Beyond Teleology and Progress

Content

1. Introduction: The blind spot in a German tradition

2. The main features of Schopenhauer’s thought

3. The argument
3.1. The criticism of the historian and entitlement of the artist
3.2. The criticism of the philosophy of history

4. The Schopenhauerian philosophy of history

5. Conclusion: The artist reveals the Wille

6. Epilogue: The forerunner of the Twilight of the Idols and post modernism21

Bibliography

1. Introduction: The blind spot in a German tradition

„Was in Wolken, Bach und Krystall erscheint, ist der schwächste Nachhall jenes Willens, der vollendeter in der Pflanze, noch vollendeter im Thier, am vollendetesten im Menschen hervortritt. Aber nur das Wesentliche aller jener Stufen seiner Objektivation macht die Idee aus: hingegen die Entfaltung dieser, indem sie in den Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde auseinandergezogen wird zu mannigfaltigen und vielseitigen Erscheinungen; dieses ist der Idee unwesentlich, liegt bloß in der Erkenntnisweise des Individuums und hat auch nur für dieses Realität. Dasselbe nun gilt notwendig auch von der Entfaltung derjenigen Idee, welche die vollendeteste Objektität des Willens ist: folglich ist die Geschichte des Menschengeschlechts, das Gedränge der Begebenheiten, der Wechsel der Zeiten, die vielgestalteten Formen des menschlichen Lebens in verschiedenen Ländern und Jahrhunderten, – dieses alles ist nur die zufällige Form der Erscheinung der Idee, gehört nicht dieser selbst, in der allein die adäquate Objektität des Willens liegt, sondern nur der Erscheinung an, die in die Erkenntnis des Individuums fällt, und ist der Idee selbst so fremd, unwesentlich und gleichgültig, wie den Wolken die Figuren, die sie darstellen, dem Bach die Gestalt seiner Strudel und Schaumgebilde, dem Eise seine Bäume und Blumen”^[1]

“A long, largely German, tradition of thought looks at history as a total and comprehensible process of events, structures, and processes, for which the philosophy of history can serve as an interpretive tool.”^[2] Thus begins the article on “Philosophy of History” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Of course, that branch of philosophy has a much longer tradition. Most importantly for the modern understanding of history as a comprehensible process, Augustine of Hippo gave history a direction when he wrote his De Civitate Dei in the fifth century. He drew the path of history as a fight between those who dedicate themselves to Christian values and those who indulge in earthly pleasures. His idea of history aimed at the final victory of the godly people of the City of God. In his book, Augustine presented “a unified, linear, purposive process that speaks to, and makes sense of, the sequence or development of events in time.”^[3]

This concept strongly influenced German thinkers during the enlightenment who coined the way history has been understood in the West ever since. The most famous German Aufklärer, Immanuel Kant, tried to make sense of the course of history and the nature of human beings without the myth of a City of God. In an attempt to replace the theological good and evil with reasonable ethics, he imagined the development of the nature of men as a competition under the rule of law. This way, men would make progress not by pursuing god, but by developing an ethical acting society.

Georg W. F. Hegel later picked up Kant’s ideas and explained history as development of human consciousness.^[4] In his collection of essays on the philosophy of history, Collingwood acknowledges that in Hegel’s work “history for the first time steps out full-grown on the stage of philosophical thought.”^[5] Instead of a permanent fight between good and evil, history appears as a repetitive clash of thesis and anti-thesis. Each of these clashes resolves in a progressive step for humans. He saw the “self-regarding, destructive passions of men as the unconscious ‘efficient cause’.” Men and their struggle would be “means and instruments of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing” and hidden behind the obvious, “reason rules the world.”^[6] For Hegel, Christianity expressed the ideal of all men being free. Thus, progress could best take place through Christianity in political union.^[7]

Most works on the philosophies of history begin explaining Karl Marx’s philosophy of history right after Hegel simply because he seems to have applied the same mechanism while finally getting rid of any god. Marx replaced the Hegelian clash with the engines of world history – the revolutions. With Marx, history still is a comprehensible process of events with a clear goal. Only this time man is creating the perfect existence and the end of history on earth. At the end of the nineteenth century, the concept of progress seemed to triumph in German philosophy.

However, that does not obliterate a number of opposing thinkers that wrote their ideas concurrently. The traditional view of history as progress was strongly criticized by important characters such as Jacob Burckhardt, Friedrich W. Nietzsche, or Oswald Spengler. Godfather of these ideas was none less than Hegel’s most persistent adversary Arthur Schopenhauer. First and foremost, he and Nietzsche fought a “guerilla war”^[8] against the traditional purposeful philosophies of history. It is no accident that their ideas are not considered in most compositions dealing with the development of the philosophy of history. They simply seem not to fit in a linear sequence with any of the given.

This paper is meant to underline that this largely German tradition has its most important critic in a German philosopher. I will try to summarize Schopenhauer’s thought on history and the philosophy of history. Therefore I will search his most important works as well as secondary literature concerning some key questions. Did Schopenhauer explain what history is, how it works, and what purpose it has? Where did he agree and where contradict with his predecessors and contemporaries?

The first book to look into is of course his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Especially in the second volume, he directly addressed history as a problem and explains some of his views on a philosophy of history. Collingwood provides us in Essays in the Philosophy of History with one of the few collections that do acknowledge Schopenhauer’s importance. Furthermore, Pauen explains in Pessimismus: Geschichtsphilosophie, Metaphysik und Moderne von Nietzsche bis Spengler the development from ancient thought over Leibnitz’ theodicy and the rational philosophy of history with Kant and Hegel to the pessimism in Spengler’s ideas. One more work that emphasizes critical thought on history seen as progress is Cesana’s G eschichte als Entwicklung? Zur Kritik des geschichtsphilosophischen Entwicklungsdenkens. There is also a number of essays that reveal Schopenhauer’s ideas most of which were published in the Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch. Finally, I have to consider Krueger’s Master thesis on „Arthur Schopenhauer on Aesthetics, History, and Tragedy.”

Throughout this paper I will maintain some of Schopenhauer’s original German terms because of their ambiguity. First of all, the word Vorstellung as used by the author can be translated as “representation,” but does also implicate an imagination. Secondly, the Wille is usually translated as “will.” However, it additionally expresses a desire or volition. The third word that I will use in German is Wirklichkeit, meaning reality and furthermore actuality, emphasizing the action.

Focusing on the given questions throughout the primary and secondary literature, I will hopefully be able to uncover Schopenhauer’s own philosophy of history and to estimate its impact on German thought.

2. The main features of Schopenhauer’s thought

All of Schopenhauer’s thought centers on his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, originally published in 1819 and completed with a second volume in 1844. He had thoroughly studied Plato and Kant before coming to his conclusion about men and the world we live in. Much like earlier religious explanations or Kant’s idea of a thing itself and Hegel’s notion of reason, Schopenhauer believed that there is something metaphysical that rules the world. He had learned from Plato about the volatileness of the observable world and the constancy of the ideas behind it. Schopenhauer understood the Wirklichkeit as an everlasting becoming and beneath all that becoming a hidden force much like Kant‘s thing itself.^[9]

For Schopenhauer, this force is der Wille. It is the single omnipotent motivation for the fundamental physical forces in the universe and the reason for all human action. It is the urge for reproduction and enhancement, beyond time and space.^[10] While we can only observe die Vorstellung, our ephemeral environment in its countless constellations, understanding the Wille is our only window to the world behind the Vorstellung. For human beings, the Wille creates desires that we are forced to fulfill for the unfulfilled Wille is pain. Whenever one of those desires is finally fulfilled, we experience pleasure. However, the satisfied desire is immediately replaced by a new one and new pain. In this concept, all human ambition presents itself as futile and the human existence seems to be hopelessly painful. At this point, Schopenhauer reveals the influence of far Eastern thought on nineteenth century German philosophy. He resorted to a variation of Buddhist philosophy and declares that only the negation of all desires can bring inner peace.^[11]

This solution however is much more demanding than it may seem and can only be achieved by very few individuals. According to Schopenhauer, it takes a certain degree of genius to cast a glance at the Wille. No science, not even the most complete accumulation of date and the most thoroughly analysis of it can provide us with the ability to understand the Wille, it all works in the sphere of the Vorstellung. The genius perceives an object (any object) and sees beneath the Vorstellung because the complete Wille is manifest in the smallest detail. “As regards the birth of a work of art in a man’s mind, if he is only in a susceptible mood, almost any object that comes within his range of perception will begin to speak to him, in other words, will generate in him some lively, penetrating, original thought.”^[12] Such knowing free from any desire enables the individual to deny as much of the Wille as he understands about it. There are even some people with such an exceptionally high degree of genius that they are able to communicate their experience through art. Thus art and not science is the only way to teach others about the Wille.

[...]

^[1] Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. vol. I. (Berlin and Vienna: Hans Heinrich Tillinger-Verlag, 1924), 185f.

^[2] Daniel Little, “Philosophy of History,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/history/ (Accessed January 10, 2010).

^[3] William Sweet, ed. The Philosophy of History: A Re-Examination (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), 5.

^[4] Sweet, 7.

^[5] William H. Dray, Philosophy of History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 67.

^[6] Dray, 69.

^[7] Dray, 72.

^[8] R. G. Collingwood, Essays in the Philosophy of History, ed. William Debbins (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1965), 107.

^[9] Kuno Fischer, Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre (Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1934), 336.

^[10] Schopenhauer, Die Welt. vol. I, 132.

^[11] Fischer, 337.

^[12] Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Christian System and other Essays,” in Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. T. Bailey Saunders (New York: A.L. Burt Company, 2008), 8.