Dear Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith , Both of them knew German did they not? “Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied. The corollary of this is an ultimately painful human condition. Consequently, he considered that a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to the ascetic teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism and the Church Fathers of early Christianity, was the only way to attain liberation.[2]” – “In 1814, Schopenhauer began his seminal work The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung). He finished it in 1818 and published it the following year.” This is from the Wikipedia®. The article seemed gossipy with personal information, and though it hit Schopenhauer’s main points, it missed the whole point here because they made presuppositions from other people’s writing about Schopenhauer instead of studying Schopenhauer himself – which unfortunately includes me. ¶ BUT I do follow Nietzsche word by word, so I object when the article says, “A key focus of Schopenhauer was his investigation of individual motivation. Before Schopenhauer, Hegel had popularized the concept of Zeitgeist, the idea that society consisted of a collective consciousnesswhich moved in a distinct direction, dictating the actions of its members. Schopenhauer, a reader of both Kant and Hegel, criticized their logical optimism and the belief that individual morality could be determined by society and reason. Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated by only their own basic desires, or Wille zum Leben (Will to Live), which directed all of mankind.[17] For Schopenhauer, human desire was futile, illogical, directionless, and, by extension, so was all human action in the world. To Schopenhauer, the Will is a metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of individual, intelligent agents, but ultimately all observable phenomena. Will, for Schopenhauer, is what Kant called the "thing-in-itself." Nietzschewas probably one of the biggest supporter of this idea of Will and embedded it in his philosophy.” ¶ Kshatriya This ‘newspaper’ view of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer bluntly hits the main points but misses the message. Now, in Germany, there were many translations of oriental, especially Hindu, literature early in the century following up on an English scholars discovery around 1788 [I cannot find the name right now] that Sanskrit had close ties to most European languages. The Germans were much more enthusiastic about this discovery [for many good and bad reasons including political] than the English [who were ambivalent for political reasons], and so made greater and faster advances in the study of Sanskrit. German translations were quite commonly the basis of the English translations in the Peirces day, but some were available in English which, if the Peirces knew German well, and I think they did, they could read the abundant German translations as well as the most prominent Western adaptation of Sanskrit philosophy in Schopenhauer.¶ Now, Nietzsche mainly in his published works used Schopenhauer as a poetic metaphor or otherwise a straw man for undermining, in his ambiguous way, current scholarly ideals. But in his 1867 notebooks he both castigates Schopenhauer thoroughly and, on the other hand, gets him viewed more correctly than Wikipedia® does. The world’s ‘will’ is completely mindless. It may or may not be an animate force [with Nietzsche, not], but it has no intelligence and no plan. I have talked to a Kshatriya caste Hindu scholar who says exactly the same about Brahma, the supposed chief overlord of the Hindu gods [whom nonetheless was beheaded by Shiva] . To him, Brahma is just a synonym for the universe. To him, Shiva is the only important god – which I know many other Hindus would disagree with very much – but never violently. ¶ On the other hand, I have read Shankara’s Bhramasutrabasya complete and from cover to cover which leaves one very ambivalent, as a Westerner, about what is ‘important’ other than “Jivanmukta”. So what you say at the end, at least in a Westerner’s mind, can either be theistic or non-theistic as one simply pleases. Would you agree to this approach with Eastern philosophers? This ambivalence may reflect Charles Sanders Pierce’s obscurity about which Buddhist texts he referred to as, ultimately, it would make no difference. And it would support your premise that in both of the Peirces there is “a broad non-theism (anti-personification, non-anthropomorphic) into Benjamin Peirce's view cited here and in his presentation in "Ideality and the physical sciences" consistent with the "Neglected Argument" but in many ways more sophisticated, and certainly made with more passion and conviction, than the argument made by Charles. “¶ And I thank you very much for getting me more enthusiastic about Brent's biography which I have neglected.¶ Regards, Gary C. Moore
From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith <ste...@iase.us> To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 4:58 PM Subject: Benjamin Peirce on universal will. FYI I eventually found the reference that I had been looking for, and have mentioned numerous times here, regarding Benjamin Peirce's comment on "universal will." I originally saw it in Brent's biography of Charles on page 19: "Gentleman, as we study the universe we see everywhere the most tremendous manifestations of force. In our own experience we know of but one source of force, namely will. How then can we help regarding the forces we see in nature as due to the will of some omnipresent, ominipotent being? Gentlemen, there must be a GOD!" BP. The note 29 cites: Archibald 5, referring to Raymond Clare Archibald's Biographical Sketch of Benjamin Peirce. Brent points to the influence of this thinking upon Charles' "Neglected Argument." Despite the common associations in the given language I am reading a broad non-theism (anti-personification, non-anthropomorphic) into Benjamin Peirce's view cited here and in his presentation in "Ideality and the physical sciences" consistent with the "Neglected Argument" but in many ways more sophisticated, and certainly made with more passion and conviction, than the argument made by Charles. Anyone care to comment? It may be worth noting that Eastern non-theistic texts (I'm thinking of Buddhist scientific philosophy texts and Taoist texts in particular) were not readily available in translation at the time of Benjamin's life, so Benjamin may not have been aware of them. Charles refers to Buddhist work a number of times in the Collected Papers but does not mention to which text he refers. Does anyone know? With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering http://iase.info --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
