Schopenhauer and Platonic Ideas

Abstract

Schopenhauer and Platonic Ideas HILDE HEIN SCttOPENttAUER,in the Preface to the first edition of The World as Will and Representation, acknowledges the debt his philosophy owes to the doctrines of Kant and Plato and the Upanishads. Specifically of Plato he says: "But if... the reader has dwelt for a while in the school of the divine Plato, he will be prepared to hear me, and the more susceptible to what I say." 1 Historians and commentators, in defining Schopenhauer's place in the history of philosophy, accept his self-appraisal and take for granted both the accuracy of Schopenhauer's interpretation of his sources and the truth of his contention that they were his primary influences.2 Only Russell, with characteristic scepticism, refers to the acknowledgement and then goes on to add, "but I do not think he owes as much to Plato as he thinks he does." 3 Russell does not state the reasons for his doubts, but I believe he is right in having them, and it is my intention here to examine Sehopenhauer's treatment of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas and the extent to which he departs from Plato's original conception of it. I shall not make a parallel investigation of Schopenhauer's use of the philosophy of Kant and the Upanishads, although I believe that one would discover that they also undergo considerable transformation when put to the purposes for which Schopenhauer employs them. I do not mean to deny that Schopenhauer was deeply moved and profoundly influenced by these philosophies. It would be folly to contest the truth of a claim which he was in the best position to make. And there is no doubt that he is in agreement with them in the belief whose antiquity and generality he points out, that the ordinary world of common experience has only a relative existence, that the world is known as representation (Bk. I, f~3).4 But beyond this initial similarity there are significant discrepancies between Schopenhauer's views and those of his avowed philosophical ancestors, I shall confine my remarks in the present discussion to some of his deviations from "the divine Plato." Schopenhauer is careful to distinguish between the Kantian use (or misuse) of the term "Idea" ("the abstract productions of scholastic dogmatizing reason"; Bk. II, f~25) and the meaning which Plato gives to it, as referring to the unThe World as Will and Representation, trans, by E.F.J. Payne (Indian Hills,Colorado: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958), p. xxiii.A. Schopenhauer,S~immtliche Werke, Band II, herausgegeben Julius Frauenstadt (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1891) p. xiii. All subsequent quotations from Schopenhauerwillbe taken from the Payne translation. 2E.g.,E.F.J. Payne, The World as Will and Representation, Translator's Preface,pp. xiv,cvi; B.A.G.Fuller,A History o] Modern Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1938),p. 470; and WilliamCaldwell,Schopenhauer's System in its Philosophical Significance, pp. 44, 166. 8Bertrand Russell,A History o] Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 753. 4Payne,I, 6-7; Werke, II, 7-8. ]-133] 134 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY attained patterns, related to individual things as their eternal forms or prototypes . Schopenhauer clearly allies himself with the Platonic usage: "Therefore with me the word is always to be understood in its genuine and original meaning given it by Plato" (Bk. II, $25).5 Schopenhauer goes on to characterize the Ideas in what appears to be a Platonic fashion. More like the Kantian thing-in-itself than like the Kantian Idea, they are unconditioned by time and space, remaining fixed and subject to no change, forever being and never having become, and foreign to all plurality. As such, the Platonic Ideas play a major role in Schopenhauer's philosophy, particularly in his theory of art. But precisely here we have grounds for suspicion that in fact Schopenhauer used the Ideas in a very un-Platonic sense. The disagreement between Plato and Schopenhauer regarding art is widely recognized. It is well known that Plato denied that the artist possesses privileged insight into reality. On the contrary, he maintained that the artist is a falsifier whose product is "three...

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