Following Socratesis determined by will, then the goal of life should be to see
through that relentless volition. He interpreted nirvana as the
end of wilfulness which, because it is never fully possible in this
life, would be like a transition to nothingness. In other words,
philosophy for Schopenhauer was like the Buddhist teaching
that the value of life lies in not wanting it – and that required
the cultivation of an attitude to life, not just thought about it.
Even for Schopenhauer, and almost in spite of himself, philoso-
phy elicits a kind of spirituality.
Conversely, consider Karl Popper. The writer Bryan Magee,
who often visited Popper in his hermit-like cottage, says that
he was not an easy man to know. However, Magee explains:
‘A phrase I heard from his lips as often as any other was, “We
don’t know anything.” He looked on this realisation, which he
attributed historically to Socrates, as the most important phil-
osophical insight there is, one which ought to inform all our
philosophical activity.’
For Popper, certainty is not available to human beings because
all human knowledge is capable of being revised. What is taken
as knowledge at any particular time must, therefore, be only
an approximation to the truth. This is the basis of his theory
of falsifi cation in science. However, what can be overlooked
is the impact this thesis had upon his life. In his intellectual
autobiography, signifi cantly entitled Unended Quest, he repeat-
edly testifi es to his contentment. He goes so far as to say that he
knows of no happier philosopher. The source of his happiness
is intimately connected to the unknowability of the world. At
a mundane level, this unknowability means that you are con-
stantly surprised by what you fi nd in the world: ‘One of the
many great sources of happiness is to get a glimpse, here and
there, of a new aspect of the incredible world we live in, and
of our incredible role in it,’ he writes. More philosophically, he
says that it is in his engagement with problems, theories and
arguments – the abstractions that people wrestle with as they
learn more profoundly about what they do not know – that he
has found more happiness than he could ever deserve.