Will to Survive
Schopenhauer published the two volumes of his most famous work, The World as Will and Representation, in 1818, when he was about 30. Schopenhauer believed that in this work he had unveiled the mysteries of the world, but nearly 17 years after its publication the book had still sold very few copies (Magee, 1997). Eventually, however, the book would come to be considered a master- piece of Western philosophy.
Schopenhauer took Kant’s philosophy as a basis for his own. Most importantly, he accepted Kant’s distinction between the noumenal world (things in themselves) and the phenomenal world (conscious experience). Schopenhauer equated the noumenal world with “will,” which he described as a blind, aimless force, which cannot be known. In humans, this force manifests itself in the will to survive, which causes an unending cycle of needs and need satisfaction. For Schopenhauer, the powerful drive toward self-preservation—not the intellect and not morality—accounts for most human behavior. Most human behavior, then, is irrational. To satisfy our will to survive, we must eat, sleep, eliminate, drink, and engage in sexual activity. The pain caused by an unsatisfied need causes us to act to satisfy the need. When the need is satisfied, we experience momen- tary satisfaction (pleasure), which lasts only until another need arises, and on it goes. Schopenhauer’s pessimism toward the human condition is clearly shown in the following quotation:
