Weltgeist

You may not realize it, but hidden in his collection of essays, Arthur Schopenhauer has worked out a more or less systematic philosophy of religion. This is the first part in a series of videos that will cover Schopenhauer’s unique outlook on religion. If you want to be notified when the other parts come out, please consider subscribing and clicking the bell button.

Schopenhauer’s main gripe with religion is with the distinction they make between meaning in sensu proprio versus in sensu allegorico.

“Sensu proprio” is the Latin term he uses which basically means “in a literal sense.” Sensu allegorico, of course, means “in an allegorical sense.”

What happens with religion, is they present some kind of dogma, which might be true in an allegorical sense, but they have to pretend to mean it in a literal sense. Religion cannot pretend its main tenets are merely allegorical because doing so would mean to undermine their own credibility.

In the second part, we will zoom in on Schopenhauer’s criticism and evaluation of Christianity and the theological problem of reconciling the Old with the New Testament.

The main religious text in Christianity, the Bible, is composed of the Old and the New Testament. The problem is that Schopenhauer sees an optimistic worldview in the Old and a pessimistic worldview in the New Testament.

It is pretty well-known that Schopenhauer greatly admired both Buddhism and Hinduism. It’s said he read the Upanishads every night before bed, and at the end of his life he even taught himself Sanskrit. Let’s take a closer look at his thought on these Eastern religions.

Recall how in the previous parts we saw how Schopenhauer calls religions pessimistic or optimistic depending on how they interpret the nature of the material world. According to this classification, Judaism was optimistic while Christianity was pessimistic.

Buddhism and Hinduism of course, are both pessimistic with regards to the material world.

The Buddhistic acknowledgement that life is suffering, that earthly happiness cannot be found, the strict ascetic lifestyle of Buddhists and Brahmans, these factors are, in Schopenhauer’s lexicon, signs of a pessimistic religion: a religion that regards with contempt the material world and seeks to turn away from it through fasting, meditation, and abstinence.

The question is, where does this pessimism come from? Ultimately, the pessimistic outlook must stem from an epistemic scepticism regarding the material world. What this means is that there must be a conviction that the material world is not the world of supreme importance, that something exists beyond mere matter, that the material world is an illusion.

We see how Buddhism and Brahmanism (or Hinduism) are in fundamental agreement (even if there are some particular differences) with Schopenhauer’s metaphysical as well as moral teachings. While New Testament Christianity is certainly in agreement with Schopenhauer’s moral teachings, it is lacking on the metaphysical front. Buddhism and Hinduism, on the other hand, score well on both fronts. For this reason, Schopenhauer ranks the Eastern religions as the most perfect expressions of truth to be found in religion.

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Chapter two in Schopenhauer’s practical handbook on the good life, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, is entitled “What a man is.”

While Schopenhauer admits that there are two other sources of happiness, namely in possessions and in reputation or fame, he argues that only in this category can you find lasting happiness.

You might be surprised to hear that Schopenhauer, the famous pessimist, is such a proponent of a cheerful character. It’s even more important than intellect or physical health…

Of course, you could say that a cheerful disposition is the result of happiness, not the cause of it. Not necessarily so for Schopenhauer. While we should always welcome a merry feeling when it arrives, “for [it] never comes inopportunely,” its arrival is ultimately largely out of our control. We should enjoy it when it’s here but learn to be content without it.

We can make our lives better, however, if we work on the conditions that make it easier for cheer and joy to arrive on our doorstep.

Schopenhauer gives us a quick list of recommendations, such as the need for daily exercise in the open air, cold baths, the avoidance of stress and negative emotions.

Pain and boredom.

The human experience is characterized by a constant struggle of avoiding both pain and boredom, but this is a fool’s errand, because,

“in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two.”

It’s obvious how we can win the battle against the first enemy, pain. This is an objective condition. Good health, and also enough money and property to live comfortably. Chances are, if you are watching this YouTube video, your problem, in Schopenhauer’s terms, is not pain, but boredom.

Boredom is a subjective state of mind. Therefore, the cure for boredom is found within yourself. The cure for boredom is the development of the intellect – study!

Nothing pleasures the mind so much as the contemplation of ideas. To the great mind, ideas never run out and so the pleasure gained from them is infinite. And because the pleasures of the intellect are subjective, even the most boring of objective circumstances, for example, waiting in line, become bearable for the intellectually gifted person.

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WATCH:
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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

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OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:09 Décadence
05:23 The slave revolt in morals
08:57 The auto-domestication of man
11:16 The birth of décadence
12:17 The criminal
17:19 Dostoevsky's House of the Dead
19:26 The exceptions

It's a short passage in Twilight of the Ideals where Nietzsche deals with the criminal and his psychological valuation of him. But in order to fully comprehend Nietzsche unorthodox sociology and psychology of the criminal, we need to take deep dive through his entire philosophy, and visit The Genealogy of Morals as well as The Antichrist.

Décadence and the morality of custom take center stage as Nietzsche sketches a sociology where society domesticates man. It suppresses our violent instincts so that society can run smoothly. Better to be cooperative, well-spoken, polite, than an aggressive, violent brute.

But the suppression of these animalistic drives in man comes at a cost: it fosters a disease which Nietzsche dubbed décadence, and all of society, through the long march of history from the paleolithic, through Christianity, to now, has become sick with it.

Only some individuals retain a bit of their primal strength. Not fully internalized, not fully externalized. That is the criminal: the strong man made sick.

Nietzsche puts traditional sociology on its head: rather than the criminal being the odd one out, being the exception, Nietzsche says society is the exception, society is the sick one, the criminal the healthy one. Only that he has become sick because his environment is sick.

The criminal who loses the fight against society, succumbs to it, and internalizes his aggression and develops a bad conscience. But some individuals are so strong that they aren't changed by society -- they change society.

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