Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy, therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer. According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.
In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious, and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea? Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss ad hoc, and usually it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.
Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents. He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a subjective point of view—eudaemonism.
The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or vice versa. Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither. To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive, to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?
Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word, Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil, you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.
And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of truth; for if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents' attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble, you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.
I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life. But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths. It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person, who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability' —what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different people, according to the different constitution of their souls, are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others withheld, to know the truth.
And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their ultima ratio, their personal opinion, their private conviction, their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness, but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood. Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato, just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint. But representatives of the other positive sciences understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he took without verification from the representatives of positive science, though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by their side hardly concerns them at all.
The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices, and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that metaphysics must be a science a priori, and since it cannot be a science a priori, must therefore cease to exist. If the history of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian of philosophy.