Schopenhauer and Nietzsche -- A Series of Lectures: From the Collected Works of Simmel

Author: (German) Simmel, translated by Mo Guanghua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: This book is a collection of lectures by Simmel on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The lectures are not merely a report; they transcend the content of doctrines, critically linking cultural facts, spiritual relationships, criteria of knowledge, and ethical values. The author selects a concise, unified, and important thread from his entire argument, reflecting the core of his thoughts, to discuss the intrinsic value and enduring significance of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's philosophies, contributing to the general history of the spirit and culture, and to understanding the eternal meaning of the ideas of these two philosophers. Lectures on the Position of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in the History of Ideas. The Ultimate Value and Christianity. Schopenhauer's Will Philosophy as a Feature of the Contemporary Spiritual State. The Loss of the Absolute Life Purpose and the Persistence of the Demand for It. Nietzsche Elevates the Life Process Itself as a Relative Life Purpose to Replace the Absolute Life Purpose: "übermensch" as a Model of Human Development Beyond All Existing Stages. The Relationship Between These Two Doctrines with the Same Starting Point is Their Fundamental Difference.
Lecture 2: Schopenhauer
The world that human reason and will can know, as the opposition between phenomena in our consciousness and the unrecognizable essence of things-in-themselves. The human soul as the meeting point of two worlds. Our will as the absolute reality of ourselves, the only content of our existence outside the activity of representation. The distinction between the fundamental will and the psychological phenomena in which it exists concretely. Humans are interpreted as rational beings; the transformation of the concept of the human by modern philosophy and Schopenhauer.
Lecture 3: Schopenhauer
The diversity of Will Metaphysics as the phenomenal form of Dasein, the absolute unity as the essential nature of Dasein. The essence of the human, as recognized, is rationally transferred to the metaphysical attributes of all Dasein: the world as the phenomenon of the metaphysical will. Refuting the accusation that Schopenhauer personifies the world view with mysticism. The contradictions within the will and the principled impossibility of its satisfaction. The incomprehensibility of existence and its degradation through its interpretation as will. The unity of the will as the motivation for pessimism.
Lecture 4: Schopenhauer
Pessimistic happiness as the simple cessation of the pain of lack. Psychologically unnatural tearing of life: no pain and having happiness. Anticipated happiness is approaching possession. The main motivation for Schopenhauer's error: unifying Will Metaphysics and pessimism in a forced and systematic way. The accounting of pleasure and pain, and the absolute meaning of pain. Cruelty. Metaphysical justice, and the empirical distribution of pleasure and pain.
Lecture 5: Schopenhauer
Art. Metaphysically, the pure phenomenal content of things is freed from their reality. "Idea" as the content of art. The subject and object of the aesthetic state, transcending the world of will, causality, and individuality. The meaning of space. Realism. The artist's problem. Music as the direct artistic expression of the metaphysical will. The happiness of art and pessimism. Art as the opposite unity of life.
Lecture 6: Schopenhauer
Morality and the Self-Emancipation of the Will. Morality as the negation of the individual form of the will. Schopenhauer's abandonment of all objective norms and the motivation behind his pessimism. The metaphysical unity of essence as the foundation of morality. Conversely: the ethical significance of duality. Love as sympathy. The negative commonality of life value. Being and ought-to-be. Freedom. Asceticism as the negation of the will. Suicide. The ultimate emancipation.
Lecture 7: Nietzsche
Human Value and Decadence. The historical enhancement of life intensity is the ultimate value. Christianity and democracy invert this value. Its factual consistency with the Christian ideal. The distinction between the concept of the human and the concept of society, and their relationship to individuality. Natural distance as a condition for human development. The psychological difference sensitivity and the ethics of Maeterlinck. The measurement of value in an era, both on average and at its peak. The meaning of antimoralism.
Lecture 8: Nietzsche
Noble Morality. The objective characteristics of Nietzsche's morality. The noble ideal. Existence and action. The cost of upward cultivation. Individualism that is neither egoistic nor hedonistic. Responsibility. The eternal recurrence of the same in the sense of both ethics and metaphysics. The absolute immanence of Nietzsche's ideal. The very evaluation of the life process itself as the profound difference between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
Lecture 3: Schopenhauer
According to Schopenhauer's view, humans become their own representation, objects of intuition and cognition, as if they have escaped the unified root of their essence. Humans detach themselves from the existence contained within them, presenting themselves as images and placing them in the broad connections among other diversities; these diversities, as images, possess the same characteristics and laws. Although these series of time, space, and causes exist merely as representations in us, they extend beyond our self as a representation in all directions. Yes, through this connection with countless other elements, through the limitation and shaping of them, the image of our self's representation is formed—we appear before our consciousness in this form of image. For Schopenhauer's representation, as people later spoke of it, matter and energy also circulate through our actual life cycle, like rotating celestial bodies and blooming plants; and the natural laws of identity forge our bodies and psychological phenomena into the same chain; even the lowest or most distant natural objects are part of this chain. That is, Schopenhauer thereby derives his world principle, which, from the meaning of the interpretation of humans in the universal existence expressed so far, stands out. Thus, we must consider that all these entities, because they are phenomenally of the same kind as us, also have the same intrinsic, absolute, and noumenal essence. If the recognizable phenomena are of the same kind, it can be assumed that the unrecognizable thing underlying the recognizable phenomena is also of the same kind. Thus, the entire natural world, including ourselves—as perceptible entities—forms a closed sphere in itself. On this sphere, each point points only to another, but does not directly point to any part above or below it. Only at one point is there a straight line in another direction. To a certain extent, this line penetrates the sphere: this point is the point of our own existence. At this point, we not only appear as phenomena but also exist. Only at this point do we have a radius reaching the center of the sphere, and this radius also applies to the entire sphere, because it applies to one point, which is identical to all other parts and has been included in the overall rules of this scope. Exactly, at this time, Schopenhauer does not recognize the will within us as noumenon, because noumenon is unrecognizable; the recognized will is also a phenomenon: in it, the inescapable veil that conceals us is only weakly torn. However, when this pointer aligns our gaze, we discover that the same signs of the same essence are everywhere visible in the rest of the natural world. The impulse of the rushing stream toward the deep valley, the force of the electrodes attracting each other, the intensity of human desire that increases when hindered, the thirst of iron filings flying toward the magnet, and the irresistible gravity that pulls all things on the ground toward the earth—all of these are