The World According to Schopenhauer, Part 3:

The World As Idea – Second Aspect

OK… It’s time for Philosophy Hour with the smart kids. Could someone please close the door on the slow kids that tried to hang with us last time around? The ruckus they were making banging their little heads against the desks was disturbing.

Remember the last chapter, when we talked about the multiplicity of appearances of the will on different levels of its objectification? You should, because that’s where I’ll chime in this time around. So go re-read that shit first if you must. Although, that would be totally uncalled-for, considering I just wrote that two months ago. Or was it two months ago last year? Who cares? My readers are well endowed with outstanding long-term memory, right?

So, we’re onto the third book of “The World as Will and Idea”. Now Plato’s influence finally becomes a little more distinct, as Schopenhauer teaches “that the different levels of objectification of the will standing there as the eternal forms of things, not entailed by time and space, the medium of the individuals, but unvarying, not subordinate to any change, are nothing else than Plato’s ideas.”

See, credit where credit is due.

In case you don’t have your vast Plato knowledge readily available to you right now, let me help you out a little: For Plato, the word ‘idea’ meant (contrary to modern assumption) something that was primarily and emphatically objective - something outside of our minds. His eternal ideas are not thoughts in the minds of people, but the universal, transcendent essences, the substantial realities existing as the archetypes of all things. They exist prior to all things, unaffected by the changes of characteristics of the appearances.

Notice some common ground already? Old Schopie totally ripped him off here, as he was puzzling out his own ‘world as idea’ issue.

The visible world is merely the imperfect and changing manifestation of these unchanging forms called ‘ideas’. For example, the ‘idea’ of a horse is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all horses, right? This idea never changes, even though horses vary almost infinitely amongst themselves. Even if every fucking horse in this world, as an individual physical object, would die in a slaughter house tomorrow, to give us delicious Big Macs, I’m sure, it wouldn’t affect the idea of a horse. The idea lives on forever and survives the physical object, no matter what. This idea, he, funnily enough, also called something akin to “horsieness”. A horse’s horsieness is not dependant on its life, death, tastiness or race-track qualities - it’s absolute.

Then again, one could argue that humanity’s idea of a horse could change through the ages; for example depending on whether the horses were considered farm animals, pets or just a food source at the moment. But that, in turn, like all evolution, only applies to the objectification of said ideas as we’re unable to perceive those to begin with.

In Schopenhauer’s interpretation, what’s striving and operating in Plato’s ideas is the primordial will, which unceasingly generates the constant, eternal images of all natural forms. The idea is not affected by time, space or causality, and therefore it is nearer to the will than the individual. Human thinking, subject to the principle of reason, however, rules out any awareness of ideas. That insight only becomes possible if the cognitive subject (you) manages to disengage from its individual existence and thus becomes will-less. This consequently means that there also is representation, independent of the principle of reason!

“If one, lifted by the power of the mind, lets go of the ordinary approach to things, stops only following their relations to each other whose final goal always is the relation to one’s own will guided by the principle of reason, thus not viewing the ‘where’, ‘when’ or ‘why’ anymore, but only the ‘what’, […] devoting the whole force of one’s mind to perception through contemplation, losing oneself in an object (i.e. forgetting one’s will, one’s individual and only existing as the pure subject of will-less knowing), […] then, what’s thus perceived is not the appearance of the particular thing but it is the idea.”

This is cognition breaking free from servicing the will. Sounds pretty darn good, doesn’t it? And according to Schopenhauer, it really is. He ascribed great importance to contemplation to gain a higher form of perception than possibly achieved by the normal activities of your intellect. Contemplation gains liberation from the bonds of singularity, which ultimately translates to freedom from dependency on space, time and causality. And that’s indeed a pretty big deal, if you think about it.

If you have no idea what this all is supposed to mean, but are too afraid to ask because I would call you an idiot and throw you out to eat play-doh with the other bumper-heads, just try to analyze what it’s like listening to your favorite piece of music, or, although I can’t relate, what’s it like staring at your favorite painting, fondling your favorite sculpture, or something like that. Or if you’re a nature boy, and into that stuff, maybe just watching a wild animal licking its balls. It might be the only time that your mind’s free of anything else but cognition of that particular object. The term “losing oneself” is quite accurate, and fitting, as you forget all about yourself during that instance. Your will is on hiatus. You are doing it the Schopie way.

Furthermore, Schopenhauer teaches that if a representative subject to the principle of reason is the object of experience and science, then the perception described above is the object of art. For him, art was the perception of the sole essence of the world, the work of genius, insofar as ingenuity is defined as consummate objectivity. Art is the way of perceiving the true content of the world’s appearances, all which is not subject to change and is affirmed with the same truth for all time.

All humans hold the capability to identify ideas in things, it’s just especially distinct in the art-creating genius, since it requires steady deliberations concerning the will-less manner of cognition. The nature of art lies in the intuitive substantial representation of ideas.

Solely music is granted an exceptional position by Schopenhauer. I’ll elaborate on that in the next instalment, if I may, since, in my opinion, it’s one of the most interesting parts in Schopenhauer’s entire system.

Class dismissed. Go listen to rap to get your brains back on an even keel.



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