Will And Life

Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, is the founder of voluntarism. He carried forward Kant's distinguish between appearance and thing-in-itself, and defined thing-in-itself as will. As an irrational and blind will, "will to live" can be recognized through sensuous contemplation. Schopenhauer established a philosophical system of irrationalism, which set will to live as its substance, and initiated an ideological trend of humanism. The theme of his philosophy is:for one thing, world is appearance; for another, world is will. Schopenhauer's theory of will to live criticized and transcended traditional rationalism, and emphasized some irrational activities which have decisive function in human being's live, such as the will to live, instinctual impulse and so on. All of these changed the trend of western philosophy's developmentIn Schopenhauer's philosophical thought, the most noticeable part should be ethics of pessimism on life. He considered that human being is dominated by his (or her) will and the essence of the will should be desire and impulse. Desire and impulse is infinite, but the satisfaction of it is temporary and limited. When the desire cannot be satisfied, people will be suffering; when it is satisfied, they will be spiritually barren and boring. Therefore, Schopenhauer considered that life is just like a pendulum which is swaying between suffering and boring. In this way, suffering cannot be avoided, and the life will be a tragedy. In Schopenhauer's opinion, there are two methods to free ourselves from suffering. The first one should be giving up one's will to live temporarily through the appreciation to art to free ourselves. Another one should be denying one's will to live completely through abstinence to free ourselves.