A Few Words on Pantheism
{"WorkMasterId":5016,"WpPageId":243575,"ParentWpPageId":189627,"Slug":"a-few-words-on-pantheism","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/arthur-schopenhauer/a-few-words-on-pantheism/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/arthur-schopenhauer/a-few-words-on-pantheism/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":79904,"CleanHtmlLength":22563,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"A Few Words on Pantheism","Deck":"Pantheism fails if it merely renames the world God without explaining suffering, will, and negation.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Arthur Schopenhauer","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/arthur-schopenhauer/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Arthur Schopenhauer","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/arthur-schopenhauer/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/arthur-schopenhauer-01-standard-portrait.jpg","ImageAlt":"Arthur Schopenhauer Portrait","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Arthur Schopenhauer","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/arthur-schopenhauer/","Copies":["1788 CE – 1860 CE","Danzig (now Gdansk)","German philosopher from Danzig whose account of representation, blind will, pessimistic metaphysics, compassion ethics, aesthetics, and music reshaped nineteenth-century and modern philosophy."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:4","Title":"Modern History","DateText":"1800 CE – 1944 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:11","Title":"Long 19th Century","DateText":"1870 CE – 1913 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/philosophers-of-the-long-19th-century/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1851 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"1851 publication year inside Parerga and Paralipomena; source order is followed within the same publication year.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:3"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:POL:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Einige Worte ueber den Pantheismus","Language":"German","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:philosophy-of-religion"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:metaphysics"}],"Tradition":"German post-Kantian philosophy, pessimism, aesthetics, and ethics","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Full text from Wikisource: A Few Words on Pantheism .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Pantheism fails if it merely renames the world God without explaining suffering, will, and negation."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"On Pantheism","KeyConcepts":"pantheism; God; world; suffering; religion; metaphysics","Methodology":"Post-Kantian transcendental analysis, metaphysical system-building, aphoristic essay, historical criticism, comparative religion, and psychological observation.","Structure":"Published book, prize essay, edition-level work, posthumous manuscript work, translation/adaptation, or self-contained Parerga and Paralipomena essay accepted under the Max Published policy."},"Arguments":["Connects representation, will, causality, suffering, art, compassion, character, knowledge, and cultural criticism to Schopenhauer\u0027s wider philosophical system."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Immanuel Kant, Plato, the Upanishads, Buddhism, Goethe, Spinoza, and early modern metaphysics.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Accepted as part of the user-approved Arthur Schopenhauer Max Published corpus.","Used in metaphysics, aesthetics, music theory, ethics, pessimism, philosophy of mind, comparative philosophy, and critiques of modern optimism."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted under the user-selected Max Published policy as a self-contained essay from Parerga and Paralipomena."],"MainSections":[{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Versions","BodyHtml":"\u003cdiv class=\"dz-philo__full-version-grid\"\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-version-card\"\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-provider\"\u003eWikisource\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ch3 class=\"dz-philo__full-version-title\"\u003eA Few Words on Pantheism\u003c/h3\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-meta\"\u003eSectionText · LinkOnlyReady\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ca class=\"dz-philo__full-version-link\" href=\"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Few_Words_on_Pantheism\"\u003eOpen full version\u003c/a\u003e\n \u003c/article\u003e\n \u003c/div\u003e"},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Core Thesis","Paragraphs":["Pantheism fails if it merely renames the world God without explaining suffering, will, and negation."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Classification","Fields":[{"Label":"Alternate Titles","Value":"On Pantheism"},{"Label":"Key Concepts","Value":"pantheism; God; world; suffering; religion; metaphysics"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Post-Kantian transcendental analysis, metaphysical system-building, aphoristic essay, historical criticism, comparative religion, and psychological observation."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"Published book, prize essay, edition-level work, posthumous manuscript work, translation/adaptation, or self-contained Parerga and Paralipomena essay accepted under the Max Published policy."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Connects representation, will, causality, suffering, art, compassion, character, knowledge, and cultural criticism to Schopenhauer\u0027s wider philosophical system."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Immanuel Kant, Plato, the Upanishads, Buddhism, Goethe, Spinoza, and early modern metaphysics."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, Thomas Mann, Wittgenstein, Mainlander, modern pessimism, aesthetics, psychology, and comparative philosophy."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Accepted as part of the user-approved Arthur Schopenhauer Max Published corpus.","Used in metaphysics, aesthetics, music theory, ethics, pessimism, philosophy of mind, comparative philosophy, and critiques of modern optimism."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted under the user-selected Max Published policy as a self-contained essay from Parerga and Paralipomena."]},{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003eFull text from \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Few_Words_on_Pantheism\"\u003eWikisource: A Few Words on Pantheism\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe controversy between Theism and Pantheism might be presented in an allegorical or dramatic form by supposing a dialogue between two persons in the pit of a theatre at Milan during the performance of a piece. One of them, convinced that he is in Girolamo\u0027s renowned marionette-theatre, admires the art by which the director gets up the dolls and guides their movements. \"Oh, you are quite mistaken,\" says the other, \"we\u0027re in the Teatro della Scala; it is the manager and his troupe who are on the stage; they are the persons you see before you; the poet too is taking a part.\"\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world \"God\" is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word \"world.\" It comes to the same thing whether you say \"the world is God,\" or \"God is the world.\" But if you start from \"God\" as something that is given in experience, and has to be explained, and they say, \"God is the world,\" you are affording what is to some extent an explanation, in so far as you are reducing what is unknown to what is partly known (\u003ci\u003eignotum per notius\u003c/i\u003e); but it is only a verbal explanation. If, however, you start from what is really given, that is to say, from the world, and say, \"the world is God,\" it is clear that you say nothing, or at least you are explaining what is unknown by what is more unknown.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHence, Pantheism presupposes Theism; only in so far as you start from a god, that is, in so far as you possess him as something with which you are already familiar, can you end by identifying him with the world; and your purpose in doing so is to put him out of the way in a decent fashion. In other words, you do not start clear from the world as something that requires explanation; you start from God as something that is given, and not knowing what to do with him, you make the world take over his role. This is the origin of Pantheism. Taking an unprejudiced view of the world as it is, no one would dream of regarding it as a god. It must be a very ill-advised god who knows no better way of diverting himself than by turning into such a world as ours, such a mean, shabby world, there to take the form of innumerable millions who live indeed, but are fretted and tormented, and who manage to exist a while together, only by preying on one another; to bear misery, need and death, without measure and without object, in the form, for instance, of millions of negro slaves, or of the three million weavers in Europe who, in hunger and care, lead a miserable existence in damp rooms or the cheerless halls of a factory. What a pastime this for a god, who must, as such, be used to another mode of existence!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe find accordingly that what is described as the great advance from Theism to Pantheism, if looked at seriously, and not simply as a masked negation of the sort indicated above, is a transition from what is unproved and hardly conceivable to what is absolutely absurd. For however obscure, however loose or confused may be the idea which we connect with the word \"God,\" there are two predicates which are inseparable from it, the highest power and the highest wisdom. It is absolutely absurd to think that a being endowed with these qualities should have put himself into the position described above. Theism, on the other hand, is something which is merely unproved; and if it is difficult to look upon the infinite world as the work of a personal, and therefore individual, Being, the like of which we know only from our experience of the animal world, it is nevertheless not an absolutely absurd idea. That a Being, at once almighty and all-good, should create a world of torment is always conceivable; even though we do not know why he does so; and accordingly we find that when people ascribe the height of goodness to this Being, they set up the inscrutable nature of his wisdom as the refuge by which the doctrine escapes the charge of absurdity. Pantheism, however, assumes that the creative God is himself the world of infinite torment, and, in this little world alone, dies every second, and that entirely of his own will; which is absurd. It would be much more correct to identify the world with the devil, as the venerable author of the \u003ci\u003eDeutsche Theologie\u003c/i\u003e has, in fact, done in a passage of his immortal work, where he says, \"\u003ci\u003eWherefore the evil spirit and nature are one, and where nature is not overcome, neither is the evil adversary overcome\u003c/i\u003e.\"\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is manifest that the Pantheists give the Sansara the name of God. The same name is given by the Mystics to the Nirvana. The latter, however, state more about the Nirvana than they know, which is not done by the Buddhists, whose Nirvana is accordingly a relative nothing. It is only Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans who give its proper and correct meaning to the word \"God.\"\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe expression, often heard now-a-days, \"the world is an end-in-itself,\" leaves it uncertain whether Pantheism or a simple Fatalism is to be taken as the explanation of it. But, whichever it be, the expression looks upon the world from a physical point of view only, and leaves out of sight its moral significance, because you cannot assume a moral significance without presenting the world as means to a higher end. The notion that the world has a physical but not a moral meaning, is the most mischievous error sprung from the greatest mental perversity.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \n \n\u003cp\u003eThis work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the \u003cb\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain\" title=\"w:Public domain\"\u003epublic domain\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/b\u003e worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth scope=\"row\"\u003eTranslation:\u003c/th\u003e\u003ctd\u003e\u003clink rel=\"mw-deduplicated-inline-style\" href=\"mw-data:TemplateStyles:r15431456\" /\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThis work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the \u003cb\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain\" title=\"w:Public domain\"\u003epublic domain\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/b\u003e worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\n \u003c/article\u003e"}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Versions","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note","Full Text"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":25,"Styles":3,"Scripts":1}}