Schopenhauer’s Pessimism: An Existential Critique

Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World As Will and Representation presents the thing-in-itself as Will - a blind, insatiable striving - and the world of appearances (as our experience) as its objectification. From this metaphysical vision, Schopenhauer famously derives a philosophy of pessimism: life is fundamentally made up of suffering and vanity. In this essay, I first explain Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the Will, then outline how it underpins his pessimistic beliefs on human existence (drawing on his aptly-titled essay, On the Vanity and Suffering of Life). Finally, I offer a critique of this pessimistic view, arguing that it is neither warranted nor feasible to live by. My thesis is that although Schopenhauer highlights suffering in a way that many philosophers of his time did not, his blanket conclusions assume and entail too much, and are untenable.

Schopenhauer's Will

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the will build on Kant’s distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves. He agrees with Kant that the world of phenomena - the world we perceive - is structured by our representations, and the principle of sufficient reason. But he asks: what is the nature of the thing-in-itself, the reality behind appearances? Schopenhauer’s answer is that it is the Will - the objective world as idea is only the outward side of the world. It has an innermost nature - the thing-in-itself. Phenomena (representation) and noumena (will) are simply two aspects of the same reality. The Will is simply an aimless, blind force; every object and living being is a manifestation of it. All of our bodies and natures are “objectifications of the Will” - Schopenhauer means that our physical bodies express the inner striving of Will in each of us. Because humans are the most complete embodiment of the Will, our desires (hunger, fear, ambition, etc) are direct evidence of the Will’s lifeforce.

Crucially, Schopenhauer’s will is unsatisfiable - he insists that it can’t and won’t ever find a final resting point, and that it is perpetual and atemporal. Describing the awakening of a conscious being, he writes: “Awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, the will finds itself an individual, in an endless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering, erring; and as if through a troubled dream it hurries back to its old unconsciousness. Yet till then its desires are limitless, its claims inexhaustible, and every satisfied desire gives rise to a new one. No possible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still its longings, set a goal to its infinite cravings, and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart” ¹. In this passage, Schopenhauer conveys his fundamental metaphysical claim - the Will is a ceaseless desire. Any goal we achieve simply produces new goals, leaving a wider abyss of wanting that nothing can fill, only expand. Because the Will underlies all life, striving itself is the nature of being. This is core to his claim of suffering - he says this unending and unfulfillable desire is intrinsic to our existence. Objects in the world, whether things or people, are merely the phenomenal appearance shaped by our minds (a Kantian idea) - the only thing truly real in itself is Will’s striving.

Schopenhauer also emphasizes that the Will is not rational or benevolent. As soon as the Will is individuated (when conscious beings perceive themselves as separate entities), it breaks into countless manifestations that fight each other. Schopenhauer illustrates this as the phenomenal world becoming a world of permanent “war of all against all”, similar to a Hobbes on the state of nature. Schopenhauer illuminates this concept with a comparison to animalistic nature: “the most glaring example of this kind is afforded by the bulldog-ant of Australia, for when it is cut in two, a battle begins between the head and the tail” ². He uses this to dramatize his point that the Will “feasts upon itself”. This demonstrates how Schopenhauer’s metaphysics describe a universe driven by a single, blind Will, that can only invite endless conflict when objectified in multiple individuals.

Schopenhauer's Pessimism

From this insatiable Will, Schopenhauer derives a bleak view of life, with vanity and suffering at its core. If willing is the essence of existence, and willing means endless, unfulfillable desire, then suffering logically follows in all aspects of our existence. Schopenhauer’s ethical and existential view is fundamentally pessimistic. He argues that when we examine human life, that we see that “earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognised as an illusion” and asserts that daily life is marked by unceasing toil; even simple existence must be “extorted day by day with unceasing trouble and constant care” ³. Moments of pleasure are always brief and rare, and always seen as a contrast to worse times; they disappear in our hands and leave us wondering where they went. He contends that people constantly chase future joys and look back longingly at past pleasures much more than in the present, saying “Happiness accordingly always lies in the future or else in the past [..]; the present is therefore always insufficient but the future is uncertain and the past irrevocable” ⁴. With this, he claims that happiness is only ever a projection from our inner pessimistic selves; it’s never truly achieved, but always held above us or behind us. In this sense, Schopenhauer describes life as a pendulum swinging between striving and boredom; either we are in pain because we desire, or we are bored when our wants are fulfilled (if only temporarily). Though he does highlight an alternative to suffering to be boredom (or as he says, ennui), the main essay focuses on the suffering end of the pendulum.

In “On the Vanity and Suffering of Life”, Schopenhauer rails against common illusions of happiness. He notes that life “presents itself as a continual deception in small things as in great” ⁵. Promises are broken or were never worth having: “If [life] has promised, it does not keep its word, unless to show how little worth desiring were the things desired” ⁶. The near future is always a disappointment, and the distant future a mirage. All aspects of life – work, love, ambition – inevitably fail to bring lasting satisfaction. Schopenhauer thus concludes that “all good things are vanity, the world in all its ends bankrupt, and life a business which does not cover its expenses” ⁷. In other words, the sum of efforts and pleasures never outweigh the underlying sense of lack. This is the core principle of his pessimism: what appears initially as having value or happiness is in the end vanity, and the Will’s striving only ever serves as a burden.

Schopenhauer even extends his pessimism to a kind of metaphysical ethics. If life is suffering, the only genuinely compassionate response is recognition of the human condition. In “The World as Will and Representation”, he wrote that “daily life is suffering”, often illustrating it with mythological imagery of impossible-to-complete tasks, like Sisyphus’s boulder. But in Vanity and Suffering, he delivers the same verdict: life is solely designed to awaken the conviction that nothing at all is worth our striving or struggles. The text implies that a rational reaction to this conclusion is to turn away from our inner wills and to withdraw from all desires. Schopenhauer himself recommends escaping these desires as a way to recognize this contention between our wills and our vanity and pessimism. He believes that a life lived by chasing these desires is intrinsically not worth living, as you can never truly fulfill your desires.

Existential Critique

Having laid out Schopenhauer’s metaphysical and pessimistic vision, we can assess it for credibility. I argue that this pessimistic view is not philosophically justified, nor viable as a way of life. First, Schopenhauer’s metaphysical premises are contestable. Even if one accepts that desires often cause suffering, it does not follow that our entire life consists of suffering, or that striving is vain in and of itself. He commits an unjustified leap from “desires can never fully be satisfied” to “life is therefore worthless”. Many philosophers and thinkers would challenge this: a Nietzschean view would reject this jump. Nietzsche argued that while suffering is intrinsic to life, that we can also affirm life’s worth through creativity and strength. Camus also starts from similar principles about the absurdist world of suffering, yet still insists on the possibility of finding meaning, urging us to “imagine Sisyphus happy”, thus finding purpose in the struggle itself. From an existential standpoint, meaning is something we create, not something metaphysics would negate. Schopenhauer’s conclusion discounts the possibility that life’s value can come from overcoming suffering, or from the loves and desires that make existence worth living for many. He treats suffering as an ultimately invincible fact, but ignores the human free will to reinterpret suffering that Camus demonstrates.

Second, empirical and human considerations undercut this concept of universal pessimism. It is undeniable that everyone experiences suffering, but many experience deep joy, fulfilment, love, and creativity. Numerous accounts in psychology and sociology describe the human capacity to find happiness even amid the most dreary of hardship. Schopenhauer can try to describe this happiness as a façade, but his metaphysical arguments don’t discount the real experiences and scientific discoveries. Moreover, over the long term, human conditions have improved on many different axes: health, lifespan, free time, enjoyment, knowledge, education, etc. Schopenhauer may attempt to claim that all of these are simply more developed façades, just projections and illusions of our pessimistic inner selves attempting to escape suffering, but this claim just seems flat-out untenable when both objective and subjective statistics show such vast improvements across the board. Schopenhauer died in 1860, but perhaps his view would be different in today’s world. If Schopenhauer’s pessimism were strictly true, we would expect universal despair, but there’s almost no evidence to suggest this, nor of some mass hypnogenesis made by our “true inner pessimistic selves”.

Third, on existential and practical grounds, living as Schopenhauer advocates for is almost impossible. His solution to pessimism, a flat-out denial of the Will, is fundamentally arduous on the human condition. Humans are hardwired to want: we hunger, fear death, and desire companionship and social bonds. To ask people to renounce their will is to ask them to literally surrender their life-forces, something that Schopenhauer directly claims are equivalent. Indeed, his doctrines undermine agency. If Will is a blind force, we can’t even choose to will or not to will. The choice itself is a form of the Will. This means full rejection of the Will and its intrinsic desires must be infeasible, for how can one choose to give up choice?

In existentialist terms, Schopenhauer gives us a vision of the world without any free will of our own; no authentic choice, only resignation to the Will. Existential philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre would condemn this. For Sartre, human beings must project meaning onto an indifferent world; there is no possible way to opt out. Schopenhauer’s pessimism essentially says “life’s suffering is a given, so finding meaning is impossible”. Existentialists would strongly disagree on bad faith; even Schopenhauer himself cared greatly about art, for example. Living under his claimed doctrine of pessimism would produce despair or nihilism on all aspects of life; this disjunction suggests that even he did not follow his words.

Finally, critics find that Schopenhauer’s own life shows that pure pessimism is simply not psychologically sustainable. It may be lauded for its conclusions, but it invites apathy or worse in our lives, and is not realistic to follow in our lives. Even Kierkegaard considered Schopenhauer to stand solitary in his consideration for pessimism. To consider it reasonable to apply in our everyday lives is just an impossibility. If taken strictly, birthing children is adding inevitable suffering to the world, hence a serious immoral act; this extreme belief is defended by some, but is outside of the Overton window for most. At the very least, his stance negates any sense of creative or collective human purpose.

In sum, Schopenhauer’s pessimism rests on his singular view of metaphysics, but fails to take into consideration the human values and freedom we find core to our existence. The evidence of love, art, and personal growth contradicts the idea that all striving is vain. Even if one concedes that suffering is necessary and inevitable, one can still find life worth living by embracing the struggle (in the words of Camus, “the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart”). In fact, some find this obvious; a life without striving for anything (a life of sloth, with no education, goals, careers, aspirations, etc) would be horrible for many. Glory and meaning through struggle is intrinsic to the human condition. Philosophically, the derivation of pessimism to unending suffering is unsound. Even practically, being a dispassionate ascetic denies so much of what makes our lives vibrant.

Schopenhauer’s analysis of the will and his depiction of life’s sufferings are profound and influential. He shows us the underside of existence - the restless craving within each of us - with unparalleled intensity. However, on philosophical and existential grounds, his pessimism overreaches. It is not an inevitable, justified conclusion from his metaphysics, that our lives are solely composed of suffering, and it cannot serve as a workable guide for living. Human beings exhibit creativity, resilience, and the capacity for joy that Schopenhauer’s one-sided view neglects or claims is simply projection of our pessimism, without evidence. In the end, Schopenhauer’s business of life does cover its expenses for many, and even when it does not, we can still create our meaning. Schopenhauer’s insights into suffering are valuable, but we should reject that life is nothing but vanity and suffering.

Bibliography

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Idea. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited, 1906.

———. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1. Courier Corporation, 2012.

Footnote

This is an essay I completed in my Kant and his Successors class. As I'm getting a double major in both computer science and philosophy, I figured I'd start publishing my (very sophomoric) writings here too :)