Episode 90, Arthur Schopenhauer (Part IV - Suffering, Aesthetics, and Ethics)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Courses

4.8 • 612 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Introduction

I am Ixion, strapped to the burning wheel of fire in the underworld that is my life. A bleak assessment to be sure, but I put it to you that it is the truth. For what is life if not an ever-swinging pendulum of pain and boredom, kept in motion by the insatiable will? I constantly strive for the things that I want, but what I want is never enough; long-term satisfaction is tedium elegantly veiled. This alone is a cruel trick to the individual, but in a world of many, it is the ultimate tragedy.

The wills of the multitude cannot avoid the inevitable conflict, as one will's ends treats another as its means. The tiger feasts on the wild dog, who feasts on the baby turtle, all to propagate life so that future generations can play out this tragic scene ad infinitum. In human life - save rare moments of true compassion - we are little better. Yet, there is a hint of salvation.

What if we all realised that, at our core, we are the same will? What if we could make the wheel of Ixion stand still, if only for a moment? Would it be possible to see beauty? Would it be possible to see to fellow sufferers rather than fellow egos? I suspect it might, but I am afraid that I, and many others, are easily fooled. 'The Will' will do as it pleases, and not what pleases us.

Contents

Part I. The Life of Arthur Schopenhauer

Part II. The World as Representation

Part III. The World as Will

Part IV. Suffering, Aesthetics, and Ethics

Part V. Further Analysis and Discussion

Links

Bernardo Kastrup, Decoding Schopenhauer's Metaphysics (book)

Christopher Janaway, Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (book)

Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (book)

Arthur Schopenhauer, Essay and Aphorisms (book)

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation — Vol. 1 (book)

Arthur Schopenhauer, The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics (book)

Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and Other Writings (book)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer (online)

Intern Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer (online)

Transcript

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0:00.0	got myself a non-alcoholic beer
0:02.0	starting early
0:03.6	we'll say in the future
0:05.1	it was around episode 90 when
0:07.2	Jack's drinking got out of hand
0:08.5	he said it was a
0:09.9	he poured alcoholic beer into non-alcoholic beer
0:12.6	bottles just to say
0:13.8	that's all the suffering in the world
0:19.1	takes the edge off pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan pan psychast Part 4. Suffering, Suffering, Aesthetics and Ethics. If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering, then our existence is the
0:54.8	most ill adapted to its purpose in the world.
0:57.9	Schopenhauer's words that.
0:59.9	When we come across Schopenhauer, we're doing our wider reading, normally the first thing
1:05.0	we're struck with is that he's the philosopher of pessimism.
1:08.9	We normally don't start with his idealism and his epistemology. The fun
1:12.6	bit or the exciting bit, or perhaps the original bit, certainly within the Western canon, is his
1:17.1	pessimism, his negative outlook on life's value. He thinks that misfortune is in general the rule,
1:24.2	that happiness isn't the rule, but the exception. Actually, in most of the time, we're deeply unhappy with the lot we've been given,
1:31.5	the state of the world and the state of our lives.
1:33.7	I just want to give a couple of things to introduce this discussion here.
1:37.0	So he says, a quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world,
1:41.0	or that they are at any rate balanced,
	...

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