The Will as Joy-Bringer: Nietzsche's Response to Schopenhauer

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (Latest articles):1-11 (2022)
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Abstract

The apparent consensus among Nietzsche interpreters is that Nietzsche accepts Schopenhauer’s “description of the ubiquity of suffering” (Gemes 2008, p. 463). In this paper, I argue against this consensus. Specifically, Nietzsche holds that life is not as painful as Schopenhauer makes it out to be, for Nietzsche recognizes two kinds of pleasures that Schopenhauer fails to acknowledge. The only kind of pleasure that Schopenhauer acknowledges is the experience of the cessation of pain that occurs upon the satisfaction of a desire. Nietzsche explicitly rejects Schopenhauer’s view of pleasure; instead, he recognizes pleasurable feelings of power that one can experience when one is trying to satisfy desires, and pleasurable feelings of value that one can experience when one satisfies a desire for something one takes to be valuable.

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Harold Langsam
University of Virginia

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References found in this work

The affirmation of life: Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism.Bernard Reginster - 2006 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology.Paul Katsafanas - 2013 - In John Richardson & Ken Gemes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche. Oxford University Press. pp. 727-755.
Affect, value, and objectivity.Peter Poellner - 2007 - In Brian Leiter & Neil Sinhababu (eds.), Nietzsche and Morality. Oxford University Press. pp. 227--61.
The Truth Is Terrible.Brian Leiter - 2018 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49 (2):151-173.
Schopenhauer on the Inevitability of Unhappiness.Ivan Soll - 2012 - In Bart Vandenabeele (ed.), A Companion to Schopenhauer. Oxford, UK: Wiley‐Blackwell. pp. 300–313.

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