Lev Shestov and Democratization of Thought Essay

Lev Shestov and Democratization of Thought - Essay Example Shestov displays a great amount of variety in his work and also borrows from the philosophy of the east in order to challenge the views that are established and belong to great thinkers. Through such a move, Shestov achieves a revolutionary approach that serves to challenge the existing order of things as they are in the society and in the universe. The complexities of such viewpoints are expressed in several works that he wrote. This paper shall seek to analyze an excerpt from the essay, â€Å"The Force of Argument†, which seeks to establish a dialogue between himself and the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, whose views Shestov was not in agreement with at all (Shestov 97). Using several points of view from different schools of thought, Shestov is able to provide a refutation of the argument that Schopenhauer presents and is also able to give his own argument a place in a continuity of history by anticipating its own modification by a later theorist, in the same way, that he was modifying the theories of Arthur Schopenhauer. Shestov criticizes the assumptions that Schopenhauer takes for granted while formulating his analyses of the condition of man. The distinction between the individual man and the collective is clearly laid out by Schopenhauer in his philosophy. The beginning and the end of man is taken as a given that cannot be refuted is also a basis for any future argument that Schopenhauer makes; which is to say, that it forms the bedrock of his later discourses. Shestov’s challenge is aimed at a challenge of the very basic assumptions that are taken for granted by philosophers like Schopenhauer. The excerpt from â€Å"The Force of Argument† makes it clear that the immortality of the soul can be defined in many ways. A man who is dead is considered to be dead as an individual merely because of the demise of the earthly identity of his body. Shestov does not consider this to be a legitimate ending; neither does he think that t his constitutes a definite ending to a person’s existence. Casting off the body that we see on this planet and the identity that is assumed on the earth, the soul may move to another planet and assume another identity clothing it with another covering. This may lead one to think that the ending of a person is not an ending but a continuation of the existence of a soul that was always present. The immortality of the soul is taken as a reference point even in this argument that Shestov provides as a refutation of an argument that he feels gives excessive importance to reference points, given by Schopenhauer. The absence of reference points and the immortality of the soul are aspects also of Christianity. However, the soul assuming new bodies in different planets after the death of one body is a definite influence of eastern philosophy, especially Hinduism, which believes in the transmigration of souls from one body to the other following death. It is a Eurocentric view that Sch openhauer takes when he expounds his philosophy; it is this narrow view that is sought to be altered when Shestov offers his refutation of the arguments that are provided by Schopenhauer.