Introduction

Synthetic a priori judgements: predicate is not contained in its subject so that its denial is not a
self-contradiction. In addition, it comes from experience. That is, it is applicable to sense
perception but not abstracted from it. it is the knowledge requires both experience and reason.
Examples are shape, space and time, such knowledge is necessary for thinking.
If we can know that I exist or I am thinking, it means that I must exist somewhere. If we perceive
the world in a certain way, this means that there is a real world.
The world as will and idea: Schopenhauer believes like Berkeley, that the world as it is
perceived is a creation of the intellect which perceives it. However, for him, the reality is not
something more real, but the I. I am the substratum (foundation) of the world of phenomena.
Knowledge of oneself is the knowledge of immediate reality.
There are two worlds, the word of objects and the world of inner consciousness, our existence
which Schopenhauer calls will. Thus: “my body and my will re one. My body is the phenomenal
form of my will, my will is the noumenal form of my body: my body is appearance, my will
thing in itself.”
so there are two worlds, the world as idea, the experience, physical world, time and space is the
outer, and the inner, the reality is the thing itself.
The pessimistic outlook: will is evil and must be denied. Schopenhauer is trying to justify the
pessimistic position. For him, the each of us is an individual will, and the nature of will is to
strive to live. Therefore, every will is an ego only concern about their own self-interest. Thus, the
will creates a universal conflict. Thus, suffering is universal, happiness is negative. That is, it is
the fulfillment of desires. Nothing more.
On the suffering of the world
The amount of suffering we experience must mean that the purpose of life is to suffer. Life could
go different ways, but suffering is always there.
The nature of man is similar to a stream of flows. When things goes well, we never notice, that
is, we never really become conscious of what is agreeable to our will. But when things goes to
opposite or resists our will, we will feel the unpleasant, painful feeling instantly.
Therefore, evil is positive, it is the thing we always feel. While happiness is negative, it is the
absent of evil. It is mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain. It also seems that pain is
stronger than pleasure. That is, pleasure is much less pleasurable and pain is much more painful
[for the reason that pain is positive]. Just think about eating other things and being eaten.
For him, each person is an individual will. Each will have a desire to live so it lead to a war of
everyone against everyone.
Sometimes, suffering seems necessary, for if life always goes like how we desire, it would be
even worse.
It seems that because we are men, we have this mind, it makes our suffering even worse.
Compare to animals, we all desire the same thing, health, food, covering and so on. Yet because
of our ability of knowing the desire of past and future, it makes our suffering worse. We have
second order emotions. In addition, this known of future means we have to face death. We know
death is coming. This sense of hope and anxiety make us live not only in the present moment.
We cannot like animals enjoy the present.
On the vanity of existence
That which no longer is, is similar to that which never existed. Every is will become was.
Therefore, some unimportant now is more important than the most important past for the present
has actuality.
We suddenly exist after having infinite amount of time not existed, then live for a short while
then not exist forever.
“every evening we are poorer by a day”.
It thus seems that live in the moment is the best way to go but then again in the end the present
will be gone like a dream.
Our existence seems has no foundation than the present, that is, I am thinking, or I am suffering.
The pointless of life comes in Plato words: continual becoming but never being.
Or “in the first place, no man is happy but strives his whole life long after a supposed happiness
which he seldom attains and even if he does it is only to be disappointed with it. as a rule,
however, he finally enters harbor shipwrecked and dismasted. In the second place, however, it is
all one whether he has been happy or not in a life which consisted merely of a succession of
transient present moments and is now at an end”.
“that man is compound of needs which are hard o satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing
but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom; and that boredom is a direct
proof that existence is in itself valueless; for boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the
emptiness of existence.