Schopenhauer and the Two Orders of Purposiveness in the World

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to argue that the emergence of the material conditions for the suppression and denial of the will in the human organism (the extraordinary and to some extent “unnatural” development of the brain) is not something like an “accident on the way” of will's manifestation in the world. It is rather, as it were, an intentional result of the whole process of objectivation of the will, a result that emerges from a teleological order. This teleological order is primary and more fundamental than the teleological order of nature that produces each phenomenon and each organic structure according to its ability to promote the emergence, conservation and expansion of life. This means that we have to understand the problematic principle of nature's purposiveness in Schopenhauer's thought as containing two distinct and largely contradictory orders of purpose. We can call these two orders of purposiveness “order of nature” and “order of salvation” (in analogy to Schopenhauer’s “kingdom of nature” and “kingdom of grace”). These two orders of purpose correspond to what I understand to be two forms of teleology that coexist in constant tension in his system: a functional and an ethical-soteriological teleology.