Essai sur le libre arbitre

by Arthur Schopenhauer, Lidia Breda (Series Editor), Salomon Reinach (Translator)

« La philosophie, telle que la comprend et la pratique Schopenhauer, est une chasse aux illusions. Dans «Essai sur le libre arbitre», il démontre que l'homme est incapable d'agir par lui-même et il relègue au rang de mirage cette mystérieuse faculté appelée libre arbitre. L'homme est prisonnier de lui-même. La seule liberté dont il puisse disposer est une reconnaissance approfondie de soi. Leçon que Freud, qui avait bien lu Schopenhauer, retiendra et qu'il
appliquera sur un plan thérapeutique. Vision aussi très moderne de la condition humaine. Les hommes sont responsables de ce qu'ils font mais innocents de ce qu'ils sont. À l'homme d'assumer le hasard de ce qu'il est. Le caractère est un destin. »
Didier Raymond

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, German Literature, Psychology, Classics, Literature

176 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1839

About the author

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in the city of Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; present day Gdańsk, Poland) and was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. Schopenhauer attempted to make his career as an academic by correcting and expanding Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world.

He was the son of author Johanna Schopenhauer and the older brother of Adele Schopenhauer.

Reviews

[Kyle van Oosterum · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the probably the best and most intellectually sober defense for determinism, i.e: that we have no free will whatsoever. Probably what makes this essay all the more powerful is that it was written in a scientifically "naive" time and it relies on arguments which are compelling because of how intuitive they are. Schopenhauer, the intellectual influence on Nietzsche, determined that it is impossible to cleanse ourselves of the temporal coloring of our lives; how the past and present will necessarily determine the future. It is a startling idea, but accepting our lack of control over ourselves and the world enables us to love our fate and live every moment as though it would be worth repeating over and over again. Schopenhauer's prose is easily understood and the argument of this book can be condensed in a short yet highly expressive phrase:

"Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills." - Arthur Schopenhauer.

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a refreshing and honest treatise. Lately, I have been pondering if we have free will and what consciousness is. I read some modern books on this (Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, amongst others) and it seems to me that even though our modern day knowledge about these subjects - thanks to neuroscience and cognitive psychology - is much much further than the knowledge natural philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza had access to, the issues are still not solved. I even think that with all these new insights, the issues at hand are much more obscured.

Therefore, it was enlightening to read Schopenhauers treatise. This is a man who faced up to the facts, and accepted life for what it is: enduring suffering and hardships. Leading a happy life means (for Schopenhauer at least) avoiding suffering as much as possible and giving up striving for things. This is a philosophy I can subscribe to.

Now, on to the subject. According to Schopenhauer (1) freedom is the abscence of necessity (something is free as far as it isn't caused (i.e. necessary) by some other thing and (2) consciousess has to be divided in (2a) our mental cognitive faculty of consciousness (i.e. beging conscious of objects in reality) and (2b) our self-consciousness (i.e. the will).

Self-consciousness is nothing but the will to do things. There is no will to will, or will to will to will, etc. This would only lead to an infinite regress without explaining the will itself. The will is caused by (1) our character and (2) our motivations. Our character is determined (genetically and environmentally so, as a modern day philosopher would say), therefore not free. Our motivations are caused (in the end, although very long chains of causation are possible) by objects in reality. Therefore, our motivations are determined as well. This leads to the conclusion that objective freedom doesn't exist. We do what we will, and this is who we are.

Consciousness is nothing but the cognitive faculty that we are born with. This faculty lets us perceive the world around is and comes equipped with the notions of time, space and causality (Kant). It is these notions that we use to perceive the world around us. Causality comes in different forms: mechanistic causality (physics, chemistry), causation by stimulus (plants, vegetative actions of animals, including humans) and causation by motivation (the intelligence of higher animals, where humanity is the 'crown jewel' of rationality). These forms are all deterministic (causes precede effects), but the higher up you go, the longer the chains of causations become and the harder it becomes to see the causation at work. This is in effect the illusion we have of our own freedom. We do what we will, and this will is determined by our character and our motivation. This motivation in its turn is determined by our perception of the concepts (experience and education, or lack thereof).

Towards the end of his essay, Schopenhauer falls back on Kant, to save freedom. This is sad, because it seems like a leap of faith and goes against the earlier 2/3 of his essay. According to Kant, the objective world can only be verified empirically (i.e. the phenomenal world), but there's a subjective world where the thing-in-itself is located (i.e. the noumenal world). It is in this subjective realm that Schopenhauer finds his freedom.

To cite Schopenhauer on this conclusion: "In a word: man does at all ttimes only what he wills, and yet he does this necessarily. But this is due to the fact that he already is what he wills. For from that which he is, there follows of necessity everything that he, at any time, does. If we consider his behavior objectively, i.e. from the outside, we shall be bound to recognize that, like the behavior of every natural being, it must be subject to the law of causality in all its severity. Subjectively however, everyone feels that he always does only what he wills. But this merely means that his activity is a pure expression of his very own being. Every natural being, even the lowest, would feel the same, if it could feel.

Consequently, my exposition does not eliminate freedom. It merely moves it out, namely, out of the area of simple actions, where it demonstrably cannot be found, up to a region which lies higher, but is not so easily accessible to our knowledge. In other words: freedom is transcendental." (pp. 98-99).

I follow Schopenhauer a long way in his argument, but when he starts to call in a subjective freedom, I quit. This is merely passing the buck. It says nothing and is (in my opinion) a superfluous statement. In the fourth chapter, Schopenhauer gives the example of a Spanish murderer who is to be executed the day after, who claims that even though he would wish he wouldn't be executed, if the English court would set him free, he would murder again. This is a perfect illustration of the implications of Schopenhauers view on free will and consciousness, and one of the most honest ones at that. We do what we will, and that makes us who we are. Our actions are determined by our character and our motivation, which both are determined in their turn. Punishment is nothing but raising the stakes for bad people, making them feel harsher consequences if they continue with their actions. The reason we punish criminals is to deter others from behaving the same as these anomalies.

On a side note: in chapter four Schopenhauer shows his true, atheistic, face by rubbing theologians in their face with the impossibility of free will. Either god created us the way we are, thereby rendering punishment for sins useless and senseless and displaying his own evil (so a 'good god' is not possible), or he gave us free will because he is not able to create a perfect world (so a 'omnipotent god' is not possible). The notions of god in Christianity, Islam and Judaism presuppose free will. If free will is an illusion, those creeds are illusions. Therefore, atheism is left. Brilliant argument!

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work was more interesting than On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He is way more concise and methodical in the way he handles the subject matter here. Schopenhauer’s typical bloviating isn’t entirely absent, but it doesn’t take up quite so much space in this work. This could be down to it being a work of his mature years.


Schopenhauer attempts to balance an empirical determinism with a more idealistic defense of freewill. He sees all actions as causal, thus entirely deterministic. But he sees motivations (i.e. values) as being determined individualistically. This individualistic determinism could be seen as being a defense of freewill—sort of. Schopenhauer’s motivations are causal as well (Pg. 49) though. Given that Schopenhauer spends a good portion of the work defending absolute determinism, his motivational freewill is on incredibly shaky ground. As was the case with On the Fourfold Root, Schopenhauer wants to hold on to the abstract metaphysical philosophy of Germany while not relinquishing the empirical philosophy of Enlightenment England. It’s a most dysfunctional marriage though. That being said, I admit that the subject cannot be easily explicated satisfactorily in all points. I agree with Schopenhauer that choice cannot be completely arbitrary. No one who takes this subject seriously could hold that practical freewill amounts to disinterested ambivalence. Schopenhauer rightly says that motivations battle each other within the human mind. One motivation will ultimately hold sway and will determine the action. I don’t think things are as cut and dry as Schopenhauer would like them to be however; human nature is not as predictable as mundane physical processes. Human behavior is often full of contradictions.


All in all a good book. I give it around 3-and-a-half stars. I don’t subscribe to Schopenhauer’s methods, but I at least see the merit in his conclusions as problematic as they are.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schopenhauer is kind of a boss. He took the idea of the "free will", read pretty much everything that anyone ever wrote about it, and then came to the conclusion that essentially everyone was an idiot except for him. Not really -- he has serious respect for some philosophers, but mostly for their ideas, not for them. In less than 90 pages, Schopenhauer sort of takes the cake for proving why "free will" is a silly concept. His argument hinges on a few assertions that may seem dated, but most are just logical, and one that is pretty obvious but is a good one to point out; I feel like a lot of the time it's glossed over. Freedom is negative, not insofar as it is a bad thing, but that it is the absence of restrictions. It is not something -- it is the lack of something. It is nothing.

"The natural image of a free will is an empty set of scales. It hangs there at rest and will never lose its equilibrium unless something is laid on one of the pans. Free will can no more produce an action out of itself than a scale can produce a movement of itself, since nothing comes from nothing."

Yeah, he gets a prize alright.

[Mz · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.bavariagr.de/i-kritiki-ti...

[sean]

schopenhauer is funny. so much so that sometimes i read his little jabs in a donald trump tweet kind of voice. like when he called hegel's writing "the most senseless gibberish that has ever been heard outside a lunatic asylum" (85). otherwise this was surprisingly helpful bc he invokes kant in the concluding chapter basically to say what freud was too afraid to like a hundred years later.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Schopenhauer's exasperated tone. He struggles with what he perceives to be the idiocy of people who can't understand how obvious it is (to him) that the universe is deterministic in nature. His gratuitous swipe at Hegel in his survey of previous philosophical thinking on the subject is hilarious.

[Krzysztof · Rating 3 out of 5]

It never ceases to amaze me when philosophers come so near Vulcan status, dispassionately examining a particular notion, only to suddenly burst through the walls like the Kool Aid man and say something like, "Bitches, amirite?"

But, though Schopenhauer does show periodic sexism, that's not his particular undoing here. His undoing comes long after that; it comes in his conclusion where, just as he's carefully pouring out the last of the Kool Aid to his adoring sycophants, he loses control, slaps the cups out of everyone's hands, and goes, "I just remembered: our characters can make decisions on a higher plain!"

Am I completely shitting you? I am not. Behold:

"The responsibility, of which he is conscious, attaches therefore only proximately and ostensibly to the deed, but in the last resort it falls upon his character. This it is for which he feels himself responsible. It is for this, too, that others hold him responsible; for their judgment passes at once from the deed to the moral qualities of the doer. "He is a bad man," they say, "a villain"; or, "he is a rogue"; or, "he is a mean, false, vile creature." Such is their verdict, and it is on his character that their reproaches fall."

But isn't that just the same as what our parents taught us (i.e. "It may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility")? It would be, if Schopenhauer didn't go on:

"Freedom, which is consequently not to be met with in the operari, must therefore lie in the esse. It has been the fundamental error, of all ages, to attribute necessity to the esse and freedom to the operari. But on the contrary, freedom lies in the esse alone, while from this and the motives the operari follows of necessity, we learn what we are. On this, and not on a supposed liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, depend the consciousness of responsibility and the moral tendency of life. All depends upon what we are. What we do flows from this as a necessary corollary. The undeniable consciousness of absolute independence and originality, that accompanies our deeds (notwithstanding their dependence upon motives) and makes them our deeds, will therefore not lead us astray. Really it goes beyond the deeds and originates higher up, including as it does our existence and essence itself, from which, under the influence of motives, all deeds necessarily proceed. In this sense that consciousness of autonomy and originality, as also of responsibility, which accompanies our actions, may be compared to a hand that points to a more distant object than that nearer one in the same line, to which it seems to point."

What's fascinating to me is that Schopenhauer not only undoes all of his hard work with this "conclusion", he does so after condemning as cowards all thinkers who won't publicly admit the absence of free will for fear of recrimination from the halfwit masses. He says, ". . . . among them some timid fellows who, very amusingly, no longer dare to speak of the freedom of the will, but, in order to make it elegant, say instead, 'freedom of the spirit' and hope to slink through in this fashion."

What, pray tell, is the esse, Herr Schopes?

And, look, that's not as scathing as he gets:

"Bluffing, confounding, mystification, scattering sand in the reader's eyes by all sorts of tricks—have become the method. Instead of insight, selfish purpose everywhere guides the discourse. Thanks to all this, philosophy, if one still wants to call it that, has had to sink lower and lower, until it finally reached the lowest level of abasement in the ministerial creature Hegel. This man, in order to smother again the freedom of thought which Kant had struggled for and won, made of philosophy - the daughter of reason and the future mother of truth - a tool of state aims, obscurantism, and Protestant Jesuitism. But in order to cover up the disgrace, Hegel drew over it a cloak of the emptiest word rubbish and silliest galimatias that have ever been heard outside the insane asylum."

I mean, that's just beautiful, aside from the mind-blowing hypocrisy. I wish he would just say, "But you know what? I'm going to recreationally judge people anyway, because I'm smart, dammit, and I enjoy it*."

*"Also because your idiocy is an irresistible motive, and my intellect and being are such that I must, perforce, ridicule it mercilessly."

[John Patrick Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gave me a pretty clear understanding of the necessity of cause and effect in the will. It left me searching for some meaning in my experience of free choice for which he reccomends one reads Kant. I'd say my separation between experience and reality is widening and that I'm begining to find peace with it.

[Nabeel Naqvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A man do what he wills - but not will what he wills."

Schopenhauer penned this essay in 1839 for a competition held by the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences. This is an excellent and systematic rebuttal of the notion of Free Will, which Schopenhauer demonstrates from a variety of positions. He begins by defining concepts such as physical, intellectual and moral freedom (with the latter being his primary concern for the essay), as well as the notion of 'necessity' and self-consciousness. Then he proceeds to use these concepts to show exactly why the concept of freedom is erroneous. He utilises two techniques to elucidate his stance:
1) He differentiates between different types of causes; in inorganic beings he names it "cause in the narrowest sense of the word", in plants he calls it 'stimulus' and in animals, as well as humans he delegates the word 'motivation'. He then proceeds to argue that both instincts and motivations arise necessarily from antecedent causes, and since motivations comprise the foundation of desire, it follows that there is no autonomy of the will. However, Schopenhauer does not follow Locke in claiming that the mind is a 'tabula rasa'. He argues that each person has an inborn, timeless character which responds to the motivations, but he argues that this essence of each human precedes their existence and hence, also excludes freedom. However, I find this to be problematic because:
i) Schopenhauer claims that people cannot change, under any circumstances, but he also claims that each person is indentifiable with his actions. But then, if a person changes his actions, then shouldn't there also be a corresponding change in his character, because it manifests itself empirically as actions? and ii) If character is timeless, that is, transcendental, then how can it effect those phenomenon which exist in time? Nevertheless, these objections are not fatal to his conclusions, because it does not object to the stimulation of the external world.
ii) Schopenhauer's second argument relies on Transcendental Idealism. He claims that causality is a necessary pre-condition for experience and all observable phenomenon must be subject to the principle of causality, and since human actions also belong to the world of phenomenon, it follows that they must also be determined by a cause. However, Schopenhauer does not much argue for this case, indeed, he claims that Kant's proofs for this were insufficient, but further he does not provide much argument for this. Furthemore, the developments of modern physics, particularly in that of Quantum Mechanics, have shown that the principle of causality has only a limited range of applicability and that the notion of cause itself becomes problematic when applied to the microscopic phenomenon. But this again is not fatal to Schopenhauer's overall argument, because even if the particles which make up the human mind behave randomly, they are still not under the control of human autonomy.
Thus Schopenhauer affirms the Freedom to act, but refutes the Freedom to will. He ends this essay by quoting several previous philosophers who held the same views, the likes of which include; Aristotle, Augustine, Spinoza, Luther, Hume, Kant etc, as well as providing a means, using the transcendent properties of the character, to retain the possibility of moral responsibility.
I very much enjoyed this short treatise, his prose as well as clarity is very entertaining, not to mention his vigour for arriving at the truth and presenting it to the reader in full clarity, it's almost like talking to a friend. His ardent desire for clarity urges him to show the reader the way to a conclusion from various different directions, a style I very much find appealing.

[Corey Schuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enorm helder werk dat goed tot de kern komt en een duidelijke argumentatie uiteenzet! Toch erg jammer van de vrouw onvriendelijke opmerkingen :(

[Allan Yeo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schopenhauer reintroduces the lack of the freedom of will in a reasonable length. Not skipping examples and definitions, he presents a clear portrayal of how his will is within the chain of causality, ironically departing from the laborious style of writing from his self-professed influence, Kant. The prose is clear and insertions of latin phrases apt and appreciated, elucidating meaning from its paragraphs appears to be as tiresome as casual conversation with an old friend at a cafe.

Schopenhauer spends time wisely mocking Hegel and the philosophically untrained, which makes for a several comedic moments, before regressing into a broad conversation about will. He reaches every corner of nature systematically and in organized fashion. Though, he leaves his exposition on Kant's empirical and intelligible character surprisingly empty, which lends the essay a rather heavy nod to determinism, though its conclusion exhorts freedom alongside the chains of causality

[Ian Miley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schopenhauer states clearly his "scientific" view that if one accepts some basic laws of the universe, one cannot believe in a "free" will. While life is a more complicated physical structure than most in our universe, it still follows the laws of gravity, inertia, inter molecular forces and other forces. Thus a human can be predicted.

However, some have criticized that at a quantum level, we are at a loss to find any basic laws that govern the behavior of quantum particles.

[Damian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schopenhauer wrote this dissertation in the occasion of the Norwegian Royal Academy`s competition of establishing the freedom of will, in which he won the first prize. He proves that the man`s freedom to move his limbs in not enough to point out the freedom of will, which is a more complex notion. His distinguished conclusion is that neither humans nor animals posses such a freedom, for their actions will always be the same in a given situation in which they find themselves repeatedly.

[John Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be the best book that I’ve read on the subject of the problem of free will. My glowing declamation does, however, come with a caveat – Schopenhauer wanders too far into materialistic determinism for my taste (I write that with the understanding that he believed materialism and idealism to be correlative. This is, after all, simply a Goodreads “review”). My confusing statement aside, this book should be read by anyone interested in the debate about free will.

[David F. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy prose but practically a model of clarity compared to philosophers like Kant or Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer argues that free will is no better than an illusion. His arguments are a bit dense in their prose but reasonably coherent in their logic. He is careful to define his terms and most of his definitions seem solid. Unfortunately, I found his reliance on assertions that various points are self-evident and the occasional circularity of some of his arguments to be serious weaknesses.

[Rubem Pimentel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice, but quite complicated at the end. It's better to read carefully his definitions at the beginning because then he will 'mix' it with some of Kant's definitions and those quasi final pages are hard to grasp (even for himself: "...up to a region which lies higher, but is not so easily accessible to our knowledge."). A really interesting book which gives you an explanation to: "A man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills."

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great piece by Shopenhauer, in his entertaining arrogant pessimistic style. His thesis is quite convincing, but in my opinion contains a few flaws and he jumps to conclusions too fast sometimes (perhaps because he explains those things more eleborate in his main works), but overall a very interesting and easy-to-read essential work of philosophy.

[Yann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Je ne suis pas du tout convaincu par la thèse de l'auteur.

[Miguel Teles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 and 1/2 stars.

Everything perfect despite his assumption of the unchangeability of an inborn character and the last 10 pages with his final Conclusion.

[Jonny Berglind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic

[Sanja Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant!

[Torsten Bastuck]

Ein wirklich aufklärendes Buch, das mit einfachen, logischen Gedanken einen neuen Blick auf die von uns so joch geschätzte Freiheit geben kann.

[Andrew Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily my favorite book on the topic. Well argued and concise.

[Madhab Dwibedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

U hv to read this book a thousand times

[Kezscribe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur Schopenhauer foi um excelente pensador. Esse livro é basicamente uma defesa do determinismo, ao invés de uma refutação moral (ou defesa em si) do Livre Arbítrio.

[Corné · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een klassieker, zeker. De moeite waard, zeker. Maar zou ik het nou iemand aanraden? Niet zo zeker.

[Sigve Wiedswang · Rating 4 out of 5]

"«Fri er jeg, når jeg kan gjøre hva jeg vil»; og ved dette «hva jeg vil» er friheten allerede avgjort. Nu, imdlertid, da vi spør efter denne villens frihet, ville dette spørsmål måtte bli: «Kan du også ville hva du vil ?!»"

"Det er blitt mote : å imponere, forbløffe, mystifisere, ved alle slags kunstgrep å kaste leseren blår i øynene. Og gjennomgående er det hensikten istedenfor innsikten som er et foredrags ledestjerne. Ved alt dette har filosofien, om man fremdeles vil kalle den så, nødvendigvis sunket mer og mer og stadig dypere, inntil den til slutt har nådd fornedrelsens dypeste trinn, i og med dette ministerkreatur: HEGEL. For på nytt å kvele den tenkningens frihet som Kant hadde tilkjempet seg, gjorde han nu filosofien, fornuftens datter og den kommende mor til sannheten, til verktøy for statsformål, obskurantisme og protestantisk jesuittisme. Men for å tildekke skammen og samtidig utvirke den størst mulige fordummelse blant folk, trakk han over det en kamuflasjekappe bestående av det huleste ordskvalder og det mest absurde galimatias som noensinde har lydt, i det minste utenfor galehuset."

Slik klarer å Schopenhauer å mestre både metodisk analyse av et tørt emne (determinisme) på en spennende og fengslende måte, samtidig som han nesten aldri gir slipp på sin egen personlighet, sine luner, preferanser, misnøyer, lidenskaper og meninger. Noen idiotiske oversettere og redaktører pleier å redigere vekk slike passasjer som denne andre, og beholder utelukkende de rent analytiske og retoriske passasjene, analysedelene - de projiserer med andre ord sin egen tåpelige usikkerhet over på Schopenhauers fortreffelige stil og energi fordi deres akademiske metode går ut på å redigere vekk alle spor som tilsier personlighet og subjektivitet, som om dette liksom fjernet og ikke bare på feigeste vis skjulte. Schopenhauer var sjalu, misunnelig, bitter, elitistisk, fiendtlig og nesten barnlig opptatt av egen berømmelse. Mennesker som på ingen måte er bedre liker å kritisere han for dette - de ville heller foretrukket at han skulle lyve og late som han ikke hadde disse karaktertrekkene, slik som presten i Gjengangere - av en eller annen grunn mener man i dag at det er bedre. Schopenhauer er ærlig, mer enn han er noe annet, og selv om jeg kan forstå at det er veldig skremmende for akademikere som baserer hele sin identitet på å fremstå som noe annet enn de egentlig er (rene, fordomsløse og komplett vitenskapelig orienterte analytikere), og fordømme de som ikke orker, gidder eller presterer å opprettholde slike feilaktige fasader, blir jeg fortsatt trist når jeg tenker på ham og all motstanden han møtte. Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskabs oversatte ikke denne teksten til norsk når han sendte den inn til konkurransen, samtidig som de belønnet ham æresmedaljen, og satte på dette vis en stopper for større innflytelse fra Schopenhauer i vårt eget land - vi ser kanskje fortsatt ringvirkningene av dette, i og med at han den dag i dag sjelden blir oversatt. Og Bryan Magees absolutt skandaløse "I reject Schopenhauer's pessimism, but retain his metaphysics" fra sin samtale med Copleston er bare enda et eksempel. Man trenger ikke "seperate the art from the artist", man må ta innover seg at alle tenkere er mennesker, med dårlige og gode sider. Jeg ser absolutt ingen grunn til at kunst og filosofi ikke bør reflektere akkurat dette. For hvorfor ikke? Alt annet gjør det. Det bør allikevel nevnes at i denne boken er han noe mer forsiktig, og man ser nesten bare hans gode - selv Schopenhauer var villig til å mediere seg selv når det var snakk om medalje. Den nesten ukarakteristisk skoleflinke, systematiske og rasjonelle stilen blir på dette vis bare enda et karaktertrekk: Schopenhauer har veldig, VELDIG lyst til å vinne denne konkurransen. Atter et livstegn som avslører et pustende, villende mennesket på den andre siden av sidene.

[Joseph Knecht · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has very persuasive argument on the lack of free will. We as humans are born with a certain inborn, timeless and unchangeable character. A character which we can not choose, but one that we discover through the actions that we take each day. This character possesses a will, and can do as he will, but can't will to will a different action. In that sense, we don't possess the power to freely will.

Schopenhauer claims that the law of causality can be applied to humans as well. What is different about humans when compared with other living and nonliving things is the fact that we have higher modes of consciousness which enables us to deliberate the causes and motives of our environment before we act. Since there is higher complexity in this deliberation, we appear to have free will when we compare ourselves to inanimate matter or other life forms.

Some quotes that I liked:
- At first our cognitive faculty grasps this world perceptively, but that which is thus obtained is forthwith worked over, as it were in a ruminating fashion, into concepts. Endless combinations of concepts, brought about with the help of words, constitute thinking. Only after we subtract this, by far the greatest part of our entire consciousness, do we get the self-consciousness.

- “All actions are determined and never indifferent because there is always a ground which, even though it does not necessitate, inclines us to act thus and not otherwise.”

-It penetrates searchingly into the very innermost being of man: it wants to know whether he also, like everything else in the world, is a being determined once for all by his own constitution which, like everything else in nature, has its definite, persisting properties, from which his reactions issue necessarily upon the occurrence of external stimuli. It wants to know whether, accordingly, these properties have an unalterable character in this respect, which leaves any possible modification in them fully at the mercy of determination by external stimuli, or whether man alone constitutes an exception to the whole of nature.

-let us imagine a man who, while standing on the street, would say to himself: “It is six o’clock in the evening, the working day is over. Now I can go for a walk, or I can go to the club; I can also climb up the tower to see the sun set; I can go to the theater; I can visit this friend or that one; indeed, I also can run out of the gate, into the wide world, and never return. All of this is strictly up to me, in this I have complete freedom. But still I shall do none of these things now, but with just as free a will I shall go home to my wife.” This is exactly as if water spoke to itself: “I can make high waves (yes! in the sea during a storm), I can rush down hill (yes! in the river bed), I can plunge down foaming and gushing (yes! in the waterfall), I can rise freely as a stream of water into the air (yes! in the fountain), I can, finally, boil away and disappear (yes! at a certain temperature); but I am doing none of these things now, and am voluntarily remaining quiet and clear water in the reflecting pond.

- It is definitely neither a metaphor nor a hyperbole but a quite dry and literal truth that, as little as a ball on a billiard table can move before receiving an impact, so little can a man get up from his chair before being drawn or driven by a motive.

- If freedom of the will were presupposed, every human action would be an inexplicable miracle—an effect without a cause.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tighter (and prize-winning-er) of the two essays collected in TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF ETHICS Cambrige University Press edition. This is the Dover edition, with a different translator, although one of Schopenhauer's strengths is that he seems to be rather straightforward to translate - not a small thing for a 19th-century(!) German(!) philosopher(!!!). Overall I prefer the Cambridge version just slightly more, because it has more useful annotations/footnotes/translation notes, where here the translator might leave a Latin philosophical term as printed, and unnoted.

As for the content, it's really good. At issue is a concept called (in the modern day) "libertarian free will" and (in Schopenhauer) liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. We feel like we have a free choice in our actions, particularly our moral actions; but physical objects sure don't seem to have any freedom of choice. Every action causes a reaction, and a particular reaction depending on the context and forces at work. Libertarian free will says that the feels are reals, and that humans do in fact have a free element in our choices.

The problem with that is that, even though it accords with our feelings (and flatters our theologies) it seems really strange and problematic when examined closely. Free choice in every action means that every action is a "brute fact" admitting no complete explanation. But as Schopenhauer shows, even if that wasn't mysterious enough, admitting it into one's worldview dissolves any hope of moral accountability, divine authority (or goodness, take your pick), and so on.

Better to bite the bullet and accept determinism of phenomena but transcendental freedom of character - essentially, since character is arbitrary (humans don't all have the same characters) that is a degree of freedom, and it enables one to own responsibility for one's moral actions. It's maybe not all the way right (perhaps "freedom" is more about non-uniform probability than this-or-that), and I think Schopenhauer is too characteristically pessimistic about character development, but it blows a hole in libertarian free will that I don't think is salvageable.

4 stars.