Schopenhauer – The World as Will
He proposed that we most clearly experience the raw desire that is will during the sexual act, or when our survival instincts are activated
In 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer published his influential book “The World as Will and Representation”.
at our core we have an unconscious instinct that he called “will”. Our human bodies are a manifestation of “will to live”, which is presented to us via either sensation/perception or direct inner experience. He proposed that we most clearly experience the raw desire that is will during the sexual act, or when our survival instincts are activated.
Schopenhauer made no distinction between organic and inorganic nature, believing that separateness is an illusion. Will, he claimed “…indicates that which is the being-in-itself of everything in the world, and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon.” At the core of reality, he decided, everything is “one”.
Ancient Indian sages had come to the same conclusion centuries before, but this was still unknown in Europe. Schopenhauer subsequently discovered that many Hindu and Buddhist teachings were similar to his philosophy.
“…pleasure in the beautiful consists, to a large extent, in the fact that, when we enter the state of pure contemplation, we are raised for the moment above all willing, above all desires and cares; we are, so to speak, rid of ourselves…And we know that these moments when, delivered from the fierce pressure of the will, we emerge, as it were, from the heavy atmosphere of the earth, are the most blissful that we experience.”
When he was 68 he confessed: “As far as women are concerned, I was fond of them – had they only wanted to have me.”