The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers

Schopenhauer was the prophet of a pessimistic era. By 1818, when his first book was published, the French Revolution had exposed the hollowness of the old European order, and yet France itself was once again under Bourbon rule following Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815. Neither the past nor the future seemed to offer any satisfactory answers. The Enlightenment attack had undermined faith in religion, but in a time of despair, no form of consolation had taken its place. It was to prove a fertile environment for philosophers of gloom and even nihilism.

Schopenhauer’s life was as sad as his philosophy, until his final years when he achieved a degree of popularity and recognition among the fellow titans of German culture. Schopenhauer’s text is refreshingly clear, especially compared to his fellow German Kant. However, its accessibility revealed the full scope of its pessimism to readers, especially his fellow philosophers who saw in his teachings a denial of their field’s very usefulness.

Schopenhauer accepted Kant’s postulate that “the external world is known to us only through our sensations and ideas” (335), except he believed that the truth lies within human nature rather than in Kant’s ethereal logic. Human nature is, at its core, “a striving, persistent vital forces, a spontaneous activity, a will of imperious desire” (339) over which intellect provides a thin veil. As soon as the will asserts itself strongly enough, the intellect invariably gives way, revealing the essence of the person through what they desire. The body works nonstop to keep itself alive, while the intellect shuts itself off for roughly one-third of a person’s life. The brain sleeps while the heart fights off eternal sleep.

Every living thing on earth is driven primarily by its will to survive, or else they would be at the mercy of natural forces. Animals show incredible industry, or an instinct for danger, while plants find ways to grow in the least hospitable conditions. Though all living things must eventually die, the will to reproduce is the next best thing to immortality (although Schopenhauer himself showed no interest in romantic partnerships or children). This reproductive drive operates as an instinct that requires no intellectual cultivation: Animals simply know how to pass on their genes.

Sexual attraction is itself motivated primarily by the prospects of recreation rather than some abstract notion of beauty or congeniality. In fact, one who marries for love “must live in sorrow” (347) since they have prioritized their own emotional gratification over the human race’s collective will to perpetuate itself. The one procreating must think of themselves as acting on behalf of the entire species, as all human beings are part of a collective will. Furthermore, there is nothing more to hope for than perpetuating the species: Everyone thinks they hold the key to improving on the past, but they ultimately relive it, repeatedly, so long as the species endures.

The inner life of a being is desire, in part because the outside world is evil and full of suffering, leaving the being to fulfill whatever meager provisions they can from nature’s caprice. The need for pleasure stems from the experience of pain, and so one is not necessarily seeking joy or fulfillment, but relief from the normally sorry condition of either experiencing pain or dreading further pain. Education only magnifies one’s awareness of this bleak condition, so that “he that increaseth knowledge, therefore, increaseth sorrow” (353).

Life is also pain because every species is at constant war with all others for survival, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to achieve respite from this exhausting and depressing condition. The only way to be happy is to be thoroughly ignorant of this condition, and so younger people tend to be happier due to their lack of experience with the true nature of things. The little wisdom that might come from greater knowledge of the world is more than offset by the physical and psychological toll of life itself. Nevertheless, even as the individual breaks down and ultimately dies, the species marches on.

For Schopenhauer, the philosopher lives the best possible life, for it limits the will and maximizes the intellect, at least as much as that is possible. “Genius” (363) is the ability to think of the world outside of one’s desires, and see it precisely for what it is. This requires the genius to separate themselves from other people who presumably lack their intellectual fortitude, but nature will reward genius in a way that other human beings never could. Another way to escape the travails of life is through art, which is done for the sake of higher truths than self-preservation, and which tries to capture the merest flicker of beauty in a horrific world.

In conclusion, there is much to critique about Schopenhauer’s brutal pessimism, with some seeing it as an indictment of the philosopher’s own snobbery or blunted ambition, but Durant finds a “blunt honesty” (379) that would have an important influence on the 20th-century practice of psychoanalysis.