Knowledge and Tranquility: Schopenhauer on the value of art

In Dale Jacquette (ed.), Schopenhauer, Philosophy and the Arts. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 39--61 (1996)
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Abstract

The article argues that Schopenhauer seeks to defend art against Plato's critique, but that he does so by adopting two distinct strategies that to some extent conflect: a 'cognitivist strategy' according to which art provides the most objective knowledge of reality, and an 'aesthetic experience' strategy, in which there is a peculiarly aesthetic state of mind which gives our pleasure in art a value of its own. The truly unifying notion in Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory is that of tranquil, will-less contemplation, a state of non-identification with the striving, suffering, bodily individual that one is. The Ideas testify to the endurance of Schopenhauer's early Platonic ambitions, but they do not really produce a convincing theory. At one end of the spectrum, the Ideas are otiose: pleasure is in the tranquility of contemplation, which may well be of an empirical object. At the other end of the spectrum, apprehension of the Ideas serves an all-important cognitive function, but our pleasure cannot stem from our knowing the horrifying Idea of humanity per se. Rather, the key to the satisfaction we take in tragedy is, in Schopenhauer's account, the will-lessness of sublime resignation in face of the Idea.

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Christopher Janaway
University of Southampton

Citations of this work

Schopenhauer on Aesthetic Understanding and the Values of Art.Bart Vandenabeele - 2008 - European Journal of Philosophy 16 (2):194-210.
Back to truth: Knowledge and pleasure in the aesthetics of Schopenhauer.Paul Guyer - 2008 - European Journal of Philosophy 16 (2):164-178.
Back to Truth: Knowledge and Pleasure in the Aesthetics of Schopenhauer.Guyer Paul - 2008 - European Journal of Philosophy 16 (2):164-178.

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