Friedrich von Hartmann

Definition and stakes

Portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle Arthur Conan Doyle The Great Keinplatz Experiment and Other Tales of Twilight and the Unseen

Now as Von Hartmann, overwhelmed by the many strange things which had occurred to him that day, passed his hand over his forehead and cast his eyes downwards, he chanced to catch the reflection of his own face in a pool which the rain had left upon the road. To his utter astonishment he perceived that his face was that of a youth, that his dress was that of a fashionable young student, and that in every way he was the antithesis of the grave and scholarly figure in which his mind was wont to dwell.
Source: Gutenberg

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)

When the greater part of the Will in existence is so far enlightened by reason as to perceive the inevitable misery of existence, a collective effort to will non-existence will be made, and the world will relapse into nothingness, the Unconscious into quiescence. Although von Hartmann is a pessimist, his pessimism is by no means unmitigated. The individual’s happiness is indeed unattainable either here and now or hereafter and in the future, but he does not despair of ultimately releasing the Unconscious from its sufferings.
Source: Wikisource

Get perspective with Kwize: daily news enlightened by great literature