PHIL 375 Lecture Notes - Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Amor Fati
22 Dec 2012
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Schopenhauer talks about illusions: of reality, of reason. Talks about a force that is behind empirical reality, and an escape from constant suffering. Sees life as endless cycle of meaningless suffering. Wants to escape this suffering through a suspension, or music. Nietzsche says that schopenhauer is an honest thinker, one that is soaked in blood. for nietzsche, truth is physical, a life force. Concepts that allow humans to use language and reason lose their pride of place in schopenhauer"s philosophy (unlike kant. ) For schopenhauer, reason allows us to have representation and thoughts, but reason does not help us to be moral, nor does it help us to create great art. Reason is only concerned with working out means to ends that are desired by a much more fundamental drive than thought: the world will, which underlies all thinking (which itself is derivative, an illusion). The subject is in the world that is represented, so the subject represents himself.
