I just finished reading your essay and wanted to say that I appreciate its clarity and depth. You manage to convey the quiet grandeur of Schopenhauer’s vision without succumbing to the usual temptation to either tidy it up or reduce it to gloom. Your reflections on the impossibility (and perhaps absurdity) of omniscience and the inherent ambivalence of the human condition really struck me—especially your insight that philosophy can acknowledge what it cannot reach and still remain philosophy. That’s something many systems forget in their scramble to be complete.
What I find so powerful in Schopenhauer—and your essay brings this out beautifully—is how he answers the problem of death not by denial or distraction, but by turning the whole thing on its head. What dies is only the phenomenal self, the flickering image of the “I” that appears in the mirror of consciousness. But the real core of what we are—the will that pulses beneath representation—is not something that arises in time, and so it cannot end in time.
I’m reminded of that quiet paradox in The World as Will and Representation where Schopenhauer says that to truly know the inner essence is to be it, not to observe it. Death, in this light, is less an annihilation than a dissolution of the appearance. What fades is the image; what remains is the dark, immanent force that was always there, never fully seen but always lived—as the innermost pulse of being.
Anyway, thank you for such a rich and considered piece. It resonates deeply.
Wow, nice!
Thank you, Geraldine!🙏❤️❤️
As a theoretical biologist and aspiring poet, this looks interesting. Saved for later reading. Thank you
Thank you Amy!🙏
Ross,
I just finished reading your essay and wanted to say that I appreciate its clarity and depth. You manage to convey the quiet grandeur of Schopenhauer’s vision without succumbing to the usual temptation to either tidy it up or reduce it to gloom. Your reflections on the impossibility (and perhaps absurdity) of omniscience and the inherent ambivalence of the human condition really struck me—especially your insight that philosophy can acknowledge what it cannot reach and still remain philosophy. That’s something many systems forget in their scramble to be complete.
What I find so powerful in Schopenhauer—and your essay brings this out beautifully—is how he answers the problem of death not by denial or distraction, but by turning the whole thing on its head. What dies is only the phenomenal self, the flickering image of the “I” that appears in the mirror of consciousness. But the real core of what we are—the will that pulses beneath representation—is not something that arises in time, and so it cannot end in time.
I’m reminded of that quiet paradox in The World as Will and Representation where Schopenhauer says that to truly know the inner essence is to be it, not to observe it. Death, in this light, is less an annihilation than a dissolution of the appearance. What fades is the image; what remains is the dark, immanent force that was always there, never fully seen but always lived—as the innermost pulse of being.
Anyway, thank you for such a rich and considered piece. It resonates deeply.
And thank you! That reply is really, really appreciated. 🙏🙏