The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1

Schopenhauer follows in the tradition of kant and comes up to provide the results of upanishads through the western system. Not verbose and difficult, one of the more readable philosophers. Must read.

WONDERFUL BOOK, MUST READ

Good print quality and great translation with helpful annotations. Great philosopher, outshines his charlatan contemporaries (like Hegel) and their successors that plague us to this day. Ideas are expressed clearly and aiming to instill the reader with an intuitive understanding of them with rich examples and references to Western history and civilization, while drawing on the rich fountain of ancient wisdom from the East. Will be one of the very few philosophers of the last millennia to be remembered well into the distant future.

Me gustaria subrayar y marcar haciendo dibuixos, círculos, flechas, recuadros, como la aplicació GoodNotes por ejemplo, más dinàmico, que podamos jugar con el texto.

ショーペンハウアーといえばペシミズムの大家というイメージがあるが、それは単なる表面的にみた場合の偏見に過ぎない。 いちばん興味をひくものは、彼が東洋思想、特に仏教やヒンドゥー教の思想を取り入れていることだ。 このことによって、プラトンのいうイデア、カントのthing-in-itself、仏教でよく言及される涅槃などが溶け合わさって彼の哲学になっている。このこと自体が非常におもしろいと思う。 巻末ではカントに対する批判を展開しているのだが、自分には理解できるものではなかった。 たしかに表面上だけで捉えれば、ショーペンハウアーの哲学は諦念を喚起させ、生をないがしろにするものに思われるが、意図するものはそのようなものではないということがこの本を通じて明らかとなる。

Arthur Schopenhauer's work constitutes a major breakthrough in philosophy. He smashed the straightjacket imposed by Immanuel Kant, who stated that we couldn't know the essence of the world, the real nature of all matter, the thing-in-itself. Schopenhauer remarked judiciously that we could discover this real nature, because we have knowledge of our own body. He called this essence 'the will'' or the 'will-to-live, which is practically the same as the Darwinian 'struggle for life'. Hereafter, a tentative short summary of this astonishing book. Representation and will The world (the object) is the representation of the subject (the individual). The essential form of this representation is the division into object and subject. Its subordinate forms are space = position, time = succession and (states of) matter = causality. The object (the world) is, on the one hand, only matter ; but, on the other hand, it has an innermost being, the thing-in-itself, which Schopenhauer calls 'the will', 'the will-to-live'. The will, its phenomena and freedom The will is the groundless essence of everything in nature. It is an endless striving and appears in every conscious and unconscious acting force of nature. How can we know the will ? Through information about our own body and its (voluntary and involuntary) actions and movements. Every individual, animal, plant, original inorganic force is to be regarded as a phenomenon (a manifestation) of the will. Knowledge, reason, feeling Perception is the first source of all evidence. Through it, we gather knowledge by discovering causality in the world. This leads to reflection on choices between several motives that govern the actions of the subject (the individual). Abstract knowledge consists of concepts conceived through language (grammar), planned action and science. Rational knowledge (reason) is crucial for making judgments (phrases), which describe the relation between a subject and a predicate. Feeling (religious, moral ...) is the opposite of rational knowledge. But, human conduct is driven by feelings (love, hatred ... ). Art Art is the camera obscura of the will. Genial art shows the objects more purely and enables the individual to comprehend them better. Aesthetic pleasure is to be interpreted as a deliverance from the influence of the will. Music is the language of feeling, while words are the language of reason ; music reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality. Man's daemon, Schopenhauer's pessimism Man is not free. He is not independent of the law of causality. His actions are determined by motives. He has an elective decision between different motives, whose choices reveal his character. Every individual imagines that he can at any moment enter upon a different way of life, which is equivalent to saying that he can become a different person. All life is suffering, an endless striving. Every satisfaction is merely a starting point for new striving. Sexual intercourse is the most decided affirmation of the will-to-live. Egoism is the starting point of all conflict. 'Wrong' is the denial of the will that appears in the bodies of others. The State contract (the law) is there to diminish all that suffering. The last part of the book is a thorough, amazing and extremely detailed criticism of the Kantian philosophy. This book had, although not immediately, immense influence on philosophy and literature. Nietzsche turned Schopenhauer's negative dark daemon into a positive 'will to power'.

I used it as self help!!!