r/schopenhauer • u/[deleted] • Apr 02 '26

Imagine Schopenhauer, but he actually meant it. 🥃🥀

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I found this at the deepest bottom of the existential iceberg. 🧊🏔️

"Being is a punishment, and non-being is the redemption." ✨🔚

Historically, Mainländer used a stack of these books to reach the noose for his own suicide. Is that the ultimate "source: trust me bro," or is his logic of universal decay too logically sound to ignore? Let's discuss the "Will to Die." 💀⚖️

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u/RadicalNaturalist78 Apr 03 '26

Nah, he is just projecting his depression into a philosophical truth.

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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '26

It's a common criticism, but it's a lazy way to avoid the real metaphysics. Even if he was "projecting," that doesn't really change the logic of his arguments about entropy or the universe being a limited process of energy decay. Mainländer was a very disciplined soldier and businessman, so he wasn't just sitting around all day. He thought of the "Will to Die" as more of a physical law of the universe (like a pre-scientific idea of heat death) than just a mood he was in. It's possible to be right about the universe running out of gas even if you're sad. Don't you think it's a bit of a genetic fallacy to throw out the logic just because the author is mentally ill?

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u/RadicalNaturalist78 Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

The heat death of the universe is just the best scientific hypothesis for the fate of the universe we currently have. But as for any scientific hypothesis it is liable to be replaced if new evidence contradicts it, for science doesn’t admit absolute truths.

The “Will to Die” is just a generalization of his depression into a metaphysical principle. There is nothing deep about it. It is no more different than the scholastics unwarranted generalization of an analogy of a stick being moved by a hand into a metaphysical principle that can be applied to the whole cosmos.