Free Will - Schopenhauer Thought

Schopenhauer replaced the reason of German philosophy by will. Will is primary. Reason springs from the will and is destined to serve the will. Reason follows will all the way. But Schopenhauer's reason differs from classic reason. Though he levelled against classio philosophers and his philosophical compatriots, his reform is still restricted to classio philosophy. His philosophy directly stems from Kant's. His chief thought is that we must learn to understand representation in the will. Representation is the objectification of the will. The contradiction between will and representation appears. Therefore, the Idea in Plato's sense is introduced in Schopenhauer's philosophy, so does the contradiction of Platonic Idea. Idea is the place of contradictions. Will dwells only in the Ideas and enters phenomenal world through Ideas. Will is a kind of real force, sensible yet active. At the same time, will lies out of the principle of sufficient reason. Will is blind, which has no aims and no results, so its creation has no end. Will is tragic. Schopenhauer is heading for denial the will. Yet denial is just means, the aim is affirmation. Denial is the only way to affirm the free will in the phenomenal world. The two kinds of way of denial are art and salvation. The task of philosophy is to reproduce the knowledge of perception in the abstract, and to raise it to a permanent rational knowledge. Thus there are three kinds of methods of considering the inner nature of the world, which takes us beyond the phenomenon. Nietzsche's "will to power" is thoroughly affirmative and pleasure. Proceeding from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche initiates the modern philosophy. Schopenhauer is in some respects a transitional figure in the history of modern speculation.