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Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788-1860)
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Good Morning Friends,
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Today is Monday May 4, 2009
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Sometimes I feel like Arthur Schopenhauer, a man with lots of great ideas, but no audience to talk to. When Arthur was starting out in academia he got a job at the University of Berlin. But, he had hardly any students to teach because they all wanted to listen the great philsopher of the day, namely Hegel. Just a bit of bad timing I suppose; you know, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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However, as history would have it Schopenhauer would become famous and many of his ideas would take root and flourish in the philosophical world. I can sympathize with Arthur on a number of fronts, personally, that is. I have just outlined for you the fact that nobody would listen to him and he had to fight the conditions of his time. And, so it is with myself - nobody hardly even reads my blog. So, what is a guy to do anyway? I suppose I will do what Arthur did and just leave and do my own thing and let history do the rest. Sooner or later someone will like what I am doing and maybe my ideas will get some coverage. So, maybe in a hundred years or so someone might say that Carl Baydala had some pretty good ideas and he wasn't such a bad guy after all.
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Arthur Schopenhauer was quite the pessimist and thought that man could never be satisfied. He thought that man and his will or wanting of things was insatiable and that is why man is like he is; he is always searching for things and can never be happy as a result of that. I kind of agree with this philosophy and I know from personal experience that this is most likely the case. You want something, you acquire it, and then what? You want something else or you want more of the same. I guess when I am driving about in my courier business and I see these goofs speeding or the tailgaters, that is what I think of. These are just mindless fools striving to achieve something, maybe just for the sake of achieving it - who knows eh?
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Schopenhauer's biggest contribution to society was his ideas about the ' World as Will and Representation or Idea. ' Simply put, man's world is just a world of ideas and these ideas are related to the thing founds in his will and in something called the ' thing-in-itself. ' or the real reality. There really is a thing-in-itself, but man throughout his life struggles to identify this thing. Think of it as two sided coin - they are related things. There is a will and it is represented by something and that something is the idea, something which is created by man's experiences and is manifested in objects that man perceives. I think it is just another struggle for meaning actually and that is what all of us are trying to do. Here is an attempt to explain in more detail the ideas contained within the work: the World as Will and Representation:
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Desire is another thing that we can ascribe to Schopenhauer as well. Man's desires are never fulfilled completely, as I mentioned above. Now, Schopenhauer and myself both fell in love with a younger woman. And, both were types of failures, but they were both aspects of our desires and hence they have an effect on us. So, you can see why I like to think that Schopenhauer and myself have things in common. Unfufilled desire can have consequences and I think these consequences just might show up in one's philosophy. What do you think about that?
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Finally, Schopenhauer took a great interest in art and in music, and in fact, played the flute everyday. He did that to relax and maybe even to help him formulate his philosophy. All forms of art and philosophy attempt to connect man with the will or the thing-in-itself. They are attempts or copies and are like Plato's forms or ideal things. Maybe it is even an expression of man's inner idealism. According to Schopenhauer, an idealist of course, music is one way of getting closer to an understanding of the thing-in-itself and music appreciation might be the closest that we can get to appreciating the inner will. For me, personally, music is soothing and when I listen to music ideas abound in my head. So, perhaps, music is a catalyst for achieving an understanding of the inner wills; maybe it allows us to connect with our inners, so to speak. And, music being so pleasurable to the senses, just might be satisfying our inner desires; our wills demand or seek an expression and music and art allow that to happen. And, the kind of music that we listen to is an indication of our personalities and our experiences. And, listening to music explains these things for us; it is a provider of meaning. Or, perhaps music acts as an escape from desire and the brutal reality of not achieving one's will. Remember, man is a selfish creature essentially and he needs to satisfy his desires whatever they may be. I am just wondering if music is not just another one those opiates that man relies on to get him through life. Maybe, for all of the above reasons, that is why I like listening to music. For example, listen to Tommy Edwards off to the side bar and see how you feel about things after you do that. Do you feel pleasure and satisfaction? Is your will being satisfied or suppressed or appeased? These are my ideas about the matter so what is yours? Is this what Schopenhauer had in mind I wonder? That music is the idea and the representation of the will?
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Related links for you:
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Desire is another thing that we can ascribe to Schopenhauer as well. Man's desires are never fulfilled completely, as I mentioned above. Now, Schopenhauer and myself both fell in love with a younger woman. And, both were types of failures, but they were both aspects of our desires and hence they have an effect on us. So, you can see why I like to think that Schopenhauer and myself have things in common. Unfufilled desire can have consequences and I think these consequences just might show up in one's philosophy. What do you think about that?
.
Finally, Schopenhauer took a great interest in art and in music, and in fact, played the flute everyday. He did that to relax and maybe even to help him formulate his philosophy. All forms of art and philosophy attempt to connect man with the will or the thing-in-itself. They are attempts or copies and are like Plato's forms or ideal things. Maybe it is even an expression of man's inner idealism. According to Schopenhauer, an idealist of course, music is one way of getting closer to an understanding of the thing-in-itself and music appreciation might be the closest that we can get to appreciating the inner will. For me, personally, music is soothing and when I listen to music ideas abound in my head. So, perhaps, music is a catalyst for achieving an understanding of the inner wills; maybe it allows us to connect with our inners, so to speak. And, music being so pleasurable to the senses, just might be satisfying our inner desires; our wills demand or seek an expression and music and art allow that to happen. And, the kind of music that we listen to is an indication of our personalities and our experiences. And, listening to music explains these things for us; it is a provider of meaning. Or, perhaps music acts as an escape from desire and the brutal reality of not achieving one's will. Remember, man is a selfish creature essentially and he needs to satisfy his desires whatever they may be. I am just wondering if music is not just another one those opiates that man relies on to get him through life. Maybe, for all of the above reasons, that is why I like listening to music. For example, listen to Tommy Edwards off to the side bar and see how you feel about things after you do that. Do you feel pleasure and satisfaction? Is your will being satisfied or suppressed or appeased? These are my ideas about the matter so what is yours? Is this what Schopenhauer had in mind I wonder? That music is the idea and the representation of the will?
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Related links for you:
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Found in Evans Experientialism:
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