19th century philosophy

Author: ALESSANDRO VELLA

Can We Eat In Heaven?

Schopenhauer, in his work “The World as Will and Representation,” with his philosophy develops a duality of what the world actually is (will) as opposed to that which we observe (representation). To transfer from the world of representation to the world of will, one needs to immerse in the experience “will to live” and realize that the person desires and the physical ability represent the life force manifestation. Schopenhauer put the situation in a nutshell in saying that “teeth, throat, and bowels are but the hall of hunger” which means that all organs of the body are just a personification of primary instincts such as hunger. For much the same reason, the non-representational aspect of reality can also be illustrated through the phenomenon of hunger and the eating as a fusion means for one to appreciate one’s will.

Picture a situation when a person, after some hard job, experiences an equally enormous hunger. This longing is not simply a thought or an intellectual number but a strong, mediating insistence. The stomach makes a sound to communicate the body’s need for v in this; hunger is not a personified remembrance, but an immediate, first-hand witness to the mowing hunger of a mouth trying to stay alive. Schopenhauer is the one to contend that animal desires and needs which he designates as the will are thus the stuff of nature, the force that configures the entire existence.

The tantalizing pain of the void in the pit of one’s stomach, accompanied by apparent weakness and general irritability are subtle, yet persistent ways in which the body communicates its attempt to sustain life. The complexity of this situation can be compared to the idea of an indicative gesture. This gesture is being simultaneously a representation of something else and also a source of certain will. The teeth, throat, and belly are no more than leakages of a super complex machine that comprised the will to prefer life over death.

The nineteenth century was referred to as the age of the memoir, in which the author’s confessed sins were a thematic staple in the narrative. The experience is empirical; start eating, it is not mechanics. There is more to eating than just bodily activities: chewing of food, swallowing and digesting (Schopenhauer, 1906). Every action is done under the desire to get to see hunger gone and the organism stay alive. The sensual pleasure received from eating, taste satisfaction, and a filled stomach are all simple forms of will that you experience through the body.

The process of eating is a complex cognitive activity which surpasses a concrete understanding of food being the mere act to fill the body with energy needed for survival. It becomes a direct connection with the decisions real world. The individual is absent food because he or she feels and understands the energy value of the food but the mind demands that person will live considering my personal feelings and understanding. With this intuition, it becomes evident that reality has a dimension other than the rational mind; it is the essence of power that governs everything in the universe.

In the physical body, there is a reflection of the deepest sexual desires, which commonly provide the background of a romantic relationship. At this juncture, Schopenhauer’s idea should be regarded as a source of inspiration. These teeth are devised for the tearing and grinding of food, the throat for swallowing, and bowels for digesting: they are all rough embodiments of the will to live. They are not only an economically invaluable part of an organism but, rather, the most direct manifestation of the will’s striving which is the engine of existence.

Schopenhauer specifies that only those who step through the barrier of representation and there opt for the real and raw experiences of life can actually perceive the world as will. Food and eating, on the one hand, are the best examples of this model. Here, Stendhal posits that our exigencies are not just situational whims but represent the inextinguishable urge to live. Thus, we have an opportunity to reveal essence of the will in the very reality of the will without any chance to doubt through the direct acquaintance with it that opens the curtain on the nature of existence even deeper than the reliability of appearances.

Are we doing the right thing?

In everyday life we are shown one thing or concept and in tangent told another opposite a thing or concept, that when thought about in a directed sense such as Hagel, makes us all seem slightly mad. For example, anyone that has flown on a commercial airliner could tell you a few of the many directives given to you before your flight takes off such as “pre boarding”. Of course, we understand this to be a privilege given to certain passengers such as the disabled, people with young children, and VIP passengers being allowed onto the plane to situate themselves before anyone else gets on the plain. But when thinking about the true nature of what it means to “pre board” is displayed best in this clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46fOtLfYC4Q&t=861s&pp=ygUWZ29yZ2UgY2FybGluIGFpcnBsYW5lcw%3D%3D) by Gorge Carlin.

“What does pre boarding mean anyway? To get on before you get on?” in this line we can see more Hegelian terminology and, in the Phenomenology, concerning “dialectical movements” (p.57, §86), ideally if we were to pre board the plane we would get on the plane, situate ourselves, and then get off the plane and wait for the present and final boarding process to begin. In the same stand-up routine, we see that the flight attendants ask passengers to get on the plane, in which case the comic says that they won’t get on the plane but instead will in fact get in the plane; after all the police might be called if someone were to get on top of the plane before the flight is to take off. But if we take this case further and in fact did get on the plane, we would be right in the sense that we followed the directives given to us, but in the same way we would be wrong given our intuition that the flight attendants most definitely want us to get in the plane. But again, if we take this a step further what do they mean by getting in the plane? Would I be wrong by opening the luggage racks and taking a nap in the overhead luggage bins? Or maybe I should get into the fuel tanks and go for a swim during my flight? Surely this is not what’s meant either, instead if we were to follow the directions given and be in the right sense while doing the right thing, the directive must be corrected. A new corrected directive would be something along the lines of “please enter into the plane, situate your luggage into the overhead bins, and then sit in your assigned seat until crewmen instruct otherwise”, of course this doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it would allow us to hear what to do, do what our intuition tells us, and be right in the mind and in reality.