Swami Vivekananda's Vedāntic Critique of Schopenhauer's Doctrine of the Will

Abstract

This essay discusses Swami Vivekananda's unduly neglected critical remarks on Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy, which are contained primarily in lectures delivered in America and England between 1895 and 1896. I argue that Vivekananda, one of the first commentators to critique Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will from a Vedāntic standpoint, occupies a unique place in the early reception of Schopenhauer's philosophy. In contrast to Paul Deussen and Max Hecker, Vivekananda argues that Schopenhauer equates the will with the noumenal thing-in-itself. According to Vivekananda, Schopenhauer's conception of the will as the noumenal reality is mistaken for two main reasons: first, the will is at least subject to time and hence cannot be identified with the Kantian thing-in-itself beyond time, space, and causality; second, Schopenhauer's conception of the will as the noumenal thing-in-itself conflicts with the soteriological thesis that the will can be transcended through selfdenial and asceticism.