Schopenhauer on the aimlessness of the will
Schopenhauer on the aimlessness of the will
Schopenhauer asserts that ‘the will, which is objectified in human life as it is in every appearance, is a striving without aim and without end’. The article rejects some recent readings of this claim, and offers the following positive interpretation: however many specific aims of my specific desires I manage to attain, none is a final aim, in the sense that none terminates my ‘willing as a whole’, none turns me into a non-willing being. To understand Schopenhauer’s claim we must recognize his central contrast between happiness and will-lessness. Happiness is the satisfaction of individual desire, but no act of will that succeeds in satisfying individual desire is the attainment of a final aim, in that none brings about a conscious state in which the subject experiences no more unfulfilled desires. Such a state is the ultimate goal of existence, in Schopenhauer’s view, but happiness does not provide a route along which it can be attained.
331-347
Janaway, Christopher
61c48538-365f-416f-b6f7-dfa4d4663475
2018
Janaway, Christopher
61c48538-365f-416f-b6f7-dfa4d4663475
Janaway, Christopher
(2018)
Schopenhauer on the aimlessness of the will.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26 (2), .
(doi:10.1080/09608788.2017.1393619).
Abstract
Schopenhauer asserts that ‘the will, which is objectified in human life as it is in every appearance, is a striving without aim and without end’. The article rejects some recent readings of this claim, and offers the following positive interpretation: however many specific aims of my specific desires I manage to attain, none is a final aim, in the sense that none terminates my ‘willing as a whole’, none turns me into a non-willing being. To understand Schopenhauer’s claim we must recognize his central contrast between happiness and will-lessness. Happiness is the satisfaction of individual desire, but no act of will that succeeds in satisfying individual desire is the attainment of a final aim, in that none brings about a conscious state in which the subject experiences no more unfulfilled desires. Such a state is the ultimate goal of existence, in Schopenhauer’s view, but happiness does not provide a route along which it can be attained.
Text
Sch on aimlessness Oct 17 final
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 12 October 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 November 2017
Published date: 2018
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Local EPrints ID: 414966
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/414966
ISSN: 0960-8788
PURE UUID: a5b0f9fb-1003-4788-865a-565e52f3f9ef
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Date deposited: 18 Oct 2017 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:49
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