian philosophy (Vedas, Upanishads). These hobbies became the basis of his future philosophical outlook.

In 1819 ᴦ. saw the light of the main work of A. Schopenhauer - "The World as Will and Representation", in which he gave a system philosophical knowledge as he saw her. But this book was not successful, because in Germany at that time there were enough authorities who controlled the minds of contemporaries. Among them, perhaps the first magnitude was Hegel, who had a very strained relationship with Schopenhauer. Having not received recognition at the University of Berlin, and indeed in society, Schopenhauer retired to live as a recluse in Frankfurt am Main until his death. Only in the 50s. ᴦ. XIX century In Germany, interest in the philosophy of Schopenhauer began to awaken, and it increased after his death.

A feature of the personality of A. Schopenhauer was his gloomy, gloomy and irritable character, which undoubtedly affected the general mood of his philosophy. It admittedly bears the stamp of deep pessimism. But with all this, he was a very gifted person with versatile erudition, great literary skill; he spoke many ancient and new languages and was undoubtedly one of the most educated people of his time.

In the philosophy of Schopenhauer, two characteristic points are usually distinguished: this is the doctrine of the will and pessimism.

The doctrine of will is the semantic core of Schopenhauer's philosophical system. The mistake of all philosophers, he proclaimed, was that they saw the basis of man in the intellect, while in fact it is this basis that lies exclusively in the will, which is completely different from the intellect and only it is original. Moreover, the will is not only the basis of man, but it is also the inner foundation of the world, its essence. It is eternal, not subject to death, and in itself is baseless, that is, self-sufficient.

Two worlds must be distinguished in connection with the doctrine of the will:

I. the world where the law of causality prevails (that is, the one in which we live), and II. a world where not specific forms of things, not phenomena, but general transcendental essences are important. This is a world where we do not exist (the idea of doubling the world is taken by Schopenhauer from Plato).

In our everyday life, the will has an empirical character, it is subject to limitation; if this were not the case, a situation would arise with Buridan’s donkey (Buridan is a scholastic of the 15th century who described this situation): placed between two armfuls of hay, on opposite sides and at the same distance from him, he, “possessing free will” died would be hungry, not being able to make a choice.
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A person in everyday life constantly makes choices, but at the same time he inevitably limits free will.

Outside the empirical world, the will is independent of the law of causality. Here it is abstracted from the concrete form of things; it is conceived outside of all time as the essence of the world and man. Will is “a thing-in-itself” by I. Kant; it is not empirical, but transcendental.

In the spirit of I. Kant's reasoning about a priori (pre-experimental) forms of sensibility - time and space, about the categories of reason (unity, plurality, wholeness, reality, causality, etc.), Schopenhauer reduces them to a single law of sufficient reason, which he considers "the mother of all œex sciences”. This law is, of course, a priori.
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Its simplest form is time.

Further, Schopenhauer says that the subject and object are correlative moments, and not moments. causation as is customary in rational philosophy. It follows that their interaction generates a representation.

But, as we have already noted, the world taken as a “thing-in-itself” is an unfounded will, and matter acts as its visible image. Being of matter is its "action" only by acting, it "fills" space and time. Schopenhauer sees the essence of matter in the connection between cause and effect.

Well acquainted with natural science, Schopenhauer explained all manifestations of nature by the endless fragmentation of the world will, multitude; its "objectifications". Among them is also human body. It connects the individual, his representation with the world will and, being its messenger, determines the state of the human mind. Through the body, the world will acts as the main spring of all human actions.

Every act of the will is an act of the body, and vice versa. From here we come to an explanation of the nature of affects and motives of behavior, which are always determined by specific desires in a given place, at this time, in these circumstances. The will itself is outside the law of motivation, but it is the basis of a person's character. It is “given” to a person and a person, as a rule, is not able to change it. This idea of Schopenhauer must be challenged, but later it will be reproduced by 3. Freud in connection with his doctrine of the subconscious.

The highest stage of the objectification of the will is associated with a significant manifestation of individuality in the form of the human spirit. It manifests itself with the greatest force in art, in which the will reveals itself in its purest form. With this, Schopenhauer associates the theory of genius: genius does not follow the law of sufficient reason (consciousness following this law creates sciences that are the fruit of the mind and rationality), while genius is free, since it is infinitely distant from the world of cause and effect and, because of this, is close to insanity. So genius and madness have a point of contact (Horace spoke of "sweet madness").

In the light of the above premises, what is Schopenhauer's concept of freedom? He firmly states that freedom should not be sought in our individual actions, as rational philosophy does, but in the whole being and essence of man himself. In the current life, we see a lot of actions caused by causes and circumstances, as well as time and space, and our freedom is limited by them. But all these actions are essentially of the same character, and it is in connection with this that they are free from causality.

In this reasoning, freedom is not expelled, but only moved from the area of current life to a higher one, but it is not so clearly accessible to our consciousness. Freedom in its essence is transcendental. This means that every person is initially and fundamentally free, and everything that he does has this freedom in his base. This thought will meet us later in the philosophy of existentialism; J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus.

Now let's move on to the topic of pessimism in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Any pleasure, any happiness that people strive for at all times, have a negative character, since they - pleasure and happiness - are in essence the absence of something bad, suffering, for example. Our desire stems from the acts of will of our body, but desire is the suffering of the absence of what is desired. A satisfied desire inevitably gives rise to another desire (or several desires), and again we lust, etc. If we imagine all this in space as conditional points, then the voids between them will be filled with suffering, from which desires will arise (conditional points in our case). This means that it is not pleasure, but suffering - this is that positive, constant, unchanging, always present, the presence of which we feel.

Schopenhauer claims that everything around us bears traces of despondency; everything pleasant is mixed with unpleasant; every pleasure destroys itself, every relief leads to new hardships. It follows from this that we must be unhappy in order to be happy, moreover, we cannot but be unhappy, and the reason for this is the person himself, his will. Optimism paints life for us as a kind of gift, but if we knew in advance what kind of gift it was, we would refuse it. In fact, need, deprivation, sorrow are crowned with death; the ancient Indian Brahmins saw this as the goal of life (Schopenhauer refers to the Vedas and Upanishads). In death we are afraid of losing the body, which is will itself.

But the will is objectified through the pangs of birth and the bitterness of death, and this is a stable objectification. This is immortality in time: the intellect perishes in death, but the will is not subject to death. Schopenhauer thought so.

His universal pessimism was in sharp contrast to the mentality of Enlightenment philosophy and classical German philosophy. As for ordinary people, then they are used to being guided by the formula of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus: “Death does not concern us at all: while we exist, there is no death, and when there is death, we are not.” But let's give Schopenhauer his due: he shows us the world not in one color, but rather in two colors, that is, more real and thus leads us to the idea of what is the highest value of life. Pleasure, luck, happiness in themselves, or everything that precedes them is also valuable for us? Should this be life itself?

Schopenhauer initiated the process of affirming the volitional component in European philosophy as opposed to a purely rational approach that reduces a person to the position of a thinking tool. His ideas about the primacy of will were supported and developed by A. Bergson, W. James, D. Dewey, Fr.
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Nietzsche and others.
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Οʜᴎ were put at the basis of the “philosophy of life”.

PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF A. SCHOPENGAUER - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF A. SCHOPENHAUER" 2017, 2018.

He was born in Danzig (now Gdansk) into a wealthy and cultured family; his father, Heinrich Floris, was a merchant and banker, his mother, Johann Schopenhauer, was a famous writer and head of a literary salon, among whose visitors was W. Goethe. Arthur Schopenhauer studied at the commercial school in Hamburg, where the family moved, then privately studied in France and England. Later there was the Weimar Gymnasium and, finally, the University of Göttingen: here Schopenhauer studied philosophy and the natural sciences - physics, chemistry, botany, anatomy, astronomy, and even took a course in anthropology. Philosophy, however, was a real hobby, and Plato and I. Kant were idols. Along with them, he was attracted by ancient Indian philosophy (Vedas, Upanishads). These hobbies became the basis of his future philosophical outlook.

In 1819, the main work of A. Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation,” was published, in which he gave a system of philosophical knowledge as he saw it. But this book was not successful, because in Germany at that time there were enough authorities who controlled the minds of contemporaries. Among them, perhaps the first magnitude was Hegel, who had a very strained relationship with Schopenhauer. Having not received recognition at the University of Berlin, and indeed in society, Schopenhauer retired to live as a recluse in Frankfurt am Main until his death. Only in the 50s of the XIX century. In Germany, interest in the philosophy of Schopenhauer began to awaken, and it increased after his death.

In the philosophy of Schopenhauer, two characteristic points are usually distinguished: this is the doctrine of the will and pessimism.

The doctrine of will is the semantic core of Schopenhauer's philosophical system. The mistake of all philosophers, he proclaimed, was that they saw the basis of man in the intellect, while in fact it - this basis, lies exclusively in the will, which is completely different from the intellect, and only it is original. Moreover, the will is not only the basis of man, but it is also the inner foundation of the world, its essence. It is eternal, not subject to death, and in itself is baseless, that is, self-sufficient.

Two worlds must be distinguished in connection with the doctrine of the will:

In our everyday life, the will has an empirical character, it is subject to limitation; if this were not the case, a situation would arise with Buridan’s donkey (Buridan is a scholastic of the 15th century who described this situation): placed between two armfuls of hay, on opposite sides and at the same distance from him, he, “possessing free will” died would be hungry, not being able to make a choice. Man in Everyday life constantly makes choices, but at the same time he inevitably limits free will.

In the spirit of I. Kant’s reasoning about a priori (pre-experimental) forms of sensibility - time and space, about the categories of reason (unity, plurality, wholeness, reality, causality, etc.), Schopenhauer reduces them to a single law of sufficient reason, which he considers “the mother of all sciences". This law is, of course, a priori. Its simplest form is time.

Further, Schopenhauer says that the subject and object are correlative moments, and not moments of causal connection, as is customary in rational philosophy. It follows that their interaction generates a representation.

Well acquainted with natural science, Schopenhauer explained all manifestations of nature by the endless fragmentation of the world will, multitude; its "objectifications". Among them is the human body. It connects the individual, his representation with the world will and, being its messenger, determines the state of the human mind. Through the body, the world will acts as the mainspring of all human actions.

Every act of the will is an act of the body, and vice versa. From this we come to an explanation of the nature of affects and motives of behavior, which are always determined by specific desires in this place, at this time, in these circumstances. The will itself is outside the law of motivation, but it is the basis of a person's character. It is “given” to a person and a person, as a rule, is not able to change it. This idea of Schopenhauer can be disputed, but later it will be reproduced by 3. Freud in connection with his doctrine of the subconscious.

In this reasoning, freedom is not expelled, but only moved from the area of current life to a higher one, but it is not so clearly accessible to our consciousness. Freedom in its essence is transcendental. This means that each person is initially and fundamentally free, and everything that he does has this freedom as its basis. This thought will meet us later in the philosophy of existentialism; J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus.

Now let's move on to the topic of pessimism in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Any pleasure, any happiness that people strive for at all times, have a negative character, since they - pleasure and happiness - are in essence the absence of something bad, suffering, for example. Our desire stems from the acts of will of our body, but desire is the suffering of the absence of what is desired. A satisfied desire inevitably gives rise to another desire (or several desires), and again we lust, etc. If we imagine all this in space as conditional points, then the voids between them will be filled with suffering, from which desires will arise (conditional points in our case) . This means that it is not pleasure, but suffering - this is that positive, constant, unchanging, always present, the presence of which we feel.

His universal pessimism was in sharp contrast to the mentality of Enlightenment philosophy and classical German philosophy. As for ordinary people, they are accustomed to being guided by the formula of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus: “Death does not concern us at all: while we exist, there is no death, and when there is death, we do not exist.” But let's give Schopenhauer his due: he shows us the world not in one color, but rather in two colors, that is, more real and thus leads us to the idea of what is the highest value of life. Pleasure, luck, happiness in themselves, or everything that precedes them is also valuable for us? Or maybe this is life itself?

Schopenhauer initiated the process of affirming the volitional component in European philosophy as opposed to a purely rational approach that reduces a person to the position of a thinking tool. His ideas about the primacy of will were supported and developed by A. Bergson, W. James, D. Dewey, Fr. Nietzsche and others. They were the basis of the “philosophy of life”.

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

In the last third of the XIX century. in Germany and France, a trend was formed that received the general name "philosophy of life". It included the theories and ideas of such philosophers as W. Dilthey, A. Bergson, G. Simmel, Fr. Nietzsche and others. One of the researchers of the philosophy of life, G. Rickert, noted her desire not only to comprehensively consider life as a single entity, but also to make it the center of world description and attitude, and in philosophy - the key to all philosophical knowledge.

The manifestation of interest in life on the part of philosophers was an act of humanism, because in the conditions of exacerbation of social contradictions, life as a value was taken under protection, attention was drawn to it, and its fundamental character was emphasized. But the weaknesses of the philosophy of life were also obvious. This primarily concerned its very concept. The concept of "life" turned out to be ambiguous and indefinite; therefore the whole philosophy of life took on a discordant form. Accustomed to strict and rational forms, to exact knowledge and their practical usefulness, the consciousness of a European could hardly perceive the specific logic of the philosophy of life and its general aspiration “to nowhere”, the absence of a clear goal and direction.

Nevertheless, the philosophy of life left a noticeable mark on the culture and philosophy of Western Europe and gave rise to ideas that were developed in the 20th century.

Let us turn to the specific ideas of representatives of the philosophy of life.

One of them, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 - 1911), was a German cultural historian and philosopher. He was influenced both by German idealism and romanticism, and by the positivism fashionable in his time.

Dilthey proceeded from the thesis, which he adopted from the neo-Kantians, namely: what is natural - scientific knowledge opposed to cultural and historical knowledge. Hence the idea was expressed that there really are sciences about nature and sciences about the spirit.

The sciences of nature are based on rational knowledge and have the reliability of their conclusions. They rely on categories, apply procedures generally accepted in their field, and are aimed at finding the causes of phenomena and the laws of nature. Both causes and laws are universal. The sciences of the spirit are a completely different kind of knowledge. It has a fundamentally different basis. What is important here is not rational thinking, but intuitive comprehension of the essence, experiencing the events of history and current life, the involvement of the subject in the subject of knowledge. At the same time, the special value of such knowledge for the subject is emphasized. The very concept of “science” is in principle inapplicable to this kind of knowledge, i.e., in this case it has a conditional meaning.

However, Dilthey is still talking about the "sciences of the spirit." Why? The fact is that, in the spirit of the trends of his time, he sought to “bring up” the entire range of humanitarian knowledge, and these are historical sciences, cultural sciences, psychology, etc., to the level natural sciences in the sense that to reveal the categorical apparatus of such knowledge and some general principles and approaches. In this case, they would have acquired a more rigorous form, a scientific form. Thus, we are talking about the development theoretical foundations"sciences of the spirit". But at the same time, the transfer of the categories of science to the sphere of the spirit was excluded.

In his work Sketches for a Critique of Historical Reason, Dilthey sought to overcome speculative philosophical systems I. Kant and especially Hegel, as well as the intellectualism of the Enlightenment. He proceeded from the fact that the basis of the humanities is life itself, which is expressed in a teleological (i.e., in its internal purposeful cause) connection of experiences, understanding and interpretation of the expressions of this life.

Spiritual life arises on the soil of the physical world, it is included in evolution and is its highest step. The conditions under which it arises are analyzed by natural science, which reveals the laws that govern physical phenomena. Among physical bodies In nature, the human body also exists, and experience is most directly connected with it. But with it we are already moving from the physical world to the world of spiritual phenomena. But it is the subject of the sciences of the mind, and their cognitive value does not depend at all on the study of physical conditions. Knowledge about spiritual world arises from the interaction of experience, understanding of other people, the historical comprehension of communities as subjects of historical action, and, finally, the objective spirit. Experience is the fundamental premise of all this.

What actions are caused by it? Experience includes elementary acts of thinking (intellectuality of experience), this also includes judgments about the experienced, in which the experience is objective. From these simple acts, formal categories arise, such concepts as “unity”, “diversity”, “equality”, “differences”, “degree”, “relationship”, “impact”, “strength”, “value”, etc. They are properties of reality itself.

The general conclusion follows from the foregoing: the subject of cognition is one with its object, and this object is the same at all stages of objectification.

To comprehend the essence of life, Dilthey considered it important to see a common feature of it and the external objects that appear in it. This sign is nothing but time. This is revealed already in the expression "the course of life." Life is always flowing, and it cannot be otherwise. Temporality appears to be essential to the understanding of life.

Like I. Kant, Dilthey believed that time is given to us thanks to the unifying unity of our consciousness. The concept of time finds its ultimate realization in the experience of time. Here it is perceived as a continuous movement forward, in which the present ceaselessly becomes the past, and the future becomes the present. The present is a moment filled with reality, it is real as opposed to memory or ideas about the future, manifested in hope, fear, aspiration, desire, expectation. Here Dilthey reproduces the reasoning of the medieval theologian Augustine Aurelius about time.

This fullness of reality, or the present, is permanent, while the content of the experience is constantly changing. The ship of our life seems to be carried by the current, and the present is always and everywhere where we sail in its waves, suffering, remembering or hoping, that is, wherever we live in the fullness of our reality. We are constantly moving, involved in this current, and at the moment when the future becomes the present, the present is already immersed in the past. Looking back, we find ourselves bound (the past is unique and unchanging), looking forward, we are free and active, because the future is always an opportunity that we want to use.

As you can see, the idea of time in the sciences of the spirit is very different from the idea of time in the sciences of nature. This warns us against the temptation to resort to simplification: to transfer the categories of science to the realm of the spirit.

But it also carries a more radical meaning: being in the stream of life, we cannot comprehend its essence. What we take for essence is only its image, imprinted by our experience. The flow of time itself, in the strict sense, is not experienced. For when we wish to observe time, we destroy it by observation, because it is established by attention; observation stops the flowing, the becoming. Thus, we experience only a change in what has just been, and this change continues. But we do not experience the flow of life itself.

Another important characteristic of life, according to Dilthey, is its connectedness. In the historical world there is no natural-scientific causality, because such causality provides for the obligatory nature of well-defined consequences. History knows only the relations of action and suffering, action and reaction. The subjects of statements about the historical world, whether about the individual world or about the life of mankind, are characterized only by a certain way of communication within clearly limited limits. It is the connection between the individual and the general.

All components of life are connected into one whole. We master this whole through understanding. Dilthey demonstrates this idea by referring to the genre of philosophical autobiography, represented by three prominent names: Augustine, Rousseau, Goethe. All of them are characterized by the presence of their own meaning in every life. It lies in the meaning that gives each present moment (single), stored in memory, a value in itself; the meaning of memory is determined by the relation to the meaning of the whole (general). This meaning of individual being is completely unique and cannot be analyzed by any rational cognition. And yet, like Leibniz's monad, it reproduces the historical universe for us in a specific way. Thus, life appears before us in its integral connection.

These arguments of Dilthey formed the basis of hermeneutics, which was further developed already in the 20th century.

Now let's turn to the ideas of the famous French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859 - 1941), who devoted his numerous works to the philosophy of life.

Bergson draws our attention to the creative nature of the flow of life - it, like conscious activity, is continuous creativity. Creativity, as you know, is the creation of something new, unique. Therefore, to anticipate new form no one can live. Life has a fundamentally open character. Science, in the person of our intellect, rebels against this thought, for it operates with what is repetitive. That is why science (our intellect) cannot grasp the phenomenon of life. This is the task of philosophy, says Bergson. How can she do it?

In order to approach the principle of all life, it is not enough to rely on dialectics (the thesis of German classical philosophy), here one must rise to intuition. It is known that it is such a form of cognition that is abstracted from details and logical procedures and allows one to grasp the object being studied in its most general essential manifestations in an instant. The philosopher, however, abandons intuition, as soon as its impulse is communicated to him, he surrenders to the power of concepts. But soon he feels that the ground is lost, that a new contact with the intuition becomes necessary. Dialectics weakens intuition, but it - dialectics - ensures the internal agreement of our thought with itself. Intuition, if it lasted more than a few moments, would not only ensure the agreement of philosophers with their own thought but also the agreement among themselves of all philosophers. For there is only one truth, and thus it would be attained.

What is life and why, according to Bergson, is it comprehended by intuition? Life is movement, materiality is the reverse movement; each of them is simple. The matter that forms the world is an indivisible stream; life is also indivisible, cutting through matter, carving living beings in it. Of these two streams, the second goes against the first, but the first still gets something from the second. From this, a modus vivendi (Latin way of existence) is established between them, which is the organization.

This organization takes on before our senses and our intellect the form of external parts in relation to each other in time and space. But we turn a blind eye to the unity of the impulse that, passing through generations, unites individuals with individuals, species with species, and from the whole series of living beings creates one boundless wave that runs over matter.

Chance plays a significant role in the evolution of life itself. Random are the forms that arise in a creative impulse; accidental division of the initial trend into certain tendencies; accidental stops and retreats, as well as adaptations. But only two things are necessary: I. gradual accumulation of energy; 2. the elastic channeling of this energy in various and indefinable directions leading to free acts.

Life from its very origin is a continuation of one and the same impulse, divided along divergent lines of evolution. The whole of life, both animal and vegetable, in its essential part, seems like an effort aimed at accumulating energy and then letting it go through malleable but changeable channels, at the end of which it must perform infinitely varied works. This is what the impulse of life wanted to achieve, passing through matter. But his power was limited. The impulse is finite and given once and for all. The movement he communicated meets obstacles; it condenses and separates.

The first great division was the division into two kingdoms - vegetable and animal, which complement each other, but are not, however, in agreement with each other. This split was followed by many others. Hence the divergent lines of evolution.

A. Bergson believes that the spiritual life cannot be separated from the rest of the world; there is a science that shows "solidarity" between conscious life and brain activity. An evolutionary theory that puts man outside the animal kingdom must not miss the facts of the origin of species through gradual transformation. By this, a person seems to return to the category of animals.

Only intuitive philosophy can comprehend life and spirit in their unity, but not science, although science is able to “sweep away” philosophy with its arguments, but at the same time it does not do anything. will explain. In order for philosophy to fulfill its task, it must deal not with this or that living being, but with life taken as a whole. All life, from the initial impulse that threw it into the world, will appear before philosophy as an ascending stream, which is counteracted by the downward movement of matter. At one point he passes freely, dragging with him an obstacle that will aggravate his path, but will not stop him. At this point, humanity is; here is our privileged position.

On the other hand, this ascending current is consciousness, and like any consciousness, it embraces countless possibilities that penetrate each other, to which neither the category of unity nor the category of multiplicity, created for inert matter, fit. The stream passes, therefore, crossing human generations, subdividing into individuals. Thus souls are continuously created, which, however, in a certain sense pre-existed. They are nothing but streams between which the great river of life is divided, flowing through the body of mankind.

Consciousness differs from the organism it animates, although it reflects certain changes taking place in the organism. Our brain marks the motor states of consciousness every moment. But this is where their mutual dependence ends. The fate of consciousness is not connected with the fate of brain matter. Consciousness is essentially free; it is freedom itself, but it cannot pass through matter without dwelling on it, without adapting itself to it.

This adaptation is what is called intelligence. The intellect will therefore always see matter in a special framework, for example, in the framework of necessity. But at the same time, he will neglect the share of the new or creative, associated with free action; always the intellect will replace the action itself with an artificial approximate imitation, obtained by combining the former with the former, like with like. Philosophy should absorb the intellect into intuition, then many of the difficulties of knowing life will, if not disappear, then weaken.

A. Bergson, as can be seen from the above, does not give a clear description, much less a traditional definition of life. But he describes it in its most essential manifestations and shows its complexity and the complexity of the process of comprehending it.

The German philosopher Georg Simmel (1858-1918) pointed to the same line of life. In his book Metaphysics of Life, he noted the contradictions that arise in our minds when we cognize the world and life. Always and everywhere we stumble upon boundaries, and we ourselves are them. But at the same time, we are aware of these limits. But to know about them is given only to those who stand outside them. There are reasons to believe that our spiritual life overcomes itself, going beyond the reasonable.

Isn't it logical to assume that the world is not decomposed into forms of our cognition, that we, at least in a purely problematic way, can think of such a given world that we cannot think. This must be seen as a breakthrough through the one-sidedness of any frontier. G. Simmel calls this an act of self-transcendence, which puts a boundary rooted within itself only. In this spirit for the first time reveals itself as "totally vital".

It is only this way of being that Zimkel calls life. Its philosophical problematic, according to Simmel, lies in the fact that life is both an unbounded continuity and a definitely limited Self. Here it is appropriate to recall Heraclitus (“Everything flows; one cannot enter the same river twice”), who said about the continuity of the flow of life, but singled out something stable in it, as a kind of border that always had to be crossed. This is how a general idea of life develops: Zarathustra (in Friedrich Nietzsche) says that it is that which always overcomes itself.

The boundaries discussed above can be considered as forms, as the ultimate world-forming principles. What is their attitude towards life?

Between life and the form of life, Simmel believes, there is a split that must be overcome. Reason calls this the overcoming of duality through unity: in itself it - this unity - is already something third. In a single act, it forms something that is already more than the life movement itself, that is, individual formation - and again destroys it, and this form, outlined by solid lines on the common surface of the stream, forces it to cross its borders and blur in the further flow. The main essence of life is not in the replacement of continuity by individuality, but in the homogeneous function of transcendence of life itself.

This is how we approach the acquisition of an absolute concept of life. Simmel sees two mutually complementary definitions of life: life as a movement towards greater life(more is life), and life as that which is more than life. Because we have life, we need form; and since life is always more than life, it needs more than form. Life is imbued with the contradiction that it can only perish in forms, and yet it can not perish in them, thanks to which it overcomes and destroys any of them, whichever it may be formed.

Perhaps the most paradoxical and at the same time famous representative of the philosophy of life was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). With his original works, among which the most famous are “Beyond Good and Evil”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “Antichrist”, etc., he created a reputation for himself as a thinker who made deep insights in those areas of philosophy and culture where everything seemed clear and established. He subjected to total criticism the traditional values of European culture and, above all, christian religion and rational thinking. Nietzsche clearly showed that all the richness of the living world cannot be comprehended and mastered in the existing system of cultural values, and that life as such is far from being understood by us, and if it is understood, it is one-sided and wrong.

At the heart of Nietzsche's worldview is not the Bible (it rejects it) and not rational philosophy (he criticizes and ignores it), but a natural instinct, expressed in the desire of all living things for domination and power. Following A. Schopenhauer in evaluating the world will as the primary principle of being, Nietzsche modifies this principle into the will to power. From this followed the conclusion about the baselessness of the traditionally understood essence of things, for such is associated with causality. But we invented causality ourselves, while in the essence of things there is only will, strong or weak.

Life, according to Nietzsche, is determined by the law of subordination of the weak to the strong, and this is the extremely broad principle of being. Dominance manifests itself in economic, political, social, interpersonal and even intimate relationships; it is filled with the real content of human history. It is also observed in nature. It can be hidden, it can be opposed as a principle, but it cannot be crossed out. The Beggar sees in this the hypocrisy of Christian morality - she is the "great seductress" - and of all European culture.

The will to power as a principle splits society into slaves (weak) and masters (strong); hence the two moralities: the aristocratic and the morality of the crowd, the people, the masses. The latter is cultivated by Christianity and humanistic European culture and is therefore rejected by Nietzsche.

The will to power is seen by Nietzsche as a manifestation of the instinct of freedom. But to freedom, as well as to domination, war brings up. Nietzsche quotes Heraclitus, his "War is the father of everything." In war, male fighting qualities dominate and suppress all others - the instinct for happiness, peace, peace, compassion, etc. Peaceful life kills the will to power, makes a person a weak personality and turns him into a herd animal. In particular, such a concept as “conscience” makes a person a slave to the herd instinct, from the standpoint of Christian morality, moral means unselfish, but this, according to Nietzsche, is a prejudice. This also applies to such concepts as “good”, “true” - in the context of positivist philosophy, they mean “expedient”, “useful”, etc.

Nietzsche's measure of true value is freedom from the social norms of his contemporary society. So who is free? This is the one who is “beyond good and evil”, that is, outside the morality and laws of society. Nietzsche saw his hero in the image of a “blond beast”, that is, a person of Aryan origin, but not weighed down by conscience and moral doubts. He called Prince N. Machiavelli and Napoleon the historical prototypes of such a hero.

If the philosophers of the era of reason saw progress in the history of mankind, that is, the rise of society from lower, primitive forms of life to higher forms, then Nietzsche saw in history the weakening of the will to live and the degradation of the natural principle in man and among peoples. Therefore, he was an opponent of progress, opposed the ideas of socialism and different kind projects for the transformation of society. Progress, from his point of view, would be the education of a new ruling caste for Europe, consisting of smaller but stronger human specimens. They would have constituted a race of masters and conquerors, a race of Aryans.

Nietzsche's works bear the stamp of irrationalism and unconventionality. They are written in the form of parables, aphorisms, etc. and require considerable effort of imagination and will when reading. But Nietzsche himself said that they were not written for everyone.

Nietzsche was one of the most educated people of the 19th century, but due to his inherent genius, he himself placed himself outside society (you can read about his life in the book: Daniel Halevi. Life of Friedrich Nietzsche Riga. 1991). The role of Nietzsche in European history and culture is significant. His ideas were actively used in Nazi Germany to promote war and racism. Nor were they alien to the revolutionaries in Russia and other countries. This, however, is not the point; all this happened against the will of Nietzsche himself. The main thing is different: with his work, he warned against the inevitable, but ugly forms of development of Western civilization; he warned us about the coming alienation in the sphere of European culture, about its deep rebirth, about the massification and primitivization of spiritual life. Nietzsche is one of the forerunners of the philosophy of existentialism.

PHILOSOPHY OF PRAGMATISM

The idea of positivist philosophy about the experimental basis of reliable knowledge was used by pragmatism. This is a philosophy that has made pure experience not just the original principle of cognition, but also given it an ontological status. W. James (James), American philosopher, (1842-1910), in "Does Consciousness Exist?" - rejected the “subject-object” relationship as the basic principle of philosophy and instead introduced the concept of “pure experience”, which he considered as “the primary substance or material that makes up everything in the world”. The relationship “subject-object” is in this case only a derivative of pure experience.

As for “pure experience”, this is the immediate life stream that provides material for our subsequent reflection. At the same time, W. James abolishes the difference between spirit and matter: on this basis, “neutral monism” arises, according to which the substance of which the world consists is neither spirit nor matter, but something that precedes both; “experience” and “the substance of the world” never coincide in time and space.

In pragmatism, the practical side of philosophy is strongly emphasized, or rather the idea of the relationship between theoretical reflections and their practical implementation (by the way, the word pragma, which underlies the name “pragmatism”, is translated from Latin as deed, action). We are often, James believes, forced to make decisions without sufficient theoretical grounds. In these cases, we are guided only by faith (or unbelief). Hence the desire of pragmatists to consider not so much knowledge as faith as the basis of our actions. (W. James “... Believe, and you will be right...”).

What is clear is that such premises testify to the strengthening of subjectivity in cognition. Let us turn to the statements of the American philosopher C. Pierce (1839 - 1914), who formulated the principle of pragmatism: in order to achieve clarity in our thoughts about any possible consequences practical nature, this object may contain. Here we see the substitution of the epistemological moment for the evaluative one, which is in conflict with the canons of both science (natural science) and rationalistic philosophy, which affirm the objectivity of true knowledge.

A pessimist philosopher, an irrationalist who denies most concepts and ideas - this is exactly how Schopenhauer Arthur appeared to the general public. But what made him so? Pushed precisely to this worldview? He always believed that the will is the cornerstone of life, that driving force that breathed life into us and commands the mind. Without the will there would be no knowledge and intellect, the development of man into what he is now. So what prompted him to take this path of reflection?

Childhood

The future philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose date of birth falls on February 28, 1788, was born into the family of a businessman and writer. From a young age, his father tried to instill in the boy a love for his work, but did not succeed in this. Arthur received education episodically: for 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 trips did not end there, and in a short period of time he visited several more European countries within 2 years.

Family

The relationship of Schopenhauer's parents was complicated. 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 side by side with her, and in 1814 they parted, but continued to maintain friendly relations. This helps the young philosopher to make many interesting and useful acquaintances among the bohemians of that time.

Adulthood

Having a rather large amount in a bank account and living on interest, Schopenhauer Arthur goes to study at the University of Göttingen as a doctor. But two years later 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 attendance left much to be desired, but those questions that really worried the future philosopher, he studied in all planes, trying to get to the heart of the problem. Such, for example, were Schelling's idea of free will or Locke's theory of secondary qualities. Plato's dialogues and Kant's construction received special attention. In 1813, Arthur Schopenhauer defended his doctoral dissertation on And after that he set to work on his main work.

Philosophical writings

It is worth considering how an unusual person was the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Interesting facts were revealed to researchers who analyzed his personal records. As it turned out, professional dissatisfaction, a thirst for fame and weak 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 received a 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 taught there at the same time, the students ignored the young assistant professor with his gloomy outlook on life. Not wanting to be the 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 teacher's path again. Even the death of an opponent in 1831 did not make the course more popular, and the young man leaves teaching forever.

Moving. Life with a clean slate

After leaving Berlin due to the cholera epidemic and moving to Frankfurt am Main, a new bachelor is “born” - Arthur briefly and rarely, but still flashed in his life. So, he received the award of the Norwegian Scientific Royal Society for his article. His publications were also not popular, and the reprint of the book, now divided into two volumes, again proved to be a failure. Negativism, misanthropy and despair grew more and more in Schopenhauer. He began to hate all philosophers in bulk and each one individually, especially Hegel, who infected all of Europe with his ideas.

Revolution

“And tomorrow there was a war…”. No, of course, there was no war, but after the revolution of 1848-1849, the worldview of people, their problems, goals and views have changed a lot. 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 in aphoristic expressions and advice that pleased compatriots. The publication of this book brought the philosopher fame and glory, which he so dreamed of.

late glory

Now Schopenhauer Arthur could be satisfied with his fate. His house was full, whole pilgrimages were made to the places of his 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 Nibelungen" with an autograph, this sign of attention biographers considered especially important.

Five years later, the second edition of The World as Will and Ethics is published, and a year later, his articles, essays and aphorisms are reprinted. But the author has not seen them. Pneumonia caught him suddenly, and on September 21, 1860, Arthur Schopenhauer died. short biography, published later, managed to convey its veracity to 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 the will began to mean a lot to the 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, then suffering does not disappear for some time, but it cannot be removed forever, which means that 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. It had a significant impact on the worldview and perception of historical events of such personalities 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, changed the opinion of their contemporaries about what life should be like. And all this could not have happened if it were not for the rejected and forgotten in his youth Arthur Schopenhauer.

Philosophy of A. Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) - German philosopher, one of the first representatives of irrationalism. Schopenhauer believed that the essence of the individual is the will, which is independent of the mind. This will is blind volition, which is inseparable from a corporeal being, namely, man. It is a manifestation of a certain cosmic force, the world will, which is the true content of all that exists.

The peculiarity of his teaching is voluntarism. Will is the beginning of any being, it gives rise to phenomena, or "representations".

The interests of the will are practical interests, and the goal of science is to satisfy these interests. Perfect knowledge is contemplation, which is free from the interests of the will and has nothing to do with practice. The field of contemplation is not science, but different kinds 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, is also subject to the laws of the empirical world.

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

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

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

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

From the book Philosophy: A Textbook for Universities author Mironov Vladimir Vasilievich

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Philosophy of A. Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is a German philosopher, one of the first representatives of irrationalism. Schopenhauer believed that the essence of the individual is the will, which is independent of the mind. This will is a blind will, which is inseparable from the bodily

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The Influence of Schopenhauer's Ideas From the end of the 19th century to the present day, Schopenhauer remains one of the most widely read philosophers. His influence goes far beyond the scope of philosophy and is not confined to the proper philosophical concepts. His theory took its place in the history of natural science

From the author's book

life path and the works of Schopenhauer Schopenhauer again lowers us to mortal earth. He was a heavy and wayward man, but his works are admirable. Since the time of Plato, there has not been a more refined style among philosophers than Schopenhauer. In addition, his

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From the works of Schopenhauer If we begin to inquisitively examine and observe any natural creature, for example, an animal in its being, life and activity, then, contrary to everything that zoology and zoothymia say about it, it will appear before us as an incomprehensible mystery. But

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Chronology of Schopenhauer's life 1788 - Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig. 1793 - before the occupation of Danzig by the Prussians, the Schopenhauer family leaves for Hamburg. 1803 travels with his family across Europe. 1805 - father's suicide. 1807 - moving to Weimar. 1811-1813 - studies in Berlin. 1814 -

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A. Schopenhauer's parable about porcupines A herd of porcupines lay down on one cold winter day in a tight heap, so that, warming themselves with mutual warmth, they would not freeze. However, they soon felt pricks from each other's needles, which forced them to lie further away from each other. Then when

Briefly about philosophy: the most important and basic about philosophy in brief
Philosophy of A. Schopenhauer

The peculiarity of his teaching is voluntarism. Will is the beginning of any being, it gives rise to phenomena, or "representations".

The interests of the will are practical interests, and the goal of science is to satisfy these interests. Perfect knowledge is contemplation, which is free from the interests of the will and has nothing to do with practice. The area of contemplation is not science, but various types of art based on intuition.

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

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

postclassical philosophy XIX-XX centuries

Postclassical philosophy of the 19th century is a stage in the development of philosophical thought that immediately precedes modern philosophy.

One of the main characteristics of this period of philosophy was irrationalism - the idea that the decisive factor in cognition, human behavior, worldview and history is not the mind, not the rational principle, but the irrational (unconscious).

Will, feeling, intuition, the unconscious, imagination, instinct, etc. become the central aspects of spiritual life. Representatives of irrationalism are A. Schopenhauer, S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche and others.

Another influential philosophical direction of this period is positivism: the source of genuine (positive), “positive” knowledge is individual concrete (empirical) sciences.

Philosophy cannot claim to be an independent study of reality. The founder of positivism is Auguste Comte. Positivism expressed the desire to strengthen the empirical-scientific aspect of philosophy up to its dissolution in the "positive" sciences. The positivists replaced the actual philosophical subject and method of research with a concrete scientific one. They denied the entire previous period in the development of philosophy and reduced it to specific sciences. In general, positivism arose as a negative reaction to Hegelian philosophy, with its speculative nature, its separation from actual reality.

In terms of ideological content, the philosophy of life is close to irrationalism - the philosophical direction of the late XIX - early XX centuries. This direction saw the main concept and subject of philosophy in the concept of "life".

Life is an organic integrity and creative dynamics of being. Representatives of this philosophical trend are F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson, W. Dilthey, G. Simmel, O. Spengler. Life is in the process of continuous becoming. It cannot be known by the rational, one-sided methods of science. Life for a person is a subject of experience. The uncontrollability of life does not become a factor of human passivity. He seeks to go beyond the boundaries of his being, above all social, to rise above his own destiny. .....................................