Abstract

What is the ultimate motivating force of human life? What is the essence of human beings? This article confronts the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard against the backdrop of these two interrelated questions. It is intended to show that their answers to these great metaphysical questions, notwithstanding a number of striking formal similarities, radically differ from each other. In order to shed light on these differences, I investigate their respective reflections on 'detachment'. Schopenhauer interprets detachment as the way in which human beings attempt to negate their essence, that is to say, to liberate themselves from the blind will to life that inevitably entails pain and suffering. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, takes detachment to refer to the attempt of human beings to liberate themselves from an insubstantial aesthetical inspiration. This liberation should precisely allow them to assume their essence, that is to say, to take responsibility for the ethical dimension of their life. Kierkegaard considers that one can only accomplish one's own life by taking responsibility for the life of others; moreover, this responsibility entails that one frees the other person for the ethical task to be responsible for his own life. This latter liberation — a specific mode of care — constitutes a form of detachment different from the one that a person might achieve with respect to himself. I consider the different modes of detachment developed by Kierkegaard to have much more to contribute to an understanding of ethical life than the one we find in Schopenhauer. The 'dialogue' between Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer thus seems to end in an impasse, or, as Kierkegaard might have put it, in an either—or. This irreconcilable opposition might be traced back, I suggest, to the fact that Kierkegaard believes in a benevolent and faithful God whereas Schopenhauer does not