You do not need to search long to find philosophers that rate Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) as the ultimate advocate of determinism. Nonetheless, they are wrong; their categorisation of Schopenhauer as deterministic is superficial and overlooks a large number of key aspects in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. When analysing a philosopher, one must place his ideas at a certain point in the scale of determinism versus individuality. It is particularly easy to err if you don’t study philosophical ideas in detail. If you reduce Schopenhauer’s lifetime work to a caricature, you will tend to place him at the end of the scale. However, the reality is more nuanced and interesting. When we look into the details of Schopenhauer’s ideas, we must definitely rate him as an individualist, not as deterministic. Let me explain the logic by comparing Schopenhauer to the Ancient Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who lived in the first century AD. Schopenhauer’s two key works “On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason” (1814) and “The world as will and representation” (1818) argue that the cosmos is dominated by the will. Schopenhauer regards the will as a blind life force. Similarly, Stoic philosophers like Epictetus believed that the cosmos is governed by a force called “logos.” This force is to blame for every good and bad occurrence in the world. The definition of the logos had been shaped by Cleanthes (331-232 BC), Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC), and Chrysippus (280-206 BC) of Cilicia, all of them predecessors of Epictetus. Schopenhauer’s definition of the will includes the adjective “irrational,” but strongly resembles the Stoic “logos.” It doesn’t change much that Zeno and Cleanthes had called their logos “rational.” In any case, the Stoic deterministic framework was stronger than Schopenhauer’s theory of the will. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/individuality-and-determinism-in-schopenhauer/

The enormous achievements of Aristotle come to light when you compare his ideas with those of other thinkers. Especially during the decade that he devoted to lecturing in Athens (335-325 BC), he came up with very accurate insights on the nature of reality and existence. As he explains in his book “Metaphysics,” each entity in the world possesses a unique essence or nature. In broad terms, the essence of an entity is determined by its “material cause” (the matter that constitutes it) and its “formal cause” (its shape). In addition, when entities move, we can also speak of their “efficient cause” (the force that moves them) and “final cause” (the purpose that they want to achieve). Aristotle considered that, by analysing the material, formal, efficient and final cause, we can identify the essence of entities in particular and of existence in general. To make his analysis even more accurate, Aristotle used the additional concepts of “potentiality” and “actuality.” Those are meant to identify changes in substances or living creatures. For instance, a piece of wood has the potential of becoming a toy, but won’t turn into a toy until a human being takes action and gives the wood a specific shape, for instance by carving it. When the wooden toy is finished, we can say that the potential has been actualised. The Aristotelian concepts of potentiality and actuality prove very useful in character development or “personal growth.” We can point to a youth and say that he has a great potential, but it remains to be seen where he will put in the work necessary to bring his potential to fruition and “actualise it.” If you look at Aristotle’s ideas from the standpoint of today’s knowledge, you’ll be tempted to rate some of them as obvious, but if you place them in their historical context, it is clear that Aristotle was ahead of his time. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/aristotles-views-on-the-nature-of-reality-and-existence/

Was Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) a subjectivist? Did he reject an objective philosophy, where the concepts of good and bad are universally defined? What’s the difference between Schopenhauer and subjectivist thinkers? Schopenhauer wasn’t a subjectivist. His book “The world as will and representation” (1818) outlines the theory of the will, which sustains that all living entities are driven by a life force (“the will”) to ensure their survival and reproduction. According to Schopenhauer, the will is a wild, irrational and eternal force. The will is objective in the sense that it exists before human consciousness. However, it is also subjective in the sense that it exerts relentless pressure on the thoughts and actions of each individual. Schopenhauer built a philosophy that connects the objective and the subjective, identifying how they interact across time. It is wrong to say that he favoured subjectivity and arbitrariness, or that he encouraged people to elevate their feelings to ethical principles. The comparison with a subjectivist thinker is the best way to present Schopenhauer’s views on the meaning of life; for the comparison, I have chosen the archetypical subjectivist thinker, namely, Emile Coué (1857-1926). Coué belongs to the generation born after Schopenhauer but he inhabited a world that, to a large extent, inherited the ideals and habits from Schopenhauer’s time. Geographically, Coué was not far away from the German- speaking area of Europe. Coué spent most of his life in a town located a few hundred kilometres from the German border. I consider Coué the archetype of the subjectivist thinker due to his experiments in the field of suggestion. He was the first promoter of positive thinking and daily positive affirmations. Schopenhauer was never confronted with ideas exactly like the ones developed by Coué, but was familiar with suggestions and affirmations in Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity. If Schopenhauer had met Coué, he wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Why not? Because he never took seriously positive thinking, suggestion and affirmation in religion. Schopenhauer didn’t give credence to theories that appear borderline magical. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/analysis-of-schopenhauers-views-on-the-meaning-of-life/