8 - Schopenhauer, Heidegger, art, and the will

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The question of the relationship between Schopenhauer and Heidegger has been, in English at least, virtually untouched. This is somewhat odd given the evident fact that Heidegger read Schopenhauer and the rather striking affinities between the two. No doubt this neglect has been encouraged by the fact that Heidegger's explicit references to Schopenhauer are, almost without exception, contemptuous. (For example: “[Schopenhauer's discussion of art] stumbles about aimlessly … It cannot be called an aesthetics that would be even remotely comparable to that of Hegel. In terms of content Schopenhauer thrives on the authors he excoriates, namely Schelling and Hegel. The one he does not excoriate is Kant. Instead he thoroughly misunderstands him.”) This, however, should by no means be taken as decisive. Wittgenstein, for example, having plundered, almost plagiarized, Schopenhauer in the Tractatus later judged (employing, paradoxically, a characteristically Schopenhauerian metaphor) that “where true depth begins Schopenhauer's runs out.” And Nietzsche, of course, having plundered Schopenhauerian philosophy in The Birth of Tragedy spent the rest of his life protesting that Schopenhauer has always been his “antipode.”

To speak of the influence of Schopenhauer on Heidegger raises difficult questions concerning the genesis of Heidegger's ideas which, on this occasion, I do not wish to investigate. I shall speak, therefore, merely of affinities. In this essay I propose to begin (but by no means complete) the task of studying the affinities between Heidegger and Schopenhauer. In particular, I want to look at those which concern a topic crucial to both philosophers, the relationship between art and the will.