Schopenhauer: Arguments of the Philosophers

189 Pages·1999·10.56 MB·English

by  D.w. Hamlyn

SCHOPENHAUER
The Arguments of
the Philosophers
EDITOR: TED HONDERICH
The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and
history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book
constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher
of major influence and significance.
Plato J. C. B. Gosling
Augustine Christopher Kirwan
The Presocratic Philosophers Jonathan Barnes
Plotinus Lloyd P. Gerson
The Sceptics R. J. Hankinson
Socrates Gerasimos Xenophon Santas
Berkeley George Pitcher
Descartes Margaret Dauler Wilson
Hobbes Tom Sorell
Locke Michael Ayers
Spinoza R. J. Delahunty
Bentham Ross Harrison
Hume Barry Stroud
Butler Terence Penelhum
John Stuart Mill John Skorupski
Thomas Reid Keith Lehrer
Kant Ralph C. S. Walker
Hegel M. J. Inwood
Schopenhauer D. W Hamlyn
Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
Nietzsche Richard Schacht
Karl Marx Allen W. Wood
Gottlob Frege Hans D. Sluga
Meinong Reinhardt Grossmann
Husserl David Bell
G. E. Moore Thomas Baldwin
Wittgenstein Robert J. Fogelin
Russell Mark Sainsbury
William James Graham Bird
Peirce Christopher Hookway
Santayana Timothy L. S. Sprigge
Dewey J. E. Tiles
Bergson A. R. Lacey
J. L. Austin G.J. Warnock
Karl Popper Anthony O'Hear
Ayer John Foster
Sartre Peter Caws
SCHOPENHAUER
The Arguments of the Philosophers
D. W. Hamlyn
London and New York
First published 1980 by Routledge & Kegan Paul pk
First published in paperback 1985
This edition reprinted in hardback 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 1980 D. W. Hamlyn
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd,
Chippenham, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-20369-4
ISBN 0-415-20392-9 (set)
Publisher's note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original book may be apparent.
Contents
Preface page vii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Fourfold Root 10
The principle of sufficient reason of becoming —
causality 16
The principle of sufficient reason of knowing —
reason and truth 22
The principle of sufficient reason of being —
space, time and mathematics 30
The principle of sufficient reason of acting —
the will and motivation 34
General remarks and results 3 8
3 Schopenhauer and Kant 41
4 The World as Representation 5 3
The scheme of faculties 54
Transcendental idealism 63
Logic, mathematics, science and metaphysics 73
5 The World as Will 80
Body, will and agency 82
The thing-in-itself 92
The will 94
6 The Ideas 103
Aesthetic experience 110
The individual arts 115
CONTENTS
7 Ethics 123
Freedom of the will 124
The basis of morality 133
Virtue 142
Salvation 147
8 Aspects of Human Life 156
9 Conclusion 164
Notes 171
Bibliography 174
Index 177
VI
Preface
Many people have come to know of Schopenhauer through collec-
tions of his essays, for the most part selections from his Parerga
and Paralipomena, that have appeared in various translations and
in many forms. That, as I shall indicate, is not the best way to
arrive at an understanding of his philosophy. For that it is essential
to go to his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. That
book has appeared in many German editions. For a very long time
the only English translation of the work was that by R. B. Haldane
and J. Kemp (1883). There is now available, however, a newer and
in many ways more accurate translation by E. F. J. Payne, based
on the German edition of Schopenhauer's works edited by Arthur
Hübscher. Both this translation and Hübscher's edition of the
German text of Schopenhauer's main work are available in paper-
back form, and are the most readily accessible versions for anyone
who wishes to purchase the work (although Payne's translation is
published in the USA). Payne's translation is a fine one and I have
made extensive use of it, although there are perhaps points at
which it lacks a certain philosophical sophistication.
Nevertheless, the Haldane and Kemp translation has many
virtues, even if it is not based on a recent or the most accurate edi-
tion of the text. Moreover, it is likely to be the version to be
found in many libraries. In my references to passages from Schop-
enhauer's main work I have therefore given references to both
. translations. The first reference in each case is to the volume, sec-
tion and page of the Payne translation, the second is to the volume
and page of the Haldane and Kemp translation. The references are
prefaced by WR and WI respectively, to correspond to the two
titles The World as Will and Representation and The World as Will
and Idea.
vii
PREFACE
In the case of the other works by Schopenhauer there is less of
a problem. The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Rea-
son was for long available in English only in the translation by
Madame K. Hillebrand, together with The Will in Nature, in Bohn's
Philosophical Library, published by G. Bell and Sons. That version
remains the only source in English for The Will in Nature and ref-
erence must be made to it. The Fourfold Root is now available in
a translation by E. F. J. Payne, and although published in paper-
back in the USA is readily obtainable. It is unlikely that many
readers will have access to the Hillebrand translation. I have there-
fore given references to the Payne translation (section and page
reference in each case, prefaced by FR). For the two essays On the
Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morality I have made
reference to the translations by K. Kolenda and E. F. J. Payne
respectively, both published in paperback by Bobbs-Merrill in the
USA in the Library of Living Arts, and readily obtainable. I have
referred to them as FW, followed by page reference, and BM,
followed by section number and page reference. The complete
Parerga and Paralipomena are published in a translation by E. F. J.
Payne by Clarendon Press and my references are to that edition
(PP, followed by volume number and page reference). Further
details of all these works are given in the bibliography. I have not
made reference to any other collection of essays.
There are very few good books in English on Schopenhauer.
The one by Patrick Gardiner published by Penguin is almost the
only exception to that rule and I have consulted it extensively.
Despite my heavy reliance on the translations given above, I
have consulted the German text also and the translations of pass-
ages quoted are in all cases my own. Despite this an acknowledg-
ment of debt to E. F. J. Payne's translations is inevitable and
certainly called for. I therefore acknowledge a great debt to his
fine work with gratitude.
I have lectured to students at Birkbeck College on matters
connected with the book and I am grateful for their comments,
and also those of some of my colleagues. I am particularly grateful
to Ruby Meager, with whom I have discussed several issues con-
cerning Schopenhauer, often over lunch and with obvious risk to
her digestion.
I am grateful, finally, to Miss Hilary Crewes for secretarial assist-
ance of various kinds.
vui
l
Introduction
It is sometimes said of Schopenhauer that he was not a very sys-
tematic thinker. There is a sense in which this judgment is undeni-
able. Many of the discussions of individual issues in his works tend
to wander, and it is not always easy to see how different argu-
ments fit together. Moreover, the impression of lack of system has
been encouraged both by the way in which Schopenhauer presen-
ted his views to the public and by the way in which the public, or
at any rate the Anglo-Saxon public, has received them. On Schop-
enhauer's own side there is the fact that he tended to revise his
main works and to add to them in successive editions. There is his
phenomenal learning that leads him to make frequent references
to many aspects of western and eastern thought, both philosophi-
cal and non-philosophical. There is his polemical style and his
special antipathy to his German contemporaries, especially Hegel,
and those whom he called the 'professors of philosophy'; it was a
style both of thought and writing which, whatever its cause, offen-
ded many in his own time, and has continued to do so since. There
is the fact that essays on specific subjects play what is perhaps a
much larger part in his philosophical output than is the case with
many other major philosophers. This last point has affected also
the way in which the public has received Schopenhauer's views.
The essays contain thoughts on a great number of subjects, and
some of the thoughts are very striking indeed. They have, how-
ever, created the impression that Schopenhauer was just a man of
ideas, of aphorisms, and of thoughts on sundry aspects of life,
some of which are in a curious way anticipatory of later ideas.
If that were all that there is to it, Schopenhauer would have no
•place in this series. It is not, however, all that there is to it. The
main structure of Schopenhauer's major work Das Welt als Wille
l
INTRODUCTION
und Vorstellung is really quite clear, and contains a continuous
argument which takes in the bulk of his philosophy. In the preface
to the first edition of the work he describes himself as offering a
single thought, and elsewhere he says that what he has to say is
simply the unfolding of such a single thought. Schopenhauer lived
from 1788 until 1860. He first published the main work in 1819,
but a revised second edition appeared in 1844, and a third edition
in 1859. The effect of these revisions was not only a general
enlargement of the original work but also the additional inclusion
of fifty essays by way of supplements to each of the four books of
the original work. Most of these essays are related to individual
chapters of the original work (now the first volume) and this fact
is indicated. Comprising as they do the second volume of the final
version, they provide essential comment upon and elucidation of
the material of the first volume, as well as a great deal of additional
material.
Schopenhauer gave the reader advice on how to read the book.
In the preface to the first edition he instructed readers to read the
whole book twice; in the preface to the second edition he relaxed
his standards somewhat, but he advised readers to read the second
volume by itself after reading the first. (It is not in fact clear that
the advice is in every case right.) It cannot be denied, however,
that this type of revision, rather than a complete re-writing of the
original work, makes an appreciation of the whole system difficult.
The structure of the argument nevertheless remains the same, and
the supplementary essays follow the structure of the original. The
works that Schopenhauer wrote between the first and second
editions of the main work — On the Will in Nature (1836), On the
Freedom of the Will (1839), On the Basis of Morality (1840) (the
latter two published together in 1841 as The Two Fundamental
Problems of Ethics), and the collection of essays Parerga and
Paralipomena (1851) — are really all subsidiary to the main work,
even if they have some importance in themselves. Hence, for an
appreciation of Schopenhauer's argument it is necessary to give
pride of place to the main work.
There is one other book, apart from an early essay on Vision
and Colours (1816) written in support of Goethe's theory of
colours, which I have not mentioned. It is one which is, on Schop-
enhauer's own admission, of great importance for an understand-
ing of his philosophy. This is his doctoral dissertation The Four-
fold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, written in 1813,
and revised and enlarged in 1847. Schopenhauer insisted that it
should be read as an introduction to his main work, and the advice
deserves to be treated seriously. Hence I too shall begin with a