Schopenhauer and the Cartesian Tradition

Abstract

IN THIS CENTURY, we have relegated Schopenhauer to a position outside the mainstream of modern philosophy, primarily, I suspect, because his metaphysical views, some would say excesses, do not accord with our more analytical and otherwise circumspect attitudes. Our neglect also derives from not knowing just how he fits into the historical flow, for rather than comprising part of the flood of idealism that swept Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, he seems to have been only an isolated spring that soon ran dry. This perception of him is unfortunate. His thought was not unrelated to the dominant philosophical tradition, as his writings' profuse admiring and critical references to its major and minor figures attest; nor did he fail to influence those who came after him, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Sartre, among others. Our reason for finding it difficult to fit Schopenhauer's thought into the dominant tradition of philosophy extending from I)escartes to the present is that we regard his views as wildly deviating from it, particularly in metaphysics and epistemology. This is a mistake. Actually, his metaphisical and epistemological views were deeply influenced by Kant 's , and are importantly similar to Hobbes's and Hume's, and this alone is sufficient to force admission that he is part of the mainstream. But because Schopenhauer follows the tendency in Hobbes and Hume to attribute predominance of the will and passions over reason in human nature, he tends to offend the rather more Cartesian and Kantian tendencies of our present age. Just how (1) Schopenhauer fits into the Cartesian tradition and (2) his views extend crucial positions of one of that tradition's branches become clear only when we examine the relations among being, reason, and will in the theories of its major figures. In this paper I will restrict the discussion to Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Schopenhauer--and in them to only the most central points--with the intent of showing that Schopenhauer is an important figure in our philosophical tradition and that his arguments, correcting and extending as they do doctrines crucial to that tradition, warrant our attention and respect.