Schopenhauer: da metafísica à politica

Abstract

The present thesis aims to present and justify a possible political philosophy based on the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Analyzing Schopenhauer’s work, we perceive two planes of theoretical development, which we call theoretical-metaphysical (ethical-metaphysical) and empirical-practical (eudemonological). These plans share some common metaphysical assumptions that provide them with points of contact and communication in certain respects. However, in the last instance and from a point of view of the Schopenhauerian metaphysics, these perspectives are irreconcilable because they do not find adequate accommodation. Our main thesis is that the possibility of elaborating a political theory in Schopenhauer’s thought lies in two presuppositions. 1) The existence, in Schopenhauer’s work, of a conception of philosophy that is not defined as metaphysics, but as empirically based, in which reasoning does not advance to the highest metaphysical principles that lead to fatalism and interdict freedom and happiness. 2) The passage from natural law to positive law, which consists in reversing the object of the concept of justice, which changes from the intention to the objective consequences of the act, in which the issues go from the ethical to the eudemonological plane that suspends the metaphysical principles to think the organization of the life.