Le coeur dans la philosophie d’Arthur Schopenhauer

Abstract

This article proposes to look carefully through Schopenhauer’s philosophy at the different ways in which he uses the concept of the heart. Understood, first, as a symbol, and so as a synonym of the will, it also refers to the organic heart itself. It is where the affects begin and end, and it is presented thus as the primary element of our being in relation to the head, which remains, in turn, secondary. In the end, we aim to understand how, in Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, the heart “has its reasons that reason does not know”.