Schopenhauer

Summary

Dominique Pagani sees Schopenhauer above all as a figure of the irrationalist counter-revolution. He often recalls that in 1848 the philosopher denounced the rioters to the police, and that his vogue among the bourgeoisie dates from after 1848, as a weapon against Marxism1. He sees in him a philosophical proto-history of Nazism. He also points out contradictions: Schopenhauer scorns the body and, as a Buddhist, believes in immortality, yet he flees the cholera in Berlin2. Pagani nonetheless judges him original: he asserts the will against intellectualism, reinserts man into nature and takes anticolonialist positions3. From The World as Will and Representation, he retains that the will can only be grasped indirectly, as representation. On music, he finds his discourse one of the most interesting, while faulting him for confusing the non-sensible with the irrational4. He places him in relation to Hegel, whom he hates for petty reasons, to Nietzsche, who owes him the will to power, and to Wagner, in whom he prevails over Dionysus.

1. 1Tribute to Domenico Losurdo2 Jul 2018 · 1:39:58
2. 2Niger special: should we “blacken the corpses”?7 Aug 2023 · 40:53
3. 3Tonight, we repoliticise (part 2)31 Mar 2018 · 28:24
4. 4#15 Plato, Rousseau, Hegel and music9 Feb 2021 · 1:19:46

Summary produced automatically from 39 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.