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Single Idea 8116

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 6. Value of Art ]

Full Idea

For Schopenhauer, the point of art lies in the metaphysical liberation from selfhood that will-less aesthetic contemplation induces.

Gist of Idea

The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood

Source

report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.6.3

Book Ref

'Philosophy: a Guide Through the Subject', ed/tr. Grayling,A.C. [OUP 1995], p.620

A Reaction

I've never understood why anyone (Buddhists included) would want 'liberation from selfhood'. Certainly art can make us forget ourselves in a more objective view of things, but science can do that too.

The 88 ideas from Arthur Schopenhauer

4187 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer]
4190 All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer]
4189 Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer]
4191 What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer]
4192 All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer]
21368 The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer]
21379 Man's three basic ethical incentives are egoism, malice and compassion [Schopenhauer]
21375 Reason can be vicious, and great crimes have to be rational [Schopenhauer]
21376 Philosophy treats animals as exploitable things, ignoring the significance of their lives [Schopenhauer]
21921 Concepts are abstracted from perceptions [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21362 Necessity is physical, logical, mathematical or moral [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
21920 No need for a priori categories, since sufficient reason shows the interrelations [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21361 For Schopenhauer, material things would not exist without the mind [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
21918 Sufficient Reason can't be proved, because all proof presupposes it [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21919 Object for a subject and representation are the same thing [Schopenhauer]
21917 The four explanations: objects by causes, concepts by ground, maths by spacetime, ethics by motive [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21363 Motivation is causality seen from within [Schopenhauer]
21378 We clearly feel responsible for our deeds, because we are quite certain that we did them [Schopenhauer]
21924 As the subject of willing I am wretched, but absorption in knowledge is bliss [Schopenhauer]
21915 To deduce morality from reason is blasphemy, because it is holy, and far above reason [Schopenhauer]
21916 Philosophers can't be religious, and don't need to be; philosophy is perilous but free [Schopenhauer]
21474 Metaphysics studies the inexplicable ends of explanation [Schopenhauer]
21473 All knowledge and explanation rests on the inexplicable [Schopenhauer]
21476 A priori propositions are those we could never be seriously motivated to challenge [Schopenhauer]
21475 All of our concepts are borrowed from perceptual knowledge [Schopenhauer]
21372 Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will [Schopenhauer]
21477 We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer]
21478 Half our thinking is unconscious, and we reach conclusions while unaware of premises [Schopenhauer]
21479 Knowledge is not power! Ignorant people possess supreme authority [Schopenhauer]
21480 Boredom is only felt by those clever enough to need activity [Schopenhauer]
21470 For me the objective thing-in-itself is the will [Schopenhauer]
21485 The state only exists to defend citizens, from exterior threats, and from one another [Schopenhauer]
21486 Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer]
21487 The freedom of the press to sell poison outweighs its usefulness [Schopenhauer]
21481 Buddhists wisely start with the cardinal vices [Schopenhauer]
21482 The five Chinese virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom, honesty [Schopenhauer]
21483 Man is essentially a dreadful wild animal [Schopenhauer]
21484 A man's character can be learned from a single characteristic action [Schopenhauer]
21469 Human life is a mistake, shown by boredom, which is direct awareness of the fact [Schopenhauer]
21466 Pleasure is weaker, and pain stronger, than we expect [Schopenhauer]
21467 Would humanity still exist if sex wasn't both desired and pleasurable? [Schopenhauer]
21468 The Creator created the possibilities for worlds, so should have made a better one than this possible [Schopenhauer]
21471 If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer]
21488 The beautiful is a perception of Plato's Forms, which eliminates the will [Schopenhauer]
21472 Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer]
21370 Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
7187 Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer]
5649 Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton]
8116 The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood [Schopenhauer, by Gardner]
21926 Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21923 Schopenhauer can't use force/energy instead of 'will', because he is not a materialist [Lewis,PB on Schopenhauer]
4162 The world only exists in relation to something else, as an idea of the one who conceives it [Schopenhauer]
4163 All perception is intellectual [Schopenhauer]
4164 Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes [Schopenhauer]
12171 Absurdity is incongruity between correct and false points of view [Schopenhauer]
21922 We know reality because we know our own bodies and actions [Schopenhauer]
21365 Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer]
21367 I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer]
21371 We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer]
21928 The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21374 We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer]
21913 Kant rightly separates appearance and thing-in-itself [Schopenhauer]
21366 Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer]
4167 The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer]
4165 Descartes found the true beginning of philosophy with the Cogito, in the consciousness of the individual [Schopenhauer]
4166 A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer]
4168 Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer]
21927 Schopenhauer emphasises Ideas in art, unlike most romantics [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
4169 Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body [Schopenhauer]
4170 Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer]
4171 Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer]
4172 Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer]
21369 We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer]
21380 The only aim of our existence is to grasp that non-existence would be better [Schopenhauer]
4173 If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives [Schopenhauer]
4174 Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature [Schopenhauer]
4175 It is as perverse to resent our individuality being replaced by others, as to resent the body renewing itself [Schopenhauer]
4176 We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer]
4177 Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer]
4178 Christianity is a pessimistic religion, in which the world is equated with evil [Schopenhauer]
4179 The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer]
4180 Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer]
4181 Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will [Schopenhauer]
4182 A principal pleasure of the beautiful is that it momentarily silences the will [Schopenhauer]
4185 Altruistic people make less distinction than usual between themselves and others [Schopenhauer]
4183 Only self-love can motivate morality, but that also makes it worthless [Schopenhauer]
4184 Virtue must spring from an intuitive recognition that other people are essentially like us [Schopenhauer]
4186 Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer]