Schopenhauer’s Broken World-View: Colours and Ethics between Kant and Goethe

296 Pages·2000·13.071 MB·English

by  Paul F. H. Lauxtermann (auth.)

SCHOPENHAUER'S BROKEN WORLD-VIEW
Science and Philosophy
VOLUME 10
Series Editor
Nancy 1. Nersessian, Program in Cognitive Science, College ofC omputing, and School of
Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
Editorial Advisory Board
Joseph Agassi, Department ofP hilosophy, York University and Tel Aviv University (Emeritus)
Geoffrey Cantor, Department ofP hilosophy, University ofL eeds
Nancy Cartwright, Department ofP hilosophy, London School ofE conomics
James T. Cushing, Department ofP hysics and Department ofP hilosophy, Notre Dame
University
Lindley Darden, Committee on the History and Philosophy ofS cience, University ofM aryland
Max Dresdent, Institutefor Theoretical Physics, SUNY Stony Brook
Allan Franklin, Department ofP hysics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Marjorie Grene, Department ofP hilosophy, University ofC alifornia, Davis (Emeritus)
Adolf Griinbaum, Department ofP hilosophy, University ofP ittsburgh
Richard Lewontin, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Thomas Nickles, Department ofP hilosophy, University ofN evada, Reno
Dudley Shapere, Department ofP hilosophy, Wake Forest University
This series has been established as a forum for contemporary analysis of philosophical problems
which arise in connection with the construction of theories in the physical and the biological
sciences. Contributions will not place particular emphasis on anyone school of philosophical
thought. However, they will reflect the belief that the philosophy of science must be firmly rooted
in an examination of actual scientific practice. Thus, the volumes in this series will include or
depend significantly upon an analysis of the history of science, recent or past. The Editors welcome
contributions from scientists as well as from philosophers and historians of science.
The titles published in this series are listed at the end oft his volume.
SCHOPENHAUER'S
BROKEN WORLD-VIEW
Colours and Ethics
between Kant and Goethe
by
PAUL EH. LAUXTERMANN
University ofTwente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
A C.I.P. Ctalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-5566-8 ISBN 978-94-015-9369-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9369-4
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2000
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE VII
INTRODUCTION 1
I KANT, GOETHE, AND THE MECHANIZATION OF THE WORLD-PICTURE 9
a. The mechanization of the world-picture 9
b. Kant and Goethe 18
c. The legacy of Kant and Goethe, and how Schopenhauer received it 27
II FIVE DECISIVE YEARS 41
III COLOURS 53
a. Goethe 53
b. Goethe and Schopenhauer 64
c. Schopenhauer 65
d. Schopenhauer and Goethe 73
IV THE ANTINOMY: CAN THE WORLD BE IN My HEAD, YET My HEAD BE IN 83
THE WORLD?
a. Schopenhauer and Kant 83
b. Schopenhauer's physiological epistemology: analysis 91
c. Schopenhauer's physiological epistemology: assessment 94
d. The big question: is the world my representation? 103
e. Conclusions. Schopenhauer and Goethe once again 110
V BIEN ETONNES: HEGEL AND SCHOPENHAUER As PARTISANS OF 117
GOETHE'S THEORY OF COLOURS
a. Goethe and Hegel 117
b. Hegel and Schopenhauer as positivist metaphysicians 120
c. Goethe, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and history 127
VI ETHICS 135
a. Introduction: are there two Kants? 135
b. Kant's moral philosophy 142
c. Schopenhauer's moral philosophy 149
d. Some incidental reflections on the present-day significance of Kant's 158
and Schopenhauer's moral philosophies
VII ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS 165
a. Kant's and Schopenhauer's moral philosophies: a critical comparison 165
b. The metaphysical background to Kant's and Schopenhauer's moral 176
philosophies, and its consequences for the problem of freedom
VIII THE PARADOX: CAN GOD COMMIT SUICIDE? 197
a. Schopenhauer's great doctrine: Will as Thing-in-itself 197
b. An unrecognized antinomy, and the paradox that results 199
c. Schopenhauer and Buddhism 207
d. Schopenhauer as a precursor of Einstein ... 210
VI
e .... or of Freud? 217
f. Schopenhauer's broken world-view: his professed, and his hidden 222
metaphysics
IX IN PRAISE OF REALISM 231
a. Schopenhauer's reception after 1848 231
b. Schopenhauer's philosophy and the mechanization-cum-aestheticization 236
of the world-picture
c. Schopenhauer's broken world-view: colours and ethics between Kant 249
and Goethe
ENDNOTES 261
INDEX 283
PREFACE
Why care about Schopenhauer, and (if one does) what is there to say about him
that has not been said already?
The principal thesis of the present book is that a major, unresolved question
about Schopenhauer's work still remains. To anticipate the issue towards which a
fairly lengthy argument is to carry us, we shall seek to show that its numerous
contradictions compel us to ask in the end: 'What, after all, is here meant to be the
real 'Thing-in-itself: 'Will', or Nirvana?' Or, to use somewhat less technical
language, 'Is, in Schopenhauer's true view, that which transcends all empirical
phenomena to be found in what he (rightly or wrongly) calls 'Will' or rather in a
human Intellect capable in the end of extinguishing that Will?'
To be sure: the sheer fact that Schopenhauer's work is marked by many a
contradiction has often ,enough been pointed out by his numerous, less and more
recent, on the whole very able commentators. 'His commentators', not himself; on
the contrary, he always vehemently denied ever having committed any. But
precisely this circumstance presents us with something of a riddle. For
Schopenhauer was an extraordinarily acute thinker, who knew how to express
himself in literary prose of high standing and a clarity rarely surpassed, and whose
utterances about his Idealist contemporaries in German philosophy display a
temperamental impatience with muddle-headedness of any kind. Whence, then,
those evident contradictions in his own work - contradictions that may be
summed up in one fundamental antinomy (which we have dubbed 'can the world
be in my head, yet my head be in the world?') and one fundamental paradox
(similarly dubbed by us 'can God commit suicide?')?
The aim of the present book, in building upon the accomplishments of previous
commentators, is to shed some new light on this problem. Its principal thesis has
already been suggested by the superficially somewhat naive-looking question
raised above. That thesis implies that there are in fact two ultimate principles in
Schopenhauer's philosophy and that his, at first sight, beautifully rounded-off
system reveals itself at second sight as the secret arena of two conflicting world
views.
Whence the conflict? Here our first auxiliary thesis is that an inquiry into the
origins of the discord brings to light Schopenhauer's grappling in his own unique
way with a problem that is still very much with us, to wit: how to acquire a solid
grasp of the world at large (the eternal longing of all metaphysicians of all times)
in a manner compatible with all that modem science has validly to say about the
constitution of our world? This has become such a problem because, ever since the
'mechanization of the world-picture' in the 17th century, modem science may lay
claim to valid knowledge of nature without, however, being able to provide a
satisfactory world-view all by itself.
VIn PREFACE
Our second (closely related) auxiliary thesis concerns the intellectual guides
under whose joint patronage Schopenhauer's pertinent effort took place. We shall
try to show how his critical allegiance to Kant (who drew dualist conclusions in
the domains of epistemology and ethics from the birth of modern science) as well
as to Goethe (who sought to point out basic shortcomings of modern science from
a monist point of view) carried him towards a philosophical vision of the world as
enticing as it is problematic.
Our programme, then, is to follow Schopenhauer along his chosen road - to
fmd out how he interpreted the legacies of Kant and Goethe (sometimes, but
always revealingly so, misinterpreting them); what in these legacies he adopted
and what he rejected (often portions of one in view of the other); and what
doctrines of his own he went on to construct out of them. We shall follow three
lines in particular:
a. his transformation (in view of what he held to be Kant's epistemology) of
Goethe's doctrine on the nature of colours and how his pertinent effort
compares with a somewhat similar exercise undertaken by his perennial foe,
Hegel;
b. his transformation, in the spirit of his own 'Will'-metaphysics, of Kant's ethical
doctrine;
c. his construction - undertaken in parallel with an improved (or so at least he
believed) Kantian epistemology - of an essentially though not explicitly
Goethean epistemology, meant to serve as a kind of propaedeutic to the
apotheosis of his entire philosophical enterprise: the gospel of the final
redemption from the bondage of'Will'.
We carry out this programme of ours by blending, in a perhaps unusual sort of
way, the history of philosophical currents with history of science, history of ideas
generally, and (in order to elucidate relevant portions of Schopenhauer's
biography and intellectual and social environment) German history as well.
A more detailed exposition of what all this is going to entail follows presently
in an introductory chapter. For now, we wish to express our gratitude to the
present and former members of the Department of History at the University of
Twente: Petra Bruulsema for ever-ready secretarial help, and Christiaan BOUdri,
Floris Cohen, Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis, Marius Engelbrecht, the late Casper
Hakfoort, Nancy Nersessian, Hans Sparnaay, Tomas Vanheste and Peter Vardy for
their vigilant assessment of ideas in the course of our regular ongoing exchanges
(Floris Cohen also revised with care the entire typescript, ensured its camera-ready
preparation, and came up with the title). Further, Joachim Aul is to be mentioned,
with gratitude, for his workmanlike criticisms based on a shared predilection for
Schopenhauer, and Helen Ure for carrying out the 'light editing' recommended by
a generous referee. Finally, on a more informal level, I gladly avail myself of the
opportunity to thank, above all, Brigitte Mazohl for many stimulating
conversations in the course of long years of unabated friendship; among other
names that might be mentioned I choose those of Ralph Melville and Claus Scharf
PREFACE IX
(of the Institut filr europ!lische Geschichte in Mainz) for their lively interest in the
author's scholarly development.
Quotations are given in English in the main text; unless mentioned otherwise, the
translations are all ours. If the text quoted is a translation of an original text in
German or French, the latter is given in a footnote. The footnotes also offer
substantial excursions beyond the course of our argument, whereas references to
pertinent sources and to the literature are provided in the endnotes.
INTRODUCTION
Bertrand Russell, in the Schopenhauer chapter of his well-known History of
. Western Philosophy, charges the protagonist of the present book - apart from a
list of other un-British vices like habitually dining well - with having been
"extremely quarrelsome". I And so much is certain that Arthur Schopenhauer was a
philosopher with a remarkable propensity for being provoked to anger. For
example, when a certain Adolph Cornill published a book on his philosophy which
seemed to have been written with the specific aim of showing up an impressive
number of contradictions inherent in it, Schopenhauer's reaction was as one might
expect. In a letter to his faithful 'evangelist' Frauenstiidt of 11 July 1856 he
castigated such an attempt as "a stupid, bad trick, such as is often used by knaves",
and which was especially ludicrous "with me, the most consistent and monolithic
of all philosophers,,:2 And in a letter of 31 March 1854 to the 'apostle' Johann
August Becker we read (this time about worthy old Frauenstiidt himself1): "To
seek for contradictions in my work is wholly in vain; it is all of a piece."P
Cornill's book has fallen into, probably well-deserved, oblivion; but, in spite of the
master's warning, commentators have continued (unless they belong to some
Schopenhauer-orthodoxy) to be puzzled, rightly or wrongly, by the same
phenomenon. This is true not only of such rather unsympathetic commentators as
Bertrand Russell, who naturally did not fail in his tum to point out inconsistencies,
and who went on to sum up his judgment in the verdict that "Schopenhauer's
gospel of resignation is not very consistent nor very sincere".4 It is also true of
those who were impressed by the fact that under Schopenhauer's hands, out of
such heterogeneous and sometimes (at least apparently) contradictory elements
such a philosophically as well as artistically beautiful edifice could have arisen.
This kind of commentary tended to show admiration for the wide range of
philosophical topics and currents that came together in Schopenhauer's mind
rather than to scorn its alleged shallowness (which then should have expressed
itself in the 'contradictions' which, mirabile dictu, Schopenhauer had not even
noticed himself); and they sought to determine the nature and origins of the varied
contributions to the great symphony with which Schopenhauer's system strikingly
has been compared.5 Such a search brought his first biographer, Wilhelm Gwinner,
to the conclusion that "it was Schopenhauer's vocation to complement not only the
physical realism of the sensualists but also the aesthetic realism of Goethe with the
• " ... ein dummer, schlechter Kunstgriff, dessen sich die Lumpe oft bedienen"; " ... bei mir,
dem konsequentesten und einheitlichsten aller Philosophen".
t "Bei mir Widersprilche zu suchen ist ganz eitel: Alles ist aus einem GuB."