On Vitalism
There is no “aimless” nature:
“the being-in-itself […] of every organism is simply and solely its own will.”1
This is equally true of the smallest living cell, simplest insect, warm-blooded mammal, symbiotic transaction, cultural given, political entity and globalist project.
“the existence of every part is conditioned by the fact that […] it serves the will that here underlies it […] and consequentially contributes somehow to the maintenance of the organism.”2
Each owes the nature of its impulses and consequent flourishing, or extinction, to the underlying substructure which spawned it. It is the metaphysical force which dictates ontology.
In the human this ontology is meaning-driven, ultimately eschatological, and focused on “final causes; we look for these everywhere”. This is to such a degree that man is partially-blind to the minutiae of sensory data, “we cannot clearly conceive a final cause except as an intended aim or end, i.e., as a motive”, this way of seeing the world is both heuristic (to save time and energy) and instinctual (lest we get caught up in the entanglements of our lofty intellect). Naturally, man is capable of stepping outside his base will into the intellect to analyze individual events and memories. Hence, he has given himself the ability of empirical science, commerce and political structure. Yet, these are always relegated in the human psychology as simply “efficient causes” which “occupy quite a subordinate position as mere tools of final causes”.3 This is the reason why enduring religion concerns itself with apocalypse, judgment and childbirth in contrast to pleasure, vibes and consumption.
Reality has a certain constitution. Although, the complete nature is, and will, always be opaque to us. But, reality is constituted by virtue of the fact that one of the infinite possible enumerable metaphysics has instantiated it. Reality, through will, has a “vital force”.4 To accept and affirm this “vital force” as inescapable yet with a sense of gratitude for the messiness and euphoria of life is vitalism.
Vitalism is truth-seeking, dynamic, meaning-driven, cybenetically plastic, eugenic and radically-accepting.
Schopenhauer’s metaphysics obtains its significance through dogmatic assertion:5
“only the will is thing-in-itself”6
This connects it directly to the Kantian project. Through such a “Kantian doctrine” the will is made all-important and foundational, yet also elusive in its particularity. Although the will has an intangible “groundlessness” in its original (metaphysical) form, it does objectify itself within reality: “It appears in every blindly acting force of nature”.7 This objectification is at an apex in the economies of life which “manifests itself most distinctly […] as the will of man”. Finally, each human is a distinct roll of a dice cast by this will thrown forth into the opportunity of the universe. This creates “the individual, the person” - “phenomenon of the will”.8
The dogmatism employed to give this framework importance is empirically and existentially limiting. My access to the thing-in-itself is “the knowledge I have of my will” and thus “cannot be separated from that of my body”.9 To the philosophical optimist, ‘optimism’ indeed being the force that poisoned much bad-thinking, this is seen as an imprisonment. Philosophy hitherto has been in the shadow of Plato in the respect that most subsequent efforts are elaborated repetitions of the cave story. On the contrary, our body is the cave and our embodiment is a demonstration that our own individual will is in fact the force which creates and manipulates the shadows. The stage setting erected by Plato was a false one and is a relegated level of reality, by virtue of its conceptualization. This controlled environment had to be created to maintain the autistic personality of Occidental philosophy. Within this backdrop philosophical homeostasis could control the script and endlessly pontificate its own thought experiments. What started with Plato’s cave ends with the detachment of academia and hobbyist philosophy. A philosophy driven instead by vital forces would be a radical departure from this, the personality of which would be vitalistic. of The body is our mechanism of knowing, through embodiment we find “our knowledge, bound always to individuality and having its limitation in this very fact.”10
Vitalism should be primarily concerned with what we can know through life, nature and body about the will. This “character” is the “disposition or quality of the will”. Thus, it is the “disposition or quality” of reality.11 For the philosophical realist this should serve as the starting point of all thinking. For the vitalist this should be the primary consideration on the task of living.
“the character, as possessed by every animal species and every human individual, is certainly also a permanent and unalterable quality of the will.”12
To the attentive reader this could raise an issue of determinism. If this initial and foundational quality of the will is indeed “permanent” and “unalterable”, doesn’t this leave its products (us) in a bind? How can we approach such a revaluation with a vitalist dynamism if our projector is an unnegotiable?
The answer lies, once again, in the body. Although the metaphysic which has constituted reality is already decided the form which life takes, and affirms, is most certainly not.
“Brains are plastic. The truth is we are always training our brains — with or without or conscious participation.”13 There is no reason this insight should be extended to the rest of the body. We are always training our CNS, our hormonal economy, homeostatic regulators and libido. Despite the fact we inhabit an archetypal homosapien blueprint our individual body is unacceptable to all kinds of environmental molding after the fact. Not only this, but we are uniquely blessed with the human intellect, a charitable opportunity permitted by the graciousness of the will, able to mold the plastic of our bodies.
The clay of humanity can be crafted in every existential moment and decision into either a vitalistic monument to life affirmation or a masturbatory sludge of indefinite matter.
This is the “chance” which appears before us: life as an exciting and undying challenge. Each and every human being has the potential to sculpt themselves into the greatest work of art they could ever aspire to live through:
“The motive in general stands before the will in protean forms; it always promises complete satisfaction, the quenching of the thirst of will. But if this is attained, it at once appears in a different form […]”14
The task of living vitalistically is perpetually unfinished, right up until the moment the object of the will is extinguished. Desire can never be satiated, Utopia can never be reached and mankind will never be liberated from his fallibility. And for this we should be thankful, lest the hell of boredom engulf us and provide a fate worse than a peaceful death. Suicide is accompanied by boredom, at least a grizzly and painful end is entertaining. This is the radical acceptance of vitalism, a knowledge which allows man to proceed in a gratitude and self-shaping mode through his predicament.
“[…] therein moves the will afresh, always according to the degree of the will’s intensity and to its relation to knowledge, which in these very patterns and examples are revealed as empirical character.”15
Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation, Volume II. Translated by Payne, E.F.J. New York: Dover Publications. p.329
Ibid.
Ibid. p.332
Ibid. p.316
“Dogmatism” is not used as a pejorative.
Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation, Volume I. Translated by Payne, E.F.J. New York: Dover Publications. p.110
Ibid.
Ibid. p.113
Ibid. p.101
Ibid.
Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation, Volume II. Translated by Payne, E.F.J. New York: Dover Publications. p.342
Ibid. p.343
Wilson, G. (2014). Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. United Kingdom: Commonwealth Publishing. p.48
Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation, Volume I. Translated by Payne, E.F.J. New York: Dover Publications. p.327
Ibid.