  A thorny interpretive issue arises from Schopenhauer’s account of aesthetic experience thus far, namely, how is it even possible in his system (see Hamlyn 1980, Neymeyr 1995, and Neill 2008)?  The problem is that aesthetic experience seems to require the breaking free of the intellect from its service to the will to life. But according to Schopenhauer, the intellect comes into being originally as a tool for and, as a rule, serves the needs of the will to life. He holds further that nature does nothing in vain. So it would seem that the intellect cannot actually break from the will, but if this is so, then aesthetic experience would not be possible. Ultimately, this issue is bound up with the possibility of human freedom more generally in Schopenhauer’s thought. 