11.07.09
Schopenhauer on death
The previous post cites an article which shows the confusion science creates for anyone trying to reach self-understanding.
from Visiions of a ghostseer:
Schopenhauer and death In the wake of Kant the philosopher Schopenhauer produced a brilliant, streamlined version of transcendental idealism. We might cite a passage from Dale Jacquette’s The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, remarkable for revealing the latent potential of ‘transcendental idealism’.
Schopenhauer’s philosophy often gives the impression of having been composed expressly for the purpose of reconciling the phenomenal will to the inevitability of death. All the apparatus of his main treatise, the fundamental distinction between the world as Will and representation, the concept of thing-in-itself as beyond the principium individuationis, and fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason, can be understood as contributing to a moral, metaphysical and mystical religious recognition that death is nothing real and hence nothing to fear. If Schopenhauer is correct, he proves that death is not an event, and hence altogether unreal. Death is not an event in the world as representation, but is rather an endpoint or limit of the world as representation, and in particular in the first-person formulation as my representation. The world as representation begins and ends with the consciousness of the individual representing subject. At the moment of death, all representation comes to an immediate abrupt end, after which there remains only thing-in-itself. An individual’s death is not something that occurs in or as any part of the world as representation. Nor can death possibly be in or a part of the world as thing-in-itself or Will. There are no events or individuated occurrences, nothing happening in space or time, for thing-in-itself, and in particular there is no progressive transition from life to death or from consciousness to unconsciousness. If with Schopenhauer we assume that there exists only the world as representation and as thing-in-itself interpreted as Will, then there is no place on either side of the great divide for death, no possibility for the existence or reality of death.[iv]
The connection between science, transcendental idealism, and the issues of the nature of the organism stand out in an especial clarity in this passage, which shows the key to an evolutionary psychology that reconciles the hopeless confusions of degenerated mysticism in the context of a philosophy tailored to the context of science.
The Gurdjieff Con » Default philosophic ‘enlightenment’ said,
November 21, 2009 at 2:06 pm
[...] Schopenhauer on death [...]
Darwiniana » More: Schopenhauer on death said,
November 21, 2009 at 2:21 pm
[...] http://darwiniana.com/2009/11/07/schopenhauer-on-death/ [...]
reece sullivan said,
November 21, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I’ve had a strange relationship with William Blake in that he articulated a lot of things I’d already thought, only a couple hundred years earlier . . . and that we also have the same birthday, oddly, which will actually be a week from today: Nov 28th. At any rate, I found out that he said, as I’d said in different words before, that he’d already died and been “reborn” several times in his “life,” thus, we’re to take it that this might, on some level or the other, be applied to death, proper. Life is a series of deaths. I believe this is something one can see in Proust’s thoughts, too. What holds all these “separate” selves together so that we say they’re a person, ourselves? Proust’s main character was concerned that he would “die and be reborn” so that the (actual) death of his lover would become more and more removed . . . in such a way that he’d be a different person, essentially, only able to sympathize with his past self that lost his lover in the same way that one would sympathize with a stranger who lost his lover. In other words, whatever tragedies or joys we experience eventually become the tragedies or joys of another person: a past self that’s dead and that’s been replaced by a “reborn” self.
Concerning “The World As Will & Idea” and consciousness:
When we think about science, for instance, trying to understand consciousness, we have to realize that the ultimate tool being used to understand and “explain” consciousness is, well, consciousness. The thing trying to understand and trying to explain is that thing we’re trying to understand and explain. We obviously have a hard time trying to categorize or even explain this phenomena itself: is it a “strange loop?” What is it that’s even going on here? Some say that the creative power of consciousness ends up creating a mirror effect, so that, on some level, we can always find something wherever we look that might, to degrees, seem to show us something. This could also parallel holographic explanations of the world. For this reason, I’ve thought for some time that if I could flush these thoughts out more and if I had the time and passion to do so, I’d write a book playing on Schopenhauer’s title named, “The World as Mirror and Idea.” Because it’s consciousness that’s looking, the world will seem to mirror whatever our consciousness is set on.
nemo said,
November 21, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Good points.
I promised to start discussing Biocentrism, but have failed to get around to it. Soon!
mybrainisafleamarket said,
November 22, 2009 at 10:14 am
So…the movie ‘ends’ outside of the movie.
“The world as representation begins and ends with the consciousness of the individual representing subject. At the moment of death, all representation comes to an immediate abrupt end, after which there remains only thing-in-itself. An individual’s death is not something that occurs in or as any part of the world as representation. “
Darwiniana » Hinduism, beliefs in reincarnation, and Schopenhauer on death said,
January 13, 2010 at 1:17 pm
[...] Comment on post on atheists and reincarnation Very interesing quote. But I think that reincarnation far predates Hinduism (of the post-Vedic brand), and goes back many millennia before. The question is thus often made to seem a mystical belief or a religious tenet, when in fact it should be a deduction about the self beyond space and time: Schopenhauer’s thinking is the clearest example (the more convincing since he never in his wildest thoughts considered reincarnation) Check out his popular post here in the archives: http://darwiniana.com/2009/11/07/schopenhauer-on-death/ [...]
Jim Buck said,
January 13, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Pwersonally, I find the prospect of reincarnation quite horrifying; no wonder, then, that I do not believe in it.
nemo said,
January 13, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Good points, all three comments.
I think that what reincarnates is not the psyche one experiences in a current life, but a general framework of unknown structure, behind that psyche.
Schopenhauer’s perspective, or rather that of his transcendental idealism, is not about a soul or reincarnation, but a framework that stands beyond representation, related to the framework of will. That is not a psyche.
The Tibetan book of the dead makes clear indirectly these points: the after death ‘experience’ isn’t an experience at all in the conventional sense.
jim buck said,
January 13, 2010 at 7:10 pm
‘Schopenhauer’s perspective, or rather that of his transcendental idealism, is not about a soul or reincarnation, but a framework that stands beyond representation, related to the framework of will. That is not a psyche. ‘
I confess to never having read Schopenhauer, and so ask your tolerance for what might seem a daft question i.e. How can his perspective have any validity if the framework, referred to, stands beyond representation? Is it a matter of him feeling, in the dark, something he takes for a leg and inferring that the leg must belong to an elephant?
Darwiniana » Atheist confusion over afterlife beliefs said,
January 14, 2010 at 1:08 pm
[...] Comment on Schopenhauer on death James said, January 13, 2010 at 2:53 pm · I must say that I find it amusing that atheists believe that “afterlife” beliefs spring from a fear of death, when in the Indic religions “life after death” is considered to be a horrifying prospect. [...]
Darwiniana » Schopenhauer and transcendental idealism said,
January 14, 2010 at 1:20 pm
[...] Comment on Schopenhauer and death jim buck said, January 13, 2010 at 7:10 pm · ‘Schopenhauer’s perspective, or rather that of his transcendental idealism, is not about a soul or reincarnation, but a framework that stands beyond representation, related to the framework of will. That is not a psyche. ‘ [...]
dandy said,
January 22, 2010 at 9:52 am
How would you call the those parts of the being behind and parallel with the physical body, normally invisible to the naked eye and not even supposed to actually exist according to some scientific views (such as emotions), called the five lower centers, of which only one is plainly visible to the senses (the instinctive center). Do you think it is possible that the thing-in-itself for how we perceive a man to be (the representation of a body) is the system of five lower centers described in Gurdjieff teaching, which includes emotions, thoughts, movements, instincts and sex (behind which there may be essence and/or soul)?
nemo said,
January 23, 2010 at 1:49 pm
That’s a good question. We don’t know the answer, but I would suggest being careful of ’spiritual’ psychologies here. But then again scientific ones will deny the existence of this realm.
Darwiniana » Link to Schopenhauer on death said,
May 3, 2010 at 1:13 pm
[...] can help to see how easy it is to create a better understanding of the ’soul’ question: Schopenhauer on death Schopenhauer didn’t really believe in ’souls’, but the framework of [...]
Darwiniana » Soul talk and positivistic failure mode said,
May 8, 2010 at 12:16 pm
[...] in the twinkling of an eye, most prodigiously via the unwitting efforts of great philosophers. Schopenhauer on death But the issue here in a Kantian vein is not arguing for the existence of soul so much as realizing [...]