A categoria do sofrimento humano na filosofia irracionalista de Arthur Schopenhauer

Abstract

The aim of this work is to carry out an analysis of Schopenhauer's contribution to the issue of suffering, based on his main works and certain articles on the issue. We will highlight the world and the contemporary individual, and we will question the cause of suffering and why this feeling is more observed nowadays, in this way, we will bring the thought of the philosopher Schopenhauer to this problem, with the purpose of identifying means for this feeling to be reduced, according to the role that the author assigns to art. Thus, the source of endless suffering is the very nature of the world itself, which Schopenhauer understood as the will. According to the philosopher, the will is a self-contradictory, insatiable nature, which expresses this conflicting character of every human being. In this way, suffering is an expression of the will. We can, however, see the overcoming of pain through events that deny the will, in which the will, in some people, prefers not to affirm life by giving up the pleasure that the will leads to. Schopenhauer establishes, therefore, that life is understood as constant suffering, the philosopher proposes conditions indicative of happiness.