Kant and Schopenhauer 97gives way to new desires. How many times has one said, “If I
only can have this, I’ll be happy forever,” only to be soon bored
by the possession. Or, “I’m so stuffed, I won’t want to eat for a
week,” only to be hungry later that evening.
Life, then, is an evil we have to bear. It is evil because we are
never sated. It is evil because we feel pain, and pain is the norm,
not the exception. Short respites of pleasure or happiness are
fleeting moments in a life filled with unfulfilled desires.
Schopenhauer contends that the more highly developed the
organism, the greater the suffering. A plant feels no pain; a man
does. The more intelligent, sensitive, complex the man, the more
he will suffer. The intelligent man knows with frightening
certainty that he is doomed to strive, compete, desire— to live—
and in the midst of the struggle— he will die. Perhaps ignorance
is bliss. In addition to not being satisfied, in addition to the pain
our very intelligence causes, we are then faced with a world of
competition, conflict, and greed— in a word, war. What is to be
done?
The obvious answer is, “If life is so terrible, end it.” But
suicide, Schopenhauer says, is not the answer. Suicide does not
overcome the Will. It is simply an individual act which has no
effect on the Will, which lives on in the species. There is a better
way, and Schopenhauer explains how man can overcome, not
succumb to, the Will.
There are two ways of escaping the slavery of the Will. The
first is the way of aesthetic contemplation. If one can become a
disinterested spectator and observe art, not as an object of desire,
but as an object of aesthetic contemplation, he will be able to
temporarily escape the servitude of the Will. Beyond this, one
who can translate ideas into works of art rises above the subju
gation of the Will. In particular, Schopenhauer thinks music is
the highest art form, in which the Will itself is illustrated. In
music, man receives a “direct revelation... And he intuits this
reality, revealed in the form of art in an objective and disinter
ested manner, not as one caught in the grip of the W ill’s tyranny.
Further, if it were possible to express accurately in concepts all
that music expresses without concepts, we should have the true
philosophy.”
Schopenhauer offers a second, and lasting, way to be released
from the Will. This is achieved by the renunciation of the Will