Two Questions on Schopenhauer's Will and the External World

schopenhauer1 March 24, 2021 at 18:15 4250 views 8 comments Metaphysics & Epistemology

So this question is meant for people who have a pretty good understanding of Arthur Schopenhauer's metaphysical system. I am thinking about people like @Thorongil @180 Proof(maybe?), and anyone else who has studied him enough to be informed.

1.) Is the end goal of Schopenhauer's Will the world of Appearances (phenomenon) or is Appearances NOT a telos for Will? In other words are appearances some sort of "playground" for the Will to let it's own striving nature play out, or is there some other non-telos related connection between the two?

2.) If all is Will in Schopenhauer, then everyone's individual wills (lower case "w") is somehow just a manifestation of the larger Will (capital "W"). However, what about external circumstances? For example, is it that if I get sick (let's say a horrible bought of nausea), is that the Will creating that, or is that my "will" encountering some "other" that is the disease that has impinged upon my "will"? In other words, did my Will actually manifest the encounter with the disease as well? It seems that will is more suited for desiring, wanting, striving.. but not for creating "foreign" objects/wills that impinge upon my own very will. So in other words, how does Will relate to the impingement of the external world that I could not have anticipated nor created (seemingly) from my own desires and striving nature? Any number of external factors and externalities can impinge upon my being, yet how is Will related to the external factors if at root, metaphysically, everything is Will? Overall, this may be treading on the combination problem. How is the whole Will related to the parts "will" (my own) and external factors that impinge upon my being which is the source of the World through its willing nature?

Comments (8)

180 Proof March 25, 2021 at 20:14 ¶ #514589 0 likes

IIRC my readings of Schop's WWR:

1. The Will, other than being self-devouring (with "appearances" (i.e. maya) nothing more than "the 10,000" skins shed, shredded & regurgitated by the insatiable ouroboros), has no telos.

2. The Will is neither an intentional nor an intelligent agency. 'Lesser wills' (i.e. appearances) are merely ballistic flotsam and jetsam in the ceaselessly raging superstorm of the 'Greater Will' as well as its constituent ephemerae.

schopenhauer1 March 26, 2021 at 19:40 ¶ #515045 0 likes

Quoting 180 Proof

1. The Will, other than being self-devouring (with "appearances" (i.e. maya) nothing more than "the 10,000" skins shed, shredded & regurgitated by the insatiable ouroboros), has no telos.

Then why and wherefrom the world of representation/appearances? I know it's "illusion". It also is an "objectivation" of the Will. The best description I can find right now is here:

Arthur Schopenhauer, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:Yet, if the world is composed of undifferentiated willing, why does this force manifest itself in such a vast variety of ways? Schopenhauer’s reply is that the will is objectified in a hierarchy of beings. At its lowest grade, we see the will objectified in natural forces, and at its highest grade the will is objectified in the species of human being. The phenomena of higher grades of the will are produced by conflicts occurring between different phenomena of the lower grades of the will, and in the phenomenon of the higher Idea, the lower grades are subsumed. For instance, the laws of chemistry and gravity continue to operate in animals, although such lower grades cannot explain fully their movements. Although Schopenhauer explains the grades of the will in terms of development, he insists that the gradations did not develop over time, for such an understanding would assume that time exists independently of our cognitive faculties. Thus in all natural beings we see the will expressing itself in its various objectifications. Schopenhauer identifies these objectifications with the Platonic Ideas for a number of reasons. They are outside of space and time, related to individual beings as their prototypes, and ontologically prior to the individual beings that correspond to them.

Although the laws of nature presuppose the Ideas, we cannot intuit the Ideas simply by observing the activities of nature, and this is due to the relation of the will to our representations. The will is the thing in itself, but our experience of the will, our representations, are constituted by our form of cognition, the principle of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason produces the world of representation as a nexus of spatio-temporal, causally related entities. Therefore, Schopenhauer’s metaphysical system seems to preclude our having access to the Ideas as they are in themselves, or in a way that transcends this spatio-temporal causally related framework.

So if this is an accurate description of Schop's metaphysics/epistemology, then why is it that there is the Fourfold Root of the PSR, and the Platonic Ideas anyways? Why is everything not just Will if it is all unified? What is the relation of the representation to the will other than saying, it's illusion?

Quoting 180 Proof

2. The Will is neither an intentional nor an intelligent agency. 'Lesser wills' (i.e. appearances) are merely ballistic flotsam and jetsam in the ceaselessly raging superstorm of the 'Greater Will' as well as its constituent ephemerae.

Yes I get this, but how is my will related to the external factors that impinge upon my will? If everything is my will, in a sense "objectifying" (I kind of see this as "creating" the world from itself), then how is this objectifying happening for things outside my will that is external to it?

180 Proof March 26, 2021 at 20:12 ¶ #515066 0 likes

Quoting schopenhauer1

Then [s]why and wherefrom[/s] the world of representation/appearances?

There is no telos, no metaphysical why. (re #2)

[s]So if this is an accurate[/s] description of Schop's metaphysics/epistemology ...

Go to the source instead: WWR, vol 1.

... how is my will related to the external factors that impinge upon my will?

Analogously (re #2), how can rain not be related to the impact of winds in a rain storm? The Will is all, for Schop, so "external factors" are mere illusions due to the finite perspective of "your will". Each wave appears (to itself) to be (more or less) separate from, or independent of, the ocean; this, Schop, describes as a phenomenal conception (outside-in, re: FFR), and yet from within all phenomena (inside-out, contra Kant) the noumenon of The Will is the unitary force that connects each distinct, manifest, phenomenon.

schopenhauer1 March 26, 2021 at 20:31 ¶ #515073 0 likes

Quoting 180 Proof

There is no telos, no metaphysical why. (re #2)

But why would there be appearances along with Will? What is the connection? I think that is a legitimate question. The World as Will AND Representation. He seems to vacillate between
1. the world as it IS (metaphysics) which is WILL and the world as it SEEMS (appearances).. which is EPISTEMOLOGY and NOT METAPHYSICS..

AND

2. The world IS WIll and IS appearances (That seems odd though since he expounds so much about the MAYA of the appearances.. thus NOT metaphysics).

Quoting 180 Proof

Go to the source instead: WWR, vol 1.

Yeah.. may do that...

Quoting 180 Proof

Analogously (re #2), how can rain not be related to the impact of winds in a rain storm? The Will is all, for Schop, so "external factors" are mere illusions due to the finite perspective of "your will". Each wave appears (to itself) to be (more or less) separate from, or independent of, the ocean; this, Schop, describes as a phenomenal conception (outside-in, re: FFR), and yet from within all phenomena (inside-out, contra Kant) the noumenon of The Will is the unitary force that connects all distinct, manifest, phenomena.

Right but (and I could be wrong).. It seems like Schop is a RADICAL idealist.. that is to say... the world is created from MY WILL... (Which is also THE WILL).. Yet, MY WILL is somehow creating externalities that are outside my will.. and in fact, impinge upon it.

Further, if MY WILL is not THE WILL.. then the constraints of the world of appearances (PSR, causality, time, space, etc.) come from what if is all "in my head" and is an "illusion"?

He seems to be begging the question and brute asserting two aspects.. while saying ONE of those aspects is the REAL (metaphysics), and the other is just "in your head".. But how, where, why? Now that is NOT just metaphysics but something itself that needs explanation. Otherwise you are just saying, "The world is the world". That isn't saying much.

180 Proof March 26, 2021 at 20:37 ¶ #515078 0 likes

Quoting schopenhauer1

But why would there be appearances along with Will? What is the connection?

See (reread) third paragraph in previous post.

schopenhauer1 March 26, 2021 at 20:38 ¶ #515080 0 likes

Quoting 180 Proof

See (reread) third paragraph in previous post.

Yeah I get that.. but don't think it answered what I'm getting at sufficiently.

180 Proof March 26, 2021 at 20:40 ¶ #515083 0 likes

Reply to schopenhauer1 Read Schopenhauer's work. My sketches oversimplify his thought greatly.

schopenhauer1 March 26, 2021 at 20:44 ¶ #515088 0 likes

Reply to 180 Proof
I have read some of his work. I get what you're saying, I just don't think that answered it.

I get that he thinks there is Will..

I get that my "will" is this Will, and that there is a world as appearances which the will "objectifies". My question is more about really what this "objectification" of the world really "is", and why? Why not just "will"? And I think one answer may be 1. in my OP. but not necessarily "the" answer.

The PSR and causality/time/space and appearances.. needs more explanation why that needs to be in the equation along with Will.