Introduction

Schopenhauer’s philosophy stands apart from other German idealist philosophers in many
respects. Perhaps most surprising for the first time reader of Schopenhauer familiar with the
writings of other German idealists would be the clarity and elegance of his prose. Schopenhauer
was an avid reader of the great stylists in England and France, and he tried to emulate their
style in his own writings. Schopenhauer often charged more abstruse writers such as Fichte and
Hegel with deliberate obfuscation, describing the latter as a scribbler of nonsense in his second
edition of The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
Schopenhauer’s philosophy also stands in contrast with his contemporaries insofar as his
system remains virtually unchanged from its first articulation in the first edition of The World
as Will and Representation. Even his dissertation, which he wrote before he recognized the
role of the will in metaphysics, was incorporated into his mature system.

Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics and Epistemology

The starting point for Schopenhauer’s metaphysics is Immanuel Kant’s system of

transcendental idealism as explained in The Critique of Pure Reason. Although Schopenhauer
is quite critical of much of the content of Kant’s Transcendental Analytic, he endorses Kant’s
approach to metaphysics in Kant’s limiting the sphere of metaphysics to articulating the
conditions of experience rather than transcending the bounds of experience. In addition, he
accepts the results of the Transcendental Aesthetic, which demonstrate the truth of
transcendental idealism. Like Kant, Schopenhauer argues that the phenomenal world is a
representation, i.e., an object for the subject conditioned by the forms of our cognition. At the
same time, Schopenhauer simplifies the activity of the Kantian cognitive apparatus by holding
that all cognitive activity occurs according to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, that
nothing is without a reason for being.

In Schopenhauer’s dissertation, which was published under the title The Fourfold Root of
Sufficient Reason, he argues that all of our representations are connected according to one of
the four manifestations of the principle of sufficient reason, each of which concerns a different
class of objects. The principle of sufficient reason of becoming, which regards empirical
objects, provides an explanation in terms of causal necessity: any material state presupposes a
prior state from which it regularly follows. The principle of sufficient reason of knowing, which
regards concepts or judgments, provides an explanation in terms of logical necessity: if a
judgment is to be true, it must have a sufficient ground. Regarding the third branch of the
principle, that of space and time, the ground for being is mathematical: space and time are so
constituted that all their parts mutually determine one another. Finally, for the principle
regarding willing, we require as a ground a motive, which is an inner cause for that which it
was done. Every action presupposes a motive from which it follows by necessity.

Schopenhauer argues that prior philosophers, including Kant, have failed to recognize that the
first manifestation and second manifestations are distinct, and subsequently tend to conflate
logical grounds and causes. Moreover, philosophers have not heretofore recognized the
principle’s operation in the realms of mathematics and human action. Thus Schopenhauer was
confident that his dissertation not only would provide an invaluable corrective to prior accounts
of the principle of sufficient reason, but would also allow every brand of explanation to acquire
greater certainty and precision.
It should be noted that while Schopenhauer’s account of the principle of sufficient reason owes
much to Kant’s account of the faculties, his account is significantly at odds with Kant’s in
several ways. For Kant, the understanding always operates by means of concepts and
judgments, and the faculties of understanding and reason are distinctly human (at least
regarding those animate creatures with which we are familiar). Schopenhauer, however, asserts
that the understanding is not conceptual and is a faculty that both animals and humans possess.
In addition, Schopenhauer’s account of the fourth root of the principle of sufficient reason is at
odds with Kant’s account of human freedom, for Schopenhauer argues that actions follow
necessarily from their motives.

Schopenhauer incorporates his account of the principle of sufficient reason into the
metaphysical system of his chief work, The World as Will and Representation. As we have
seen, Schopenhauer, like Kant, holds that representations are always constituted by the forms
of our cognition. However, Schopenhauer points out that there is an inner nature to phenomena
that eludes the principle of sufficient reason. For example, etiology (the science of physical
causes) describes the manner in which causality operates according to the principle of sufficient
reason, but it cannot explain the natural forces that underlie and determine physical causality.
All such forces remain, to use Schopenhauer’s term, “occult qualities.”

At the same time, there is one aspect of the world that is not given to us merely as
representation, and that is our own bodies. We are aware of our bodies as objects in space and
time, as a representation among other representations, but we also experience our bodies in
quite a different way, as the felt experiences of our own intentional bodily motions (that is,
kinesthesis). This felt awareness is distinct from the body’s spatio-temporal representation.
Since we have insight into what we ourselves are aside from representation, we can extend this
insight to every other representation as well. Thus, Schopenhauer concludes, the innermost
nature [Innerste], the underlying force, of every representation and also of the world as a whole
is the will, and every representation is an objectification of the will. In short, the will is the
thing in itself. Thus Schopenhauer can assert that he has completed Kant’s project because he
has successfully identified the thing in itself.

Although every representation is an expression of will, Schopenhauer denies that every item in
the world acts intentionally or has consciousness of its own movements. The will is a blind,
unconscious force that is present in all of nature. Only in its highest objectifications, that is,
only in animals, does this blind force become conscious of its own activity. Although the
conscious purposive striving that the term ‘will’ implies is not a fundamental feature of the
will, conscious purposive striving is the manner in which we experience it and Schopenhauer
chooses the term with this fact in mind.

Hence, the title of Schopenhauer’s major work, The World as Will and Representation, aptly
summarizes his metaphysical system. The world is the world of representation, as a spatio-
temporal universal of individuated objects, a world constituted by our own cognitive apparatus.
At the same time, the inner being of this world, what is outside of our cognitive apparatus or
what Kant calls the thing-in-itself, is the will; the original force manifested in every
representation.

ii. The Ideas and Schopenhauer’s Aesthetics

Schopenhauer argues that space and time, which are the principles of individuation, are foreign
to the thing-in-itself, for they are the modes of our cognition. For us, the will expresses itself
in a variety of individuated beings, but the will in itself is an undivided unity. It is the same
force at work in our own willing, in the movements of animals, of plants and of inorganic
bodies.

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.

However, Schopenhauer asserts that there is a kind of knowing that is free from the principle
of sufficient reason. To have knowledge that is not conditioned by our forms of cognition
would be an impossibility for Kant. Schopenhauer makes such knowledge possible by
distinguishing the conditions of knowing, namely, the principle of sufficient reason, from the
condition for objectivity in general. To be an object for a subject is a condition of objects that
is more basic than the principle of sufficient reason for Schopenhauer. Since the principle of
sufficient reason allows us to experience objects as particulars existing in space and time with
a causal relation to other things, to have an experience of an object solely insofar as it presents
itself to a subject, apart from the principle of sufficient reason, is to experience an object that
is neither spatio-temporal nor in a causal relation to other objects. Such objects are the Ideas,
and the kind of cognition involved in perceiving them is aesthetic contemplation, for perception
of the Ideas is the experience of the beautiful.

Schopenhauer argues that the ability to transcend the everyday point of view and regard objects
of nature aesthetically is not available to most human beings. Rather, the ability to regard nature
aesthetically is the hallmark of the genius, and Schopenhauer describes the content of art
through an examination of genius. The genius, claims Schopenhauer, is one who has been given
by nature a superfluity of intellect over will. For Schopenhauer, the intellect is designed to
serve the will. Since in living organisms, the will manifests itself as the drive for self-
preservation, the intellect serves individual organisms by regulating their relations with the
external world in order to secure their self-preservation. Because the intellect is designed to be
entirely in service of the will, it slumbers, to use Schopenhauer’s colorful metaphor, unless the
will awakens it and sets it in motion. Therefore ordinary knowledge always concerns the
relations, laid down by the principle of sufficient reason, of objects in terms of the demands of
the will.

Although the intellect exists only to serve the will, in certain humans the intellect accorded by
nature is so disproportionately large, it far exceeds the amount needed to serve the will. In such
individuals, the intellect can break free of the will and act independently. A person with such
an intellect is a genius (only men can have such a capability according to Schopenhauer), and
this will-free activity is aesthetic contemplation or creation. The genius is thus distinguished
by his ability to engage in will-less contemplation of the Ideas for a sustained period of time,
which allows him to repeat what he has apprehended by creating a work of art. In producing a
work of art, the genius makes the beautiful accessible for the non-genius as well. Whereas non-
geniuses cannot intuit the Ideas in nature, they can intuit them in a work of art, for the artist
replicates nature in the artwork in such a manner that the viewer is capable of viewing it
disinterestedly, that is, freed from her own willing, as an Idea.

Schopenhauer states that aesthetic contemplation is characterized by objectivity. The intellect

in its normal functioning is in the service of the will. As such, our normal perception is always
tainted by our subjective strivings. The aesthetic point of view, since it is freed from such
strivings, is more objective than any other ways of regarding an object. Art does not transport
the viewer to an imaginary or even ideal realm. Rather it affords the opportunity to view life
without the distorting influence of his own will.

The Ideas and Schopenhauer’s Aesthetics

Schopenhauer argues that space and time, which are the principles of individuation, are foreign
to the thing-in-itself, for they are the modes of our cognition. For us, the will expresses itself
in a variety of individuated beings, but the will in itself is an undivided unity. It is the same
force at work in our own willing, in the movements of animals, of plants and of inorganic
bodies.

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.

However, Schopenhauer asserts that there is a kind of knowing that is free from the principle
of sufficient reason. To have knowledge that is not conditioned by our forms of cognition
would be an impossibility for Kant. Schopenhauer makes such knowledge possible by
distinguishing the conditions of knowing, namely, the principle of sufficient reason, from the
condition for objectivity in general. To be an object for a subject is a condition of objects that
is more basic than the principle of sufficient reason for Schopenhauer. Since the principle of
sufficient reason allows us to experience objects as particulars existing in space and time with
a causal relation to other things, to have an experience of an object solely insofar as it presents
itself to a subject, apart from the principle of sufficient reason, is to experience an object that
is neither spatio-temporal nor in a causal relation to other objects. Such objects are the Ideas,
and the kind of cognition involved in perceiving them is aesthetic contemplation, for perception
of the Ideas is the experience of the beautiful.

Schopenhauer argues that the ability to transcend the everyday point of view and regard objects
of nature aesthetically is not available to most human beings. Rather, the ability to regard nature
aesthetically is the hallmark of the genius, and Schopenhauer describes the content of art
through an examination of genius. The genius, claims Schopenhauer, is one who has been given
by nature a superfluity of intellect over will. For Schopenhauer, the intellect is designed to
serve the will. Since in living organisms, the will manifests itself as the drive for self-
preservation, the intellect serves individual organisms by regulating their relations with the
external world in order to secure their self-preservation. Because the intellect is designed to be
entirely in service of the will, it slumbers, to use Schopenhauer’s colorful metaphor, unless the
will awakens it and sets it in motion. Therefore ordinary knowledge always concerns the
relations, laid down by the principle of sufficient reason, of objects in terms of the demands of
the will.

Although the intellect exists only to serve the will, in certain humans the intellect accorded by
nature is so disproportionately large, it far exceeds the amount needed to serve the will. In such
individuals, the intellect can break free of the will and act independently. A person with such
an intellect is a genius (only men can have such a capability according to Schopenhauer), and
this will-free activity is aesthetic contemplation or creation. The genius is thus distinguished
by his ability to engage in will-less contemplation of the Ideas for a sustained period of time,
which allows him to repeat what he has apprehended by creating a work of art. In producing a
work of art, the genius makes the beautiful accessible for the non-genius as well. Whereas non-
geniuses cannot intuit the Ideas in nature, they can intuit them in a work of art, for the artist
replicates nature in the artwork in such a manner that the viewer is capable of viewing it
disinterestedly, that is, freed from her own willing, as an Idea.

Schopenhauer states that aesthetic contemplation is characterized by objectivity. The intellect

in its normal functioning is in the service of the will. As such, our normal perception is always
tainted by our subjective strivings. The aesthetic point of view, since it is freed from such
strivings, is more objective than any other ways of regarding an object. Art does not transport
the viewer to an imaginary or even ideal realm. Rather it affords the opportunity to view life
without the distorting influence of his own will.
b. The Human Will: Agency, Freedom, and Ethical Action
i. Agency and Freedom
Any account of human agency in Schopenhauer must be given in terms of his account of the
will. For Schopenhauer, all acts of will are bodily movements, and thus are not the internal
cause of bodily movements. What distinguishes an act of will from other events, which are also
expressions of the will, is that it meets two criteria: it is a bodily movement caused by a motive,
and it is accompanied by a direct awareness of this movement. Schopenhauer provides both a
psychological and physiological account of motives. In his psychological account, motives are
causes that occur in the medium of cognition, or internal causes. Motives are mental events
that arise in response to an awareness of some motivating object. Schopenhauer argues that
these mental events can never be desires or emotions: desires and emotions are expressions of
the will and thus are not included under the class of representations. Rather, a motive is the
awareness of some object of representation. These representations can be abstract; thinking the
concept of an object, or intuitive; perceiving an object. Thus Schopenhauer provides a causal
picture of action, and it is one in which mental events cause physical events.

In Schopenhauer’s physiological account of motives, motives are brain processes that cause
certain neural activities and these translate into bodily motion. The psychological and physical
accounts are consistent insofar as Schopenhauer has a dual-aspect view of the mental and
physical. The mental and the physical are not two causally linked realms, but two aspects of
the same nature, where one cannot be reduced to or explained by the other. It is important to
underscore the fact that in the physiological account, the will is not a function of the brain.
Rather it is present as irritability in the muscular fibers of the whole body.

According to Schopenhauer, the will, as muscular irritability, is a continual striving for activity
in general. Because this striving has no direction, it aims at all directions at once and thus
produces no physical movement. However, when the nervous system provides the direction for
this movement (that is, when motives act on the will), the movement is given direction and
bodily movement occurs. The nerves do not move the muscles, rather they provide the occasion
for the muscles’ movements.

The causal mechanism in acts of will is necessary and lawful, as are all causal relations in
Schopenhauer’s view. Acts of will follow from motives with the same necessity that the motion
of a billiard ball follows from its being struck. Yet this account leads to a problem concerning
the unpredictability of acts: if the causal process is law governed, and if acts of will are causally
determined, Schopenhauer must account for the fact that human actions are unpredictable. This
unpredictability of human action, he argues, is due to the impossibility of knowing
comprehensively the character of an individual. Each character is unique, and thus it is
impossible to predict fully how a motive or set of motives will effect bodily motion. In addition,
we usually do not know what a person’s beliefs are concerning the motive, and these beliefs
influence how she will respond to it. However, if we had a full account of a person’s character
as well as her beliefs, we could with scientific accuracy predict what bodily motion would
result from a particular motive.

Schopenhauer distinguishes between causation that occurs through stimuli, which is

mechanistic, and that which occurs through motives. Each kind of causality occurs with
necessity and lawfulness. The difference between these different classifications of causes
regards the commensurability and proximity of cause and the effect, not their degree of
lawfulness. In mechanical causation, the cause is contiguous and commensurate to the effect,
both cause and effect are easily perceived, and therefore their causal lawfulness is clear. For
instance, a billiard ball must be struck in order to move, and the force in which one ball hits
will be equal to the force in which the other ball moves. In stimuli, causes are proximate: there
is no separation between receiving the impression and being determined by it. At the same
time, cause and effect are not always commensurate: for instance, when a plant reaches up to
the sun, the sun as cause makes no motion to produce the effect of the plant’s movement. In
motive causality, the cause is neither proximate nor commensurate: the memory of Helen can
cause whole armies to run to battle, for instance. Consequently the lawfulness in motive
causality is difficult, if not impossible, to perceive.

Because human action is causally determined, Schopenhauer denies that humans can freely
choose how they respond to motives. In any course of events, one and only one course of action
is available to the agent, and the agent performs that action with necessity. Schopenhauer must,
then, account for the fact that agents experience their own actions as contingent. Moreover, he
must account for the active nature of agency, the fact that agents experience their actions as
things they do and not things that happen to them.

Schopenhauer gives an explanation of the active nature of agency, but not in terms of the causal
efficacy of agents. Instead, the key to accounting for human agency lies in the distinction
between one’s intelligible and empirical character. Our intelligible character is our character
outside of space and time, and is the original force of the will. We cannot have access to our
intelligible character, as it exists outside our forms of knowing. Like all forces in nature, it is
original, inalterable and inexplicable. Our empirical character is our character insofar as it
manifests itself in individual acts of will: it is, in short, the phenomenon of the intelligible
character. The empirical character is an object of experience and thus tied to the forms of
experience, namely space, time and causality.

However, the intelligible character is not determined by these forms, and thus is free.
Schopenhauer calls this freedom transcendental, as it is outside the realm of experience.
Although we can have no experience of our intelligible character, we do have some awareness
of the fact that our actions issue from it and thus are very much our own. This awareness
accounts for our experiencing our deeds as both original and spontaneous. Thus our deeds are
both events linked with other events in a lawfully determined causal chain and acts that issue
directly from our own characters. Our actions can embody both these otherwise contradictory
characterizations because these characterizations refer to the deeds from two different aspects
of our characters, the empirical and the intelligible.

Our characters also explain why we attribute moral responsibility to agents even though acts
are causally necessitated. Characters determine the consequences that motives effect on our
bodies. Yet, states Schopenhauer, our characters are entirely our own: our characters are
fundamentally what we are. This is why we assign praise or blame not to acts but to the agents
who commit them. And this is why we hold ourselves responsible: not because we could have
acted differently given who we are, but that we could have been different from who we are.
Although there is not freedom in our action, there is freedom in our essence, our intelligible
character, insofar as our essence lies outside the forms of our cognition, that is to say, space,
time and causality.

3. Schopenhauer’s Pessimism
Schopenhauer’s pessimism is the most well known feature of his philosophy, and he is often
referred to as the philosopher of pessimism. Schopenhauer’s pessimistic vision follows from
his account of the inner nature of the world as aimless blind striving.

Because the will has no goal or purpose, the will’s satisfaction is impossible. The will
objectifies itself in a hierarchy of gradations from inorganic to organic life, and every grade of
objectification of the will, from gravity to animal motion, is marked by insatiable striving. In
addition, every force of nature and every organic form of nature participates in a struggle to
seize matter from other forces or organisms. Thus existence is marked by conflict, struggle and
dissatisfaction.

The attainment of a goal or desire, Schopenhauer continues, results in satisfaction, whereas the
frustration of such attainment results in suffering. Since existence is marked by want or
deficiency, and since satisfaction of this want is unsustainable, existence is characterized by
suffering. This conclusion holds for all of nature, including inanimate natures, insofar as they
are at essence will. However, suffering is more conspicuous in the life of human beings because
of their intellectual capacities. Rather than serving as a relief from suffering, the intellect of
human beings brings home their suffering with greater clarity and consciousness. Even with
the use of reason, human beings can in no way alter the degree of misery we experience; indeed,
reason only magnifies the degree to which we suffer. Thus all the ordinary pursuits of mankind
are not only fruitless but also illusory insofar as they are oriented toward satisfying an
insatiable, blind will.

Since the essence of existence is insatiable striving, and insatiable striving is suffering,
Schopenhauer concludes that nonexistence is preferable to existence. However, suicide is not
the answer. One cannot resolve the problem of existence through suicide, for since all existence
is suffering, death does not end one’s suffering but only terminates the form that one’s suffering
takes. The proper response to recognizing that all existence is suffering is to turn away from or
renounce one’s own desiring. In this respect, Schopenhauer’s thought finds confirmation in the
Eastern texts he read and admired: the goal of human life is to turn away from desire. Salvation
can only be found in resignation.