SCHOPENHAUER - Metaphysics, Love, and Sex

hello and welcome to the preceptor today we're going to talk about Arthur schopenhauer Arthur schopenhauer was a German philosopher from the late 18th and early 19th centuries he had a rather unique worldview but also a very dark very pessimistic one and today I'd like to present the main principles of his philosophy because I am certain they'll give you something to think about but first who was schopenhauer schopenhauer was a rather peculiar man both in his philosophy and his personality he was quite bitter rather misanthropic and didn't hesitate to attack his intellectual adversaries headon even with

insults in schopenhauer's time the most famous and popular philosopher was Hegel and schopenhauer hated Hegel he hated him so much that he even asked for his lectures at the University of Berlin to be scheduled on the same day and at the same time as Hegel just to compete with him unfortunately for schopenhauer hegel's lecture hall was packed while his own was almost empty that's why schopenhauer called Hegel a university philosopher and coming from him that wasn't a compliment if you know what I mean in schopenhauer's view the university doesn't teach real philosophy it teaches official

institutional philosophy to him the University is the ideological arm of the state and therefore of power and a true philosopher can't be validated by power if he is then he's not a true philosopher so schopenhauer was a rebellious philosopher a defiant philosopher but maybe also a philosopher who was a bit frustrated by not being recognized in his time as a great thinker so I was saying that schopenhauer had a rather unique worldview well let's dive into it he presents this worldview in his most well-known work a Monumental book titled the world as will and representation

published in 1818 in this book schopenhauer explains that the world around us the world as we see it as we perceive it is not the true World rather it's the envelope of the world what we might call the outer face of the world this is what he calls the world as representation he uses the term representation because it's the world as we represent it to ourselves so what are the main characteristics of the world as a representation there are three the first characteristic of the world as a representation is that it's made of matter the

world as we perceive it is a physical world a world made of earth water and air a world of mountains forests and oceans it's a tangible world what Plato called the s ible World by the way when we speak of the world the image that usually comes to mind is that of our planet or the cosmos in other words the physical universe so ultimately saying that the world as representation is material and saying that it is perceptible is really saying the same thing because perception deals with material things so that's the first characteristic of the

world as representation it's a material world the second characteristic is that the world as representation is governed by a law the law of causality in other words everything that happens has a cause that's the law of causality every event has a cause therefore the world is representation is rational and if it's rational that means it's understandable this is what scientists do they try to understand how the world works and they can do this precisely because the world is rational if the world weren't rational if there could be effects without causes or effects that have no

connection to their causes the world would not be understandable so to recap the world is representation is material and therefore perceptible it's rational and therefore understandable but that's not all the world as representation is also the world of space and time in our world everything necessarily exists in a given space and at a given time this is why it's impossible to imagine something outside of space and time for example we cannot picture the idea of infinite distance because Infinity doesn't fit in our minds we also cannot picture Eternal time time without a beginning or an

end we can understand the concept of Eternity just as we can understand the concept of Infinity but we cannot represent them to ourselves that's the point everything we represent to ourselves we represent here or there above or below to the left or to the right we represent it now or before or after things have limits in space and time so those are the three main characteristics of the world as a representation it is material it is rational and it exists in space and time now let's move on to the world as will what is schopenhauer

mean by will the will schopenhauer talks about isn't will in the human sense of the word it's not intention or decision the will he's referring to is the internal energy of the world it's the invisible force that animates everything in the visible world it's what we might call The elusive core of reality why is it elusive because the human mind can't represent will as I mentioned earlier the human mind can't imagine anything outside of space and time yet this will is outside of space and time in the same way we might say that God is

outside of space and time he is beyond it the will isn't God but like God the will is beyond the capacities of our intellect so we cannot represent the will we cannot know the will in the sense that we cannot mentally picture it but we can know the effects of the will we can know its expression now the expression of the will is the world as representation and it is no coincidence that I'm using the word expression which comes from the Latin expr meaning to press out or to push out in this sense the world

as representation is what is pushed out it is what is expressed by the world as will let me put it another way for schopenhauer the will is the inner reality of the world while representation is the outer reality the surface of the world let's use an image the image of the ocean the surface of the ocean is its representation it's what we perceive what is expressed by the ocean meanwhile the will is the ocean's depths the surface of the ocean is visible accessible to our senses and accessible to knowledge the ocean's depths however are inaccessible

to us of course this analogy isn't perfect because we can dive into the ocean but we can't dive into the will we are bound to remain at the surface in the world of representation so what schopenhauer tells us is that in the end we don't really know the world we only know its surface its outer layer its representation now we need to make one thing clear for us for most ordinary human beings the world as representation is the only world that exists what I mean is when you look at the world around you you don't

say to yourself this world I perceive is the world as representation you just say this is the world plain and simple if you have a bottle of water in front of you you have a bottle of water if you have a tree in front of you you have a tree period you don't have the representation of a bottle of water or the representation of a tree in other words for us the world is what we see of the world it's what we perceive of the world that's the only reality what our senses allow us to

perceive or perhaps what our measuring instruments allow us to perceive we don't perceive radio waves with the naked eye just like we don't see certain colors with the naked eye like infrared or ultraviolet and yet we know they exist how do we know they exist we know because we have measuring instruments that allow us to perceive what our senses alone cannot but do these instruments allow us to go beyond the world as representation do they allow us to pierce the mystery of the will no because the will belongs to a different order of reality an

order that is beyond or rather beneath perception beneath representation when scientists produce knowledge they produce knowledge about physical reality about material reality they produce knowledge about the world as representation what schopenhauer tells us is that there is an underworld and that this underworld is the real world while our world is a false world a world of Illusions so let's dive a bit deeper into this human beings possess Consciousness so far nothing too complicated Consciousness makes humans animals capable of representing the world they live in to represent doesn't just mean to perceive it also means to

think we represent the world both through our senses and intellectually conceptually that's what it means to say that humans have the ability to represent the world so humans are animals endowed with Consciousness and they take great pride in that what I mean is humans are convinced that because of their Consciousness they are superior to other animals and we can understand why thanks to Consciousness we can study understand and therefore Master the world we live in that's no small thing but what schopenhauer tells us is that this faculty of representation that humans possess is ultimately not

much humans are wrong to believe they are superior just because they have Consciousness because even if we can understand how the world Works according to the principle of causality we mentioned earlier we remain fundamentally incapable of grasping its deeper meaning we figured out some things about the world gravity fluid mechanics the evolution of species Etc but the deeper meaning of existence escapes us the deeper meaning of reality escapes us we know how the world works at least in part but we still don't know why the world exists why is there something rather than nothing that's

the great metaphysical question posed by Li Nets and it's a question we cannot answer so it's all well and good to say that we are superior animals capable of understanding how the world around us works but the reality is we only understand the surface of our world to truly grasp the world in its Essence in its depth we would need to penetrate the will of the world and that we are structurally incapable of doing so if the will is inacessible to us if it's impossible to know anything about it then what can we say about

it isn't schopenhauer contradicting himself by talking about a world he claims we can't say anything about well not exactly remember what I mentioned earlier I said that the world as representation is an expression of the world as will let me use a different word instead of expression manifestation the world is representation is a manifestation of the world as will and we as human beings as products of the world as beings born from the world are manifestations of the will so if we were able to truly know ourselves we would also be able to know an

aspect of the will the aspect under which the will manifests itself through US does that make sense so what does man know about himself he knows he's alive that's the most basic thing about being human we're alive I'm pretty sure I'm not telling you anything new now if we ask the question why do we live well that's where things get more complicated you might be tempted to say we live because we live what more is there to say we live because about 4 billion years ago amino acids formed from organic matter those amino acids combined

to form proteins and through interactions with their environment those proteins gave rise to complex structures capable of reproducing that's the origin of Life great but why did this happen why these amino acids why these proteins why life in other words we know how life appeared but we don't know why life appeared and to that why sh how has an answer the will it is the will that makes life exist everything that exists comes from the will and what do we know about life we know that its fundamental characteristic is to seek to perpetuate itself and

in animals how does life perpetuate itself well it perpetuates through the Instinct of reproduction all animals have the instinct to reproduce and that instinct is just one part of a bigger instinct the Instinct for self-preservation or what we also call the survival Instinct now why is the instinct to reproduce a part of the survival Instinct because on a collective level at the level of the species not reproducing means condemning oneself to Extinction if we stopped reproducing right now in about a 100 years Humanity would no longer exist so from a strictly biological point of view

the sexual act isn't just about pleasure its main purpose is to preserve the species to safeguard it and that's something we need to keep in mind so let's go back to life we don't know the purpose of life but perhaps the question doesn't even make sense the only purpose of life that we know for sure is self-perpetuation life seeks to perpetuate itself indefinitely and to do that it drives us to reproduce well that's what the will is a blind absurd force that seeks to perpetuate itself indefinitely and for that it takes the form of what

schopenhauer calls the will to live and we as living beings are the instruments of this will to live we are instruments of the will which needs us to perpetuate Itself by reproducing we give life to the will so to speak in the sense that we extend its existence by extending our own in itself the will is personal as I mentioned earlier the will is a blind Force but it's a blind force that incarnates itself it incarnates itself in living species and in the individuals that make up these species in this sense every living being participates

in the will since every living being is endowed with an instinct for survival conservation and reproduction which allows it to perpetuate the will while also perpetuating itself okay I know my argument might sound a bit strange to you because in our everyday lives we don't really think about it that way we don't go around thinking that when we want to have kids is to keep the will going we just think we want kids to watch them grow raise them and love them we don't see it as following the will we see it as something we

simply want to do but schopenhauer says that's just an illusion we hide the fact that we're biologically programmed meaning driven by the will to reproduce behind all the talk about how great it is to become parents and how much we love our kids and when I say hide I don't mean we're doing it on purpose we're not even aware of it we don't realize that by having kids we're actually just helping to keep the will going can you imagine if right before having sex you thought I'm working for the will I'm about to contribute to

the perpetuation of the will to live that would be pretty awkward and yet that's exactly what's happening each of us is an individual agent of the will and when we decide to have children when we decide to reproduce we aren't aware that in fact we're just instruments of the will which uses us as a way to perpetuate itself so what bugs us about this idea what really bothers us is that it takes away our sense of free will it turns us into nothing more than instruments of the will what schopenhauer tells us is that we

aren't really free we aren't free in the sense that we're determined by the will to want what we want to decide what we decide and to do what we do in fact the example of sexuality fits perfectly when we feel sexual desire for someone it's not something we choose it's a force from deep within us that takes hold of us sexual desire isn't rational or thought out it's a drive a drive that is the source of Life which means it's the source of our desire to have children today we tend to separate sexual desire from

reproduction because we've invented contraception with contraception we can engage in sex without the risk of having children but for millions of years sexuality and reproduction weren't separate they were linked having sex inherently carried the risk of having children so there was a good reason to think twice a good reason to control our impulses rather than letting our impulses control us so we aren't free as individuals we aren't free because we unknowingly obey the all powerful will and if we think we're free it's precisely because we aren't aware that we're working for the will if we

were aware maybe we'd stop working for it maybe we'd stop reproducing stop participating in the fundamental absurdity of existence as an act of defiance but the truth is we don't know some of you might know the movie The Usual Suspects in the movie five criminals are being questioned by the police about a massacre that happened on a boat at one point the name of the person responsible for the massacre comes up Kaiser sza Kaiser sza is the figure of a criminal who terrifies everyone including other criminals because he's as intelligent as he is ruthless the

peculiarity of caser sza is that the people who work for him don't know they're working for him they can meet him talk to him even interrogate him and never realize he's kaser sza or they figure it out when it's already too late well the will is like Kaiser sza it makes individuals work in the world of representation without telling them without even letting them realize it and yet they do they do it willingly what's more effective than getting people to work not because you ask them to but because they want to when we reproduce when

we have kids we do it willingly we don't feel like we're doing it for someone else or for some other reason that's the trick the will doesn't tell us it's there but it's still running the show think about it life has no real purpose but we keep rep producing it life has no meaning but we still want to live isn't that pretty much the definition of absurdity and this brings us to a very interesting aspect of schopenhauer's philosophy the question of love so what is love well it probably won't surprise you to hear that for

schopenhauer love is just another illusion it's a trick the will plays on us to make sure we keep the species going to make sure we agree to the never- ending cycle of Life what happens when we're in love when we're in love we want to unite with the person we love in every sense of the word and from that love a child will be born love then is the means by which the will ensures its own perpetuation now you might say but love isn't what makes us reproduce it's sexual desire that makes us reproduce yes

but for schopenhauer love and sexual desire are essentially the same thing or rather love is the culturally acceptable form of sexual desire I mentioned earlier that man is an animal but he's an animal that refuses to accept his own animality even though we know biologically speaking that we are animals there's something in us that refuses is to accept this it's like we want to be more than animals the idea that we could behave exactly like animals copulating instinctively and leaving behind Offspring is something our conscience can't bear but for schopenhauer that's just vanity Pride another

illusion ultimately what is human intelligence if not the ability to place a veil of Illusions over reality so we do not accept the fact that we are animals and to mask this reality to conceal it from our Consciousness we create Illusions cultural artifices love is a cultural artifice and romantic seduction is the strategy humans use to forget that when they're attracted to someone of the opposite sex what they really desire deep down is to reproduce with them seduction is a roundabout path to reproduction which ultimately means the perpetuation of the species so just keep in

mind ladies that when a guy's flirting with you what he's really doing is trying to keep the species going through you and if you go along with it you're agreeing to do the same through him basically the whole process of seduction is like a maze it's all about getting to the sexual act but it also tries to make you forget that that's the real goal and that's why schopenhauer has a problem with human beings because he has a problem with hypocrisy hypocrisy because when we seduce we do everything to hide our real intentions we do

everything to cover up the destination we hope the seduction will lead to the bedroom that's the real end goal the rest Smiles compliments attention are just decoration they're the garlands we place on our instincts to forget that we're driven by them to forget that at the core we're still Animals by the way schopenhauer has an amusing phrase he says it is after copulation that the devil's laughter is heard what he means is that it's after the sexual act is finished that one becomes aware of its absurdity he seems to be referring more to men here

though the feeling could apply to anyone after sex the feeling of shame that overwhelms humans is actually a moment of Lucidity a realization of our animality and this animality this raw and primitive force that shows itself through sexual Instinct in a totally irrational and uncontrolled way is the will so love is Nature's trick the Will's trick to make us consent to the endless repetition of the cycle of life but at the root of Love at the root of all desire for Union lies sexual Instinct sexual instinct is the Alpha and Omega of life and I

quote sexual passion is the cause of War and the end of Peace the basis of what is serious and the AIM of the G the inexhaustible source of wit the key to all Illusions and the meaning of all mysterious hints of all unspoken offers and all stolen glances the daily meditation of the young and often also of the old the hourly thought of the unchaste and even against their will the constantly recurring imagination of the chaste the ever ready material of a joke just because the profoundest seriousness lies at its foundation it is however the

peak and element in the joke of life that the chief concern of all men is secretly pursued and ostensibly ignored as much as possible indeed one may say man is concrete sexual desire for his origin is an act of copulation and His Wish of wishes is an act of copulation and this tendency alone perpetuates and holds together his whole phenomenal existence the will to live manifests itself indeed primarily as an effort to sustain the individual yet this is only a step to the effort to sustain Ain the species and the latter Endeavor must be more

powerful in proportion as the life of the species surpasses that of the individual in duration extension and value therefore sexual passion is the most perfect manifestation of the will to live for schopenhauer existence is a tragedy it's a tragedy because life is absurd and yet we do everything we can to perpetuate this absurdity life isn't just absurd it's also a source of suffering life schopenhauer tells us oscillates like a pendulum from suffering to boredom and because existence is a tragedy it's something that must eventually come to an end for schopenhauer it's very clear we must

stop reproducing we must stop participating in this endless perpetuation of the will which is nothing but a cycle of suffering and unhappiness life might offer a few rare moments of Happiness like the joy of aesthetic contemplation but beyond that there's nothing to hope for in life nothing to hope for in an absurd world nothing to hope for from a world of suffering on that note enjoy life [Music] [Music]