PHIL 1750 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Arthur Schopenhauer
12 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Among unbelievers not a few maintain that life can be worthwhile and have meaning in some humanly important sense even if the religious world view is rejected. Pessimists do not present their judgements as being merely expressions of certain moods or feelings but as conclusions that are in some sense objectively warranted. Most pessimists do not make any clear separation between the statements that life is not worthwhile and that life is without meaning. Happiness according to schopenhauer, is unobtainable for the vast majority of mankind . Everything in life shows that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognized as illusion . People either fail to achieve the ends they are striving for or else they do achieve them only to find them grossly disappointing. As soon as a man discovers that a particular goal was not really worth pursuing, his eye is set on a new one. Happiness always lies in the future or the past.
