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Schopenhauer obviously learns from the German Idealists tradition of assuming an unconscious force acting on the world (or "underneath" it), but Schopenhauer's take is that this force is a blind will, the World Will, that acts amorally, without any certain agenda. Schelling’s idea in the System of Transcendental Idealism is quite similar, but I'm not exactly sure if Schelling's Absolute is a blind one, as it strives to "know" itself. Maybe the its creations are created "blindly", but I'm not sure the force itself is exactly "blind" as Schopenhauer's pessimism view suggests.

Any help with this? I'm thinking maybe it's the same idea, but Schopenhauer's pessimism is the defining separation between the both. Do note that I'm talking about the System of Transcendental Idealism in Schelling, not his later writings when he goes to the more spiritual theistic approach.

Yechiam Weiss
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  • I am not sure what "the same idea" is means here, I suppose it is in the same sense that black and white are "the same idea". World Will is the deliberate inversion of German idealism absolutes' rationality, morality, aesthetics, etc. (more Hegel's than Schelling's). One thing it has in common with them is its "absolutist" function of bridging Kant's divide between appearances and things in themselves, in Schelling it is by cosmic intellectual intuition, in Hegel by rationalist conquest of the Geist, and in Schopenhauer by sensing the urges of the Will as it acts through us. – Conifold Feb 13 '18 at 21:44
  • @Conifold I suppose by "same idea" I mean the most (if not only) significant difference is Schopenhauer's pessimism. And I'm talking about the force itself, not the way it interacts with us. What I'm especially not sure of, is if there's the "blind will" aspect in Schelling too. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 13 '18 at 22:27
  • Well, Schelling did talk about aesthetic immediacy as highest form of and "dark ground" of unconscious natural necessity (presumably the counterpart of the original sin). But to him and Hegel this is just a moment to be overcome on a path to perfection. The Absolute is inherently intelligible, blindness is only temporary alienation. To Schopenhauer the "dark ground" *is* the Absolute, and the aesthetic is a means not to approach it, but to escape from its hold. His inspiration were Indian philosophies with their condemnation of desire ("will") much more than Schelling. – Conifold Feb 15 '18 at 00:18
  • @Conifold and the way this Absolute force creates the world? Any differences there? – Yechiam Weiss Feb 15 '18 at 10:19
  • It "creates" it in the sense that the Absolute gets to know/contemplate itself more and more self-consciously in Hegel/Schelling, nothing of the sort makes sense for the Will of course. But like the Absolute it individuates itself into myriad individual subjectivities that lose sense of the whole, sending primal urges through individual microwills, our only direct contact with the thing-in-itself, according to Schopenhauer. – Conifold Feb 15 '18 at 18:57
  • @Conifold in a sense though, your last line (but replace "primal urges" with intuition) is exactly similar to Schelling, no? At least that's how I read his System. Correct me if I'm wrong. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 15 '18 at 21:20
  • Not really. Schelling's intuition comes from the front, it is modeled on vision. Schopenhauer's Will, in contrast, affects us from behind, so to speak, we do not *see* it, it *pushes* us, comes through in our motives and actions. This is the seed of the rejection of German idealism's intellectualism by life philosophers, existentialists and pragmatists alike. They all charged it with reducing subject's life/action to its mind and thereby impoverishing it, and detaching it from the true ground of its reality. – Conifold Feb 15 '18 at 21:36
  • @Conifold I will edit this comment on Sunday when I'll have access to the book, but I specifically remember Schelling talking about this "push" also. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 15 '18 at 21:38
  • This reminds me Schopenhauer's quote:"*The intellect is no light that would burn dry (without oil), but receives its supply from the will and from the passions; and this produces knowledge according as we desire to have it. For man prefers most of all to believe what he would like to.*” Or in Wittgenstein's quippy paraphrase""*If you find yourself stumped trying to convince someone of something tell yourself that it is not the intellect you are up against, it is the Will*". – Conifold Feb 19 '18 at 05:10
  • @Conifold I haven't found exactly what I was looking for, but this quotes should suffice [I translate from Hebrew]: "for the self the act of the absolute will itself is becoming an object again from the reason that the objective, that aims for something extrinsic in the willing [the act of will], is becoming objective as natural *impulse* [or *push*, bad translation, Hebrew word is דחף], and the subjective that aims for the legality [bad translation, Hebrew word is חוקיות] as itself is becoming an object as absolute will, meaning as categorical law." and on the natural impulse: (next comment) – Yechiam Weiss Feb 19 '18 at 08:47
  • "... I can't look at myself as directly acting on the object, but rather as acting on the arbitration [probably bad translation, Hebrew word is תיווך] of the matter: but when I act, I must see the matter as the identity of myself with my self. The matter as direct organ for the free activity that aims towards externality is organic body, thus it has to appear as applicable for free actions and supposedly willing ones. That impulse [which was discussed before and-] that its causation is rooted in my activity, must appear in an objective manner as natural impulse that would have been acting... – Yechiam Weiss Feb 19 '18 at 08:56
  • ... and creating for itself without any freedom, what would appear to have been created freely. Thus, for the impulse to be seen as natural impulse I must appear to myself objectively as *pushed to every action by the necessity of the organ*... "; I hope this quotes are good enough, and I hope my translation will suffice. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 19 '18 at 08:59
  • But this impulse "must appear to myself", so this is not how the absolute is, it is its limited view by a finite self. "Causation rooted in my activity... must appear in an objective manner as natural impulse", i.e. in nature self-activity is alienated from itself and manifests as natural impulse. For Schelling in the perfect self-consciousness of the absolute it will go away. how the absolute "properly" *is* has nothing to do with impulses and urges, it rather partakes of intellectual contemplation. – Conifold Feb 20 '18 at 00:10
  • In contrast, for Schopenhauer, this is how the Will, the thing-in-itself, the reality, really is. We have a complete inversion: it is the intellect that is a "false consciousness" (to borrow Engels's phrasing). – Conifold Feb 20 '18 at 00:11
  • @Conifold hmm ok, now I understand that better, thanks. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 20 '18 at 09:35
  • @Conifold just throwing in a sentence I found in the System which may be relevant: "life must be thought of as engaged in a constant struggle against the course of nature, or in an endeavor to uphold its identity against the latter." This I think was what reminded me the most of Schopenhauer. – Yechiam Weiss Feb 26 '18 at 14:47

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