Tag Archives: Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer on Happiness.17 Envy

19 Tuesday May 2020

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The prior post on Schopenhauer and happiness may be found here.

Schopenhauer makes the reasonable observation that envy makes one unhappy:

Envy is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice and a source of misery.

There are ways in which envy makes one unhappy: to be envious and to be envied. First as to being envious. The sensation I experience in being envious of another person will injure me. Schopenhauer treats this point briefly. He does little to explain why envy should make one unhappy.

He then offers some advice to avoid feeling envy: (1) don’t pay attention to those who have something you do not; and (2) think of how much misery that person whom one envies actually has an unhappy life.

This may have some practical merit, but it seems to miss the real bit of envy. Envy is more than just a desire for some-thing I do not possess. A desire for an object or a state can be a spur to great good. I desire to become a physician, and so I work very hard for many years with study and delayed gratification until I achieve my goal.

This illustration can be worked out in numerous variants. Much of the good done in the world is as the result of someone intently desiring to have some thing or state which we do not now possess.

The desire is to achieve or possess is not envy.

Envy is exactly desire for some-thing, it is a sense of injustice that you have it and I do not. Envy is a moral judgment without the capacity to effectuate judgment. The furnace for envy is possessing or not possessing. Envy is the settled conclusion that the world has gone wrong because you wrongfully possess X.

Schopenhauer does observe “it should always be remembered that no form of hatred is so implacable as the hatred that comes from envy.” The envy is the conclusion that you should not have that – and I should. The moral sense of injustice is coupled to a hatred, typically directed toward the one possessing the object.

Thus, having consider envy more carefully, we can see that merely avoiding knowledge of the possession of others will be insufficient to stem envy. Unless the ignorance is complete, I can still have the sense that I should have X. The knowledge that anyone has X – which I should have – will be sufficient to stoke envy.

The knowledge of another’s misery might help to stem envy, because it could give me the sense that the other person is being judged.

What needs to be understood is that the defeat of envy must come from a sense that the world will be just in the end.

Schopenhauer has no good basis to believe that anything will be just. Therefore, the best advice he can give is to try and avoid the occasions which might provoke envy.

When the matter is considered, it seems that a better means of regulating envy will be see some basis for justice in the world.

One way to see that justice is to understand that the good is not distributed in some purely material way: the basis for envy is illusory. This is a strain in Ecclesiastes: no degree of material possession or control will be able to deliver happiness.

If I envy you for having a better house, I believe that possessing that house makes you happy when I should be happy with that house. And yet, possessing all that one could desire, property, money, drugs, human beings is insufficient to bring happiness: In Ecclesiastes 2:11 it is said to be vain, striving after wind and there is nothing to be gained under the sun. In short, the injustice is illusory.

In Ecclesiastes 6:2, the giving of some particular life is of no good unless God also gives “the power to enjoy” what has been given.

The point could be multiplied, but the sense of contentment is not in the object out there; contentment is a subjective sense.

A further remedy for envy is given in the realization of God’s providence and sovereignty and eventual judgment. God determined that this one would be a billionaire and this one would have little. That realization does not mean that the billionaire simply does as he pleases. His possession creates a moral duty to use that property well.

The property comes with a moral obligation which will be judged in the end. Thus, someone does not just get property. The thing received from God creates a moral obligation will which be judged. Therefore, envy is a condemnation of God for erring in terms of distributing good and for failing to judge rightly.

If one denies the existence of God and judgment, then envy is simply incoherent. Without God there is no “should” there is only “is.” If one man is wealthy and another poor, there is no violation of justice. Nothing “wrong” has happened. I may wish I had X, but I cannot determine that it is wrong.

For envy to exist, one must believe there is some justice in the world. Yet, that justice has been subverted. One must believe in a moral order with the maladministration of that order. In short, there must be a god, but that god must be impotent, unconcerned or unjust.

Thus, envy is a theological problem. Thus, it is not surprising that Schopenhauer has little help beyond trying to avoid the temptation.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.16 (Sympathy for the Devil)

28 Tuesday Apr 2020

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The previous post on Schopenhauer may be found here.

At this point, Schopenhauer develops his argument concerning solitude. We can see this argument in a few different ways. There are three quotations which help outline his argument:

One:

From what has been said it is obvious that the love of solitude is not a direct, original impulse in human nature, but rather something secondary and of gradual growth. It is the more distinguishing feature of nobler minds, developed not without some conquest of natural desires, and now and then in actual opposition to the promptings of Mephistopheles–bidding you exchange a morose and soul-destroying solitude for life amongst men, for society;

Two:

The love of solitude which was formerly indulged only at the expense of our desire for society, has now come to be the simple quality of our natural disposition–the element proper to our life, as water to a fish. This is why anyone who possesses a unique individuality–unlike others and therefore necessarily isolated–feels that, as he becomes older, his position is no longer so burdensome as when he was young.

Three:

Let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration.

These arguments contain an overweening pride: “the distinguishing feature of nobler minds”; “anyone who possesses a unique individuality – unlike others”; “not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually”. At first read, it would be easy just to think Arthur is a self-impressed jerk, even if he is smart.

But there is something else here: a justification for this difference from others. And seen from a distance, it inspires a certain sadness for the man. He admits that solitude was not a natural condition, but something he grew into, he learned it. He began by feeling “isolated” and later learned this as solitude. He had to engage in conquest of his “natural desires.” For one who has learned solitude, he “feels that, as he becomes older, his position is no longer so burdensome as when he was young.”

He wanted to have (more) friends. He learned to live with none or few and then wrapped himself in a sense of superiority to disburden himself of loneliness.

There is some psychological protecting himself against the temptation to desire company:

It is the more distinguishing feature of nobler minds, developed not without some conquest of natural desires, and now and then in actual opposition to the promptings of Mephistopheles–bidding you exchange a morose and soul-destroying solitude for life amongst men, for society;

It is Faust’s devil Mephistopheles who tempts him to feel lonely and desire company. But by resisting the desire for company, he is turning his back on the Devil.

It really should be noted that what is missing here is any sense of balance. There are remarkable goods in solitude. Contemplation, prayer, meditation are necessary. To be always in company is as crippling as to be always alone. We are made for both. Taking Jesus as the model for the most well-balanced man, we see him both alone and in company; never neglecting one or the other.

What we have in Schopenhauer is someone defending himself from loneliness with arrogance (at least as he portrays himself in this book); and for that, I feel some sympathy for him – even though the comic self-preening is difficult to overlook. Perhaps it is easier to feel sympathy for him, because I never had to endure what seems to have been his scorn for others.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.15

16 Thursday Apr 2020

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The previous post in this series may be found here: 

He now begins to present his arguments for solitude:

Solitude is doubly advantageous to such a man. Firstly, it allows him to be with himself, and, secondly, it prevents him being with others–an advantage of great moment; for how much constraint, annoyance, and even danger there is in all intercourse with the world.

This is partially an argument from definition: to be solitary is to be with oneself; and to be solitary is to be apart from others.

Why is this good? Because being others can lead to:

much constraint: by this he apparently means that you can’t really “be yourself” if someone else is around. This leads me to wonder what exactly did Schopenhauer like to do?

Annoyance:  Other people bug me.

Danger: I’m not certain what he means by danger, unless it was mere rhetorical flare. While danger could obviously result from meeting a murderer, is that danger inherent in all interaction?

He then moves one to a matter of assertion:

Rascals are always sociable–more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others’ company.

One does not necessarily follow from the other: there have been dreadful people who loved company. But then I think of the sorry case of the Unibomber, who lived quite alone for many years, shunning most all company. He was a very intelligent and well educated man. And he was also at the very least a “rascal”. The man was a cold-blooded murderer, quite certain he was doing the greatest good:

Men of great intellect live in the world without really belonging to it; and so, from their earliest years, they feel that there is a perceptible difference between them and other people.

There is a transparent bitterness in such sentences. Perhaps this section from the a brief history of his life on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy might give some background:

After a year’s vacation in Italy and with The World as Will and Representation in hand, Schopenhauer applied for the opportunity to lecture at the University of Berlin, the institution at which he had formerly studied, and where two years earlier (1818), Hegel had arrived to assume Fichte’s prestigious philosophical chair. His experiences in Berlin were less than professionally fruitful, however, for in March of 1820, Schopenhauer self-assuredly scheduled his class at a time that was simultaneous with Hegel’s popular lectures, and few students chose to hear Schopenhauer.

Sometimes even great philosophers engage in self-justification.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.14

16 Thursday Apr 2020

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Schopenhauer here offers a wholly negative argument concerning human interaction:

As boredom seems to be an evil of this kind, people band together to offer it a common resistance. The love of life is at bottom only the fear of death; and, in the same way, the social impulse does not rest directly upon the love of society, but upon the fear of solitude; it is not alone the charm of being in others’ company that people seek, it is the dreary oppression of being alone–the monotony of their own consciousness–that they would avoid.

Here is the argument broken down:

Proposition one: Boredom is an evil.

Proposition two: Solitude leads to boredom.

Conclusion: One fears solitude, because solitude will lead to boredom.

Proof of the propositions:  Why is there boredom: (a) it is “dreary oppression;” and (b) one could become bored with one’s own thought, “the monotony of their consciousness”.

Proof of point: Therefore, we “band together” for the purpose of avoiding solitude (and thus, by extension, boredom).

Proof of point:  Analogy to life: One seeks life only due to the fear of death.

Corollary: The benefit of “society” is of margin value.

Having seen the argument in its parts, we can consider the elements severally.

Boredom: While it is unpleasant, it is not an unmitigated evil. For instance, boredom often provokes one to more useful endeavors.  This is related to the nature of solitude.

Solitude: He pick up on this point below in the form of an argument that for the “great”, solitude is not a burden but a benefit because I am alone with my own contemplation.

This leads to a subtle element of this argument: solitude leads to boredom for you lesser sorts; but for me!

Again, there is the irony of writing a book: the book is a social act. It is communication from the author to the reader. And so his solitude argument is not nearly as strong as it may seem.

But there is more. In solitary contemplation, one thinks about not merely raw nature without any social content. If one thinks in a language, that internal language is a matter of social content. No one looks upon the world as complete innocent. When Schopenhauer looked at the physical world without any human present, he still took to it the volume of human learning he had obtained from social content.

And so one person may be more or less solitary than others, but it is always relative.  A person who rejects all time alone or all time with others would limited in some ways.

But since it is Schopenhauer in the dock, let’s consider a truly solitary figure. Let us suppose this man thought the grandest and most valuable thoughts. What could would his contemplations be? What is the value of a human thought never communicated?

Schopenhauer on Happiness.12

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

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The previous post on this subject may be found here:

Schopenhauer continues on with his theme of society and solitude

Loneliness and solitude have their evils, it is true; but if you cannot feel them all at once, you can at least see where they lie; on the other hand, society is insidious in this respect; as in offering you what appears to be the pastime of pleasing social intercourse, it works great and often irreparable mischief.

This is an interesting comment; but is it true? Is it only true for some and not others? There are problems in solitude and society. So much is true.

The point here is that society is deceptive in what it offers; while solitude is plain and obvious in its difficulties. But is that so? The trouble in both places seems to lie in with the individual; not within the circumstance.

When I am alone, I am confronted with myself in a rather striking manner. I forced to run over my own thoughts, regrets, hopes, et cetera. The trouble here will not merely be boredom, it will be an excess of introspection. I can see that as a possibility right off.

But the real trouble will come with what happens to me in that introspection. Do I really know what I will uncover when I trounce around through my soul? And I am not static in this: when I begin my introspection, it is not as if I am walking through an already built house. It is more that I am walking through a dream where everything about me changes as I change.

When it comes to social trouble: it seems he fears being deceived. And while deception involves one who does the tricking; it also entails a willing subject. I must be deceivable on that on point. There is a reason that a con man does not offer to sell you worthless land: no one wants that.

If the trouble in society is that you will be bore me; I can see that at the outset. If the trouble is I will pin my hopes upon you and you will disappointment me; then, there is something which I may not probably anticipate. Again, I am changing as the matter progresses.

What is the “irreparable mischief”?

He sees the trouble with society in that other people are less than a great man like him:

They become sick of themselves. It is this vacuity of soul which drives them to intercourse with others,–to travels in foreign countries.

And this is the seduction and the stupidity of his argument. Everyone has times where they would prefer to be alone and times where they would prefer others. The time here or there may vary, but there is always a variation.

Take Schopenhauer’s book: his writing this book is a social act. It is an extended, one-sided conversation. But it is a conversation. Would he call the act of writing his book “vacuity of soul”? Of course not.

The seduction is that to the extent you find yourself agreeing with him, it is because you are a great soul – like him!

Schopenhauer On Happiness.11 Life of the Party

28 Friday Feb 2020

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(https://www.si.edu/object/saam_1996.63.185)

In this section of his advice, Schopenhauer becomes both grumpy and arrogant. But his argument is very seductive at the same time:

All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be its tone. A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

And:

Further, if a man stands high in Nature’s lists, it is natural and inevitable that he should feel solitary. It will be an advantage to him if his surroundings do not interfere with this feeling; for if he has to see a great deal of other people who are not of like character with himself, they will exercise a disturbing influence upon him, adverse to his peace of mind; they will rob him, in fact, of himself, and give him nothing to compensate for the loss.

            ***

So-called good society recognizes every kind of claim but that of intellect, which is a contraband article;

            ****

No man can be in perfect accord with any one but himself–not even with a friend or the partner of his life; differences of individuality and temperament are always bringing in some degree of discord, though it may be a very slight one.

Let’s pick this argument apart. The argument begins with the truism, that no one is exactly the same in public that one is in private. We do monitor our behavior when we are around others.

From that he draws out a second move: since we monitor our behavior, we are not ourselves, we are not free.

There is a third move in his progression, and this is the seductive move, this is truly a burden for the great.

Conclusion: therefore, happiness can only take place when we are alone.

Let us consider this argument. Being absolutely alone is not known to be a means of happiness. In fact, we put the people we are most unhappy with into solitary confinement. It is an extraordinary punishment to force isolation.

Second, while introverts may like quieter settings than others, it does not mean no social contact at all.

Third, why does monitoring one’s behavior mean a lack of freedom or from that happiness? Part of maturing entails controlling and monitoring one’s behavior. Schopenhauer’s entire book is the result of extraordinary self-control. He has had to learn exceptional skills to be able to communicate by means of a complex book.

We can also think of self-monitoring as entailing courtesy and kindness. The very act of considering the good of another human being is a well-known means of obtaining happiness.

Put conversely, does anyone think that Scrooge is the happiest character in A Christmas Carol?

And what does this mean to be oneself? The way I am when I am alone is myself; the way I am in front of others is also myself – in that circumstance. And what sort of self does Schopenhauer mean?

Does he merely mean he likes to avoid boring conversation? That is the case for everyone. I am certain Arthur bored many people. Others found him fascinating.

Now if he wished to be “himself” everywhere, the Cynics gave a perfectly acceptable means of behaving. Their name comes from the Greek word for “dog”. These philosophers simply did whatever they felt like doing wherever they happened to be. You may not appreciate a person who was also “free” coming over to your home. It would sort of like a cross being an undiapered toddler and an ill-behaved dog.

But as we think this through, does not think that Schopenhauer was “happy” being this solitary “giant”? This sounds more like a self-justification for his misery.

He thinks that the reason all social contact is difficult (and I am writing this as person who tends toward introversion and who finds large parties painful) is because he is great.

Now everyone feels uncomfortable in some circumstances. Even the most vivacious often is trying to avoid their discomfort by sheer exuberance.

Thus, according to Arthur, we are all great – because we all feel discomfort in some circumstance.

It seems that he is painful awkward and seeking to solace himself. I tend to think that a friend would do him a great deal more good than nursing an enormous sense of self-worth.

These guys pretty much sum of Schopenhauer’s point: (1) I can’t be myself, and (2) my pain is because I’m special:

Schopenhauer on Happiness.10 Festivities

21 Friday Feb 2020

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In this section, Schopenhauer makes an argument that happiness, if you can call his goal ‘happiness’ is a matter of distance from life and especially other people. The first stop on his list avoidances is pleasure Perhaps it would best be to consider his position to be avoidance of disappointment:

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life: for the whole object of it is to transform our miserable existence into a succession of joys, delights and pleasures,–a process which cannot fail to result in disappointment and delusion; on a par, in this respect, with its obligato accompaniment, the interchange of lies.

This proposition is again true and perhaps not so. Let is first consider this as a true statement. No amount of revelry will be maintained forever. This advice of Schopenhauer reminds of the story in Joyce’s Dubliners entitled, “After the Race.” The story concerns a young Irishman named Jimmy who is having a fine time on the back of his father’s wealth as a butcher. Joyce describes the night of revelry as follows

They drove by the crowd, blended now into soft colours, to a music of merry bells. They took the train at Westland Row and in a few seconds, as it seemed to Jimmy, they were walking out of Kingstown Station. The ticket-collector saluted Jimmy; he was an old man:

“Fine night, sir!”

It was a serene summer night; the harbour lay like a darkened mirror at their feet. They proceeded towards it with linked arms, singing Cadet Roussel in chorus, stamping their feet at every:

“Ho! Ho! Hohé, vraiment!”

They got into a rowboat at the slip and made out for the American’s yacht. There was to be supper, music, cards. Villona said with conviction:

“It is delightful!”

Upon the yacht they begin to play cards:

Cards! cards! The table was cleared. Villona returned quietly to his piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game after game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit was flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was winning but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault for he frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his I.O.U.‘s for him. They were devils of fellows but he wished they would stop: it was getting late. Someone gave the toast of the yacht The Belle of Newport and then someone proposed one great game for a finish.

From there, the arc of revelry and joy turns to profound realization:

The piano had stopped; Villona must have gone up on deck. It was a terrible game. They stopped just before the end of it to drink for luck. Jimmy understood that the game lay between Routh and Ségouin. What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he would lose, of course. How much had he written away? The men rose to their feet to play the last tricks, talking and gesticulating. Routh won. The cabin shook with the young men’s cheering and the cards were bundled together. They began then to gather in what they had won. Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest losers.

He knew that he would regret in the morning but at present he was glad of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head between his hands, counting the beats of his temples. The cabin door opened and he saw the Hungarian standing in a shaft of grey light:

“Daybreak, gentlemen!”

“They knew they would regret it in the morning.” There was no rest, no time to bear the wound. It struck and would not be relieved. He had crested a hill and the valley was twice as deep.

That theme of the crash after the party is a recurrent theme in everything from high art (like Joyce) to popular music, like the Rolling Stones in Coming Down Again:

Coming down again, coming down again

Where are all my friends?

Coming down again, coming down again

Coming down again, coming down again

Where are all my friends? Comin

Of course being a song, it has more effect heard than read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG7WIrHtLUQ

And so we must agree that revelry and “high life” have within them the potential for excess and disappointment.

But does the fact that excess and disappointment are possible mean that all such things are to be shunned. What of a marriage? It is certainly a matter of festivity. But the ceremony does not bear within it the inherent crash which was experienced by Jimmy of Keith Richards.

A time of joy, a time of feasting can be an appropriate consummation of hard work. A festival in the Fall to celebrate a good harvest is fundamentally different than a wealthy slacker gambling away money he does not possess. A birthday party for a child is different than a drug addict’s crash.

Celebrating a graduation from college, obtaining a new job are celebrations of some good thing.

I think it best to limit Schopenhauer’s warning to diversion doing little than stave off boredom. The revelry of people who have no purpose and are merely seeking to stave off ennui is quite different than the celebration of those who have accomplished a good – even if it little more than enjoying the continued relationship of friends and family.

Perhaps he knew little of that celebration and knew only those who were killing time.

Ecclesiastes 9:7–10 (ESV)

7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

 

Schopenhauer on Happiness.9 What does experience teach?

16 Sunday Feb 2020

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Schopenhauer now says that one must learn from experience:

To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet, and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it is requisite to be constantly thinking back,–to make a kind of recapitulation of what we have done, of our impressions and sensations, to compare our former with our present judgments–what we set before us and struggle to achieve, with the actual result and satisfaction we have obtained. To do this is to get a repetition of the private lessons of experience,–lessons which are given to every one.

This is the sort of advice that sounds good until it is considered. It is remarkable how thin most wisdom becomes when it obtains some attention.

William Blake in the Proverbs of Hell from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, we read:

Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

We all speak generically of having learned from our experience. But what and how precisely do we learn anything from experience? Experience alone cannot teach us anything. It certainly cannot teach us either contentment or happiness.

The learning takes place upon the basis of some basic structure, some values or propositions which tell me what to value and what to avoid. The experience can at most tell me the extent to which my suppositions about the world are work out in practice.

Let us say I learn that purposeful cruelty to other human beings results in their sorrow and pain. I see that happen on so many occasions that I conclude on the basis of induction that it will be true for all other persons I have never met. Now, experience has taught me a correlation between two events.

But experience alone does not tell me whether the pain I have inflicted is good or bad. I know that it is evil to purposefully provoke sorrow and pain, not on the basis of experience but upon some ethic which I had prior to my experience.

The infamous Marquis De Sade drew a very different conclusion from precisely the same experience. Experience did not teach the evil or cruelty. Experience can only demonstrate but not teach.

A life-long libertine learns nothing from the road of excess, except perhaps empirical facts about the results of his conduct. But nothing teaches him happiness or contentment. So, we first must begin by limiting our trust in experience as a teacher. It does teach some empirical information, but it does not teach us that means.

Let us take another comparison with Blake’s Proverbs. They both say that experience teaches – Blake in a much more memorable manner. But the next proverb of Blake proves the point that experience merely demonstrates or at best teaches facts but not values.

Schopenhauer commends experience as a way to learn prudence: Presumably we are to learn what sorts of things result in unpleasant experiences, and thereby avoid such experiences. Schopenhauer sees prudence as the goal of learning by experience.

But Blake commends precisely the opposite:

Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

Blake here turns Schopenhauer on his head. For Schopenhauer, experiences teaches prudence. Blake says that experience teaches – indeed the most excessive experiences are the surest are the surest paths to wisdom. The wisdom in Blake’s hellish proverbs is that prudence is a failure; it is lack and incapacity.

If we consider Blake and Schopenhauer from a distance, how do we decide between the two? Certainly not on the basis of experience, because the conclusion of both is made upon the basis of experience. And, an argument can be made that experience does teach both prudence and the painful constriction of prudence.

How does one choose between the two and conclude that one or the other is wisdom?

We will take a third voice in our consideration of experience as a basis to gain wisdom. In the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, we read of Solomon’s experience. He obtained all that the world could possibly provide; he rebuilt a veritable Eden from endless wealth and tremendous power:

Ecclesiastes 2:3–10 (ESV)

3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

Solomon certainly took Blake’s advice to heart and full followed the road of excess. But what conclusion did Solomon gain?

Ecclesiastes 2:11 (ESV)

11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

This is the most negative evaluation in the entire book. Solomon learned that there was nothing of value in experience. He learned that experience amounts to nothing. In fact, he learned that wisdom adds nothing because it cannot save from death:

Ecclesiastes 2:14–15 (ESV)

14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

In fact, experience teaches that we die. What wisdom is there in seeing death? What would constitute wisdom in light of death? What does prudence provide if I will die? What does excess teach if it runs into death. What palace of wisdom stands before us?

Schopenhauer on Happiness.8 Thinking Makes it So

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Happiness, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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Here, Schopenhauer makes the argument that all happiness or woe takes place not in the environment but in the mind: happiness or sorrow or merely how I feel. Or, as he puts it, is “purely intellectual”; it is a matter of the mind.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces.

At one level, he makes a correct observation: happiness is not an objection in the environment, like a flower or a star. Happiness is a conclusion about that flower or star. When confronted by a flower, I see it, understand it in some manner and conclude that I am happy.

There is a “natural” movement from a pleasing event or object and a pleased contented experience: in a colloquial manner, the flower “makes” one happy.

He is right that the happiness is not in the flower, but in the person.

For instance, if I have just buried a loved-one and have put flowers on the casket, then the sight of flowers would produce sorrow rather than happiness.

It seems that Schopenhauer counsels a decoupling of the environment from response so that one routinely responds with happiness. Nothing is either good or bad, happy or sad, but thinking makes it so.

Let’s consider this a bit more. There are steps to move from observation of environment to happiness or sorrow. There are the mechanical aspects of observation and recognition.

There is then a evaluative process by which the object becomes meaningful. For instance, the flowers in a garden or the flowers on a grave will each have a different meaning. The meaning takes place in the subject’s intellectual apprehension.

The meaning assigned to the object then produces an emotion: Flowers mean death and loss of someone I loved; I feel sad. The emotion itself is not the result of a conclusion about what emotion I desire; rather the emotion is the result of the meaning I assign to the object and circumstance.

Therefore, I achieve a particular emotion, I do not lean my will upon my emotion. Rather, I must alter my evaluation of the event: I must change the meaning of the event so that the conclusion will be a meaning which produces happiness.

Here are two problems: First, and most importantly for Schopenhauer, what rational basis within the context of his worldview is there for evaluating anything in such a manner as to produce happiness? All of live is accidental, contingent, brief, meaningless. Necessity governs all things; and even my subjective experience of free will is an illusion. (One wonders how I will ever be able to alter my evaluations when they are the result of necessity.)

Second, if ignore the fact that Schopenhauer needs to cheat on his system to even make this argument we have to consider the cost of our reliance upon this process.

We should seek to have increasingly accurate understandings of the world, so that our emotive responses properly follow from experience (and this opens up a great series of issues, which I will bracket for right now). But I take as a self-evident that a goal of one’s understanding of the world should be rational and accurate to the degree possible.

Schopenhauer can provide no basis for why I should hope for a rational or true understanding. Indeed, a rational response would be despair. But since despair is unpleasant and I desire happiness and desiring happiness is itself rational, I should hope for a false understanding of the world. He needs to decouple reason and truth.

And then, we cannot be certain that such a decoupling will itself produce a greater happiness. With the “reasonable” goal of avoiding sorrow we transform the nature of what it is to be human. Our excessive desire to avoid sorrow and pain stunts our development as human beings. There is a depth of joy and love which comes only at excessive cost.

An awakened understanding of loss and the potential of loss and the rarity of joy and love and happiness, causes us to better treasure and better love.

A stoic distance protects us from pain, but at the cost of maturity. Again, we will bracket maturity.

Or take the matter at another level: What do we think of someone who would smile at the death of a child; who would laugh at results of a fire? Would the “happiness” of the one laughing through a cancer ward be a true benefit?

Schopenhauer is correct that happiness or sorrow are the results of “intellectual” exercise; that judgment is in the mind, not in the object. He is implicitly correct that a great deal of sorrow follows from the defects (if you will) in thought. But Schopenhauer can offer no real help in correcting our thought in such a manner to lead to any sort of increase in true (well-grounded) happiness.

The only real thing which he can offer is a Stoic resignation.

At this point, I’d offer some observations of Puritan Thomas Brooks on a Stoic resignation to trouble:

First, There is a stoical silence. The stoics of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason or understanding either to rejoice in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this stoical silence is such a sinful insensibleness as is very provoking to a holy God, Isa. 26:10, 11. God will make the most insensible sinner sensible either of his hand here, or of his wrath in hell. It is a heathenish and a horrid sin to be without natural affections, Rom. 1:31. And of this sin Quintus Fabius Maximus seems to be foully guilty, who, when he heard that his mother and wife, whom he dearly loved, were slain by the fall of an house, and that his younger son, a brave, hopeful young man, died at the same time in Umbria, he never changed his countenance, but went on with the affairs of the commonwealth as if no such calamity had befallen him. This carriage of his spoke out more stupidity than patience, Job 36:13.

And so Harpalus was not at all appalled when he saw two of his sons laid ready dressed in a charger, when Astyages had bid him to supper. This was a sottish insensibleness. Certainly if the loss of a child in the house be no more to thee than the loss of a chick in the yard, thy heart is base and sordid, and thou mayest well expect some sore awakening judgment. This age is full of such monsters, who think it below the greatness and magnanimity of their spirits to be moved, affected, or afflicted with any afflictions that befall them. I know none so ripe and ready for hell as these.

Aristotle speaks of fishes, that though they have spears thrust into their sides, yet they awake not. God thrusts many a sharp spear through many a sinner’s heart, and yet he feels nothing, he complains of nothing. These men’s souls will bleed to death. Seneca, Epist. x., reports of Senecio Cornelius, who minded his body more than his soul, and his money more than heaven; when he had all the day long waited on his dying friend, and his friend was dead, he returns to his house, sups merrily, comforts himself quickly, goes to bed cheerfully. His sorrows were ended, and the time of his mourning expired before his deceased friend was interred. Such stupidity is a curse that many a man lies under. But this stoical silence, which is but a sinful sullenness, is not the silence here meant.

 

Schopenhauer on Happiness.7 Unembellished Existence

04 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by in Happiness, Philosophy, Psychology, Uncategorized

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This is an interesting bit of argumentation and slight of hand:

It is only after a man has got rid of all pretension, and taken refuge in mere unembellished existence, that he is able to attain that peace of mind which is the foundation of human happiness. Peace of mind! that is something

Consider the argument:

If I rid myself of X & take Y, then I’ll get Z

Z is the foundation of human happiness.

Z is wonderful.

The force of the argument is the weight it puts on Z, “peace of mind”. Peace of mind is truly a good thing. The slight of hand takes place in the logical movement from the conditions to the conclusion: Is there really any logical connection?

First, “It is only after a man has got rid of all pretension”. What is the pretension according to Schopenhauer: that the world is meaningful; that there is any providence in this world.  You can only have peace of mind if you realize that your life is meaningless.

The argument is attractive because it makes one sound rational and brave. But we need to stop at that the matter of rationality. What does rationality even mean if the universe is meaningless? Reason can’t have any “real” ground: it is simply an assertion. If the universe is irrational, how then I can assert rationality? Rationality is simply an assertion, a trick of language. How do we say a thing is “true”, if there is no meaning.

Here is the point: Schopenhauer needs rationality and reason and meaning to even begin to assert that the universe is meaningless. I recall reading in Buddhist literature years ago about the need to speak and not speak: the sound of one hand clapping. The assertions of meaningless and ultimate insubstantiality of existence mean that one must speak and then not speak of such things. While there is a remarkable difficulty in the Buddhist position, it is at least honest.

Schopenhauer’s position, I would assert, is incoherent.

What then is the psychological connection between the insistent conclusion that the world is irrational and meaningless, and that I am incoherent, with peace of mind. Wouldn’t such an assertion be anxiety producing?

Moreover, if one considers terror management theory, the assertion that fear of death requires one to raise some sort of psychological defense in order to ward off the anxiety of approaching death; then one would assert that some sort of unvarnished I’m going to die and life is meaningless position would not produce peace.

We can see that Schopenhauer then quickly moves to a position of reason and order:

Limitations always make for happiness. We are happy in proportion as our range of vision, our sphere of work, our points of contact with the world, are restricted and circumscribed.

And:

Simplicity, therefore, as far as it can be attained, and even monotony, in our manner of life, if it does not mean that we are bored, will contribute to happiness; just because, under such circumstances, life, and consequently the burden which is the essential concomitant of life, will be least felt.

What these positions reduce to, psychologically, is that avoiding circumstances which have the potential of producing anxiety helps one to feel better. Ignoring problems which cannot be resolved is an obvious means of reducing anxiety – but what this has to do with the underlying assertion that life is meaningless is difficult to understand.