I decide to write a little bit about philosophy and recently I was reading Schopenhauer’s Parerga and Paralipomena,collection of his essays about different philosophical questions and problems, so I thought it ’II be nice to share some thoughts of mine about it. I am not a philosopher, of course. I just like to read different things and, if I find them interesting, I like to think about them and go around and bother people with that. Most of them are just running from me so I am very lucky to have this blog. Now I can share everything.
So, why did I choose Schopenhauer? I don’t know, actually. Maybe because he was damn pessimist and person without friends. He didn’t like any company so I found interesting to read thoughts of a person who was so lonely and separate from the life.
What is pantheism?
Pantheism is belief or an idea that whole nature has some characteristics like god. Everything around us, space, nature, whole world is a god, but not in religious meaning. In other religions god is creature. We cannot understand him but he is someone. He is being. In pantheism is not like that. Nature it is a god, but it is not something individual. First philosophers who thought about nature in that way were Heraclitus, Plotinus, Giordano Bruno, and the most famous ― Baruch Spinoza.
Schopenhauer said pantheists are wrong
Schopenhauer didn’t like idea of pantheism. He wrote short essay about this idea and made couple of objections. First, he thought that it is wrong to consider whole nature as a god because this idea doesn’t explain anything about his world. He almost said that it is stupid to try to explain nature by compare it with something which is more unknown as god is. We don’t know much about this world, but we know less about god. So, how we are going to explain this world comparing it with something so abstract and mysterious?
He also believed that nature couldn’t be god because something that much powerful and important would not choose to be divided on everything in this world. He thought that it is impossible to consider whole world as god because god would never choose to be part of ordinary life, full of suffering, illness and weakness. If god is everywhere, that means he is also in the slaves who get beaten every day, in poor people at the streets, in misery which is everywhere around us. He thought this is an absurd.
Do I agree with Schopenhauer?
No, I do not! In my opinion, he misunderstood one thing. Nature is not being with will and it is not some anthropomorphic god. So, it cannot decide to be this or that. Nature is not god in religious meaning. I think pantheists wanted to adore nature as some kind of god. They thought it is something divine, but it is not something that has own will and power of thinking. If there is a lot of sorrow in this world, I think it is not because of nature. It is because people made world like that. Maybe they are also part of it, as Schopenhauer thought, but they decided to live in different way and they are not in touch with nature any more.