So I’m dabbling in ol’ Schopy and I need some help fully conceptualizing his ideas. What I get is that his basic “gist” is that the “the world is will and representation”. That is to say that, refuting Kant, there is no “thing-in-iteself” that precedes and thereby causes the perceptual phenomena. The reason for this is that the notion of causality in and of itself is an a priori Kantian “category” which, along with the categories of space and time, constitute the principle of sufficient reason. So it can’t properly be said that the thing-in-itself causes our sensations of it; rather, they parallel constants. That is, while there is no relationship of dependence between subject and object, there is still a subject-object dichotomy, or, as Schopy puts it, will and representation.
Now the above would lead you to believe I have a keen grasp on Schopy. Really, all the above says is that I have a keen grasp of his jargon, vocabulary, and lexicon. I don’t know about you guys, but for me to truly understand something, I need to attack it from different angles, think of it in different terms, and approach with different metaphors. Can someone comprehensively reiterate what I said above into some other way of meaningfully getting it across? I mean, can someone help me build a better understanding of will and representation and their relationship(s)? Maybe a fanciful allegorical example. I like stories of ponies; ponies are good. There you go: explain Schopenhauer to me through a pony metaphor. Or whatever you like.
I’m no student of Schopenhauer and every time I go to read the Fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason I zzzzzz, but you have gotten 0 responses and I studied WaWaI.
His fourfold root of blah blah holds that there are 4 distinct ways humans reason, and these modes are parrellel to each other. That is, you cannot use causality which explains material things to reason about abstract objects which are governed by logic.
What this means is that Kant was talking nonsense when he thought that a noumena had a causal influence on our perceptions, as the noumena is by definition outside the realm of the perception meaning it is outside the range of causality.
Yet, Schopenhauer beleives that there is a “thing in itself” to use Kant’s language, and that we can know that it “exists”, which means we must have an alternative mode of access to it. This alternative mode of access is intuitive reflection, and is seen in the fact that our volition and action are not distinct from reach other. They are sort of the same thing taken in different light.
For the human, bodily action is objectified will. This means that action is will considered as idea or presentation. Likewise, body itself is objectified will = will as a presentation to consciousness.
Schopenhauer has the microcosm sort of thing, and universalizes this relationship of will and body in the human into an ontology. Thus we get will and representation. They are not causally related, but they are related as a humans action and volition are related. Flip sides of the same coin.
I’m unsure about the last sentence in your first paragraph. The distinction between subject and object is the basis for his ontology and epistemology, but I’m not sure about the claim that there is no dependence and a dichotomy. If I had to say, I would think it is the exact opposite of that. There is no dichotomy, but there is absolute dependence as they are the same thing considered in a different light. but perhaps I equivocate dependence and you mean causal dependence. In which case there is no dependence(causal).
Thanks, Sittlichkeit. That proves to me I was interpretting him correctly. And yeah, by “dependence” I meant causality.
Now as I hear it, Schopy justified a knowing of the thing-in-itself for purely phenomenological reasons–I move my hand; it seems to be moving (effect) at my volition (cause); thus, there is a subject objectifying even itself into the category of causality, which can only lead to the inference that other subjects exist elsewhere, albeit only as representations to us. So we are all insulated on all sides by representation. It’s a feable fight against infinity.
What do the critics have to say about Schopy? I know what Nietzsche said, although his is a half-critique half-praise. Besides, he says pretty much everything Schopy was saying except with a different prescription.
I know he denied solipsism, but I’m not sure how. Probably something to do with human volition and action being a microcosm reflecting the structure/nature of existence, which seems to be what you are suggesting. But does he pull the trigger and say that we can know with certainty that others exist, or is a psychological argument?
Critiques?
Not sure I could come up with a single philosopher who talks about Schopenhauer directly besides Nietzsche and a few crazies who occultized his shit(von hartman). Surely existentialists or phenomenologists talk about him, though.
Schopenhauer frequently refers to the PSR as the pirnciple of individuation - this is because only things in space and time can be separated out from one another. If you can escape the PSR, then you can escape the sense of separation between you and the world (solipsism) because there would no longer be a way in which you were separate from it.
Evidently, for Schopenhauer knowledge if the will allows us to transcend the world of representation. Once we have achieved this the question of solipsism becomes a false one - we can not be separate from the world because there can be no separation beyond the PSR.
Much of Schopenhauer’s work is dedicated to comabatting solipsism; at several points he deems it an evil and dangerous belief.
There isn’t an easy way to get in to Schopenhauer. It just sort of ‘clicks’ after a few months or so of reading. But its a crying shame that more people don’t try. The problem with Schopenhauer is that when you first read his writing it looks as if he’s just a bit of a nutter, and this puts a lot of people off from trying to understand his philosophy at all. Or, they approach it with such skepticism that they stand no chance whatsoever of understanding any of it.
Once properly understood, Schopenhauer’s philosophy is very hard to escape from - it seems to reveal something very deep about the nature of the world. It is more a philsophy you ‘overcome’ than refute, I think (feel free to disagree - but only after you’ve properly given him a chance, which in fairness you seem to be doing).
Schopenhauer explains himself very very well. He says in his main book that his whole philosophy is the development of one idea, and that idea is that the thing in itself is equatable to one’s own will.
Much as I admire his attitude and his writing, I broke away from Schopenhauer because - to put it bluntly - he’s wrong. He’s wrong in saying things about the thing-in-itself (about which one can say nothing positively), and he’s wrong about the world (i.e. he hopelessly contradicts modern science, particuarly evolution, quantum physics, and relativity).
“He’s wrong in saying things about the thing-in-itself”
This is ceraitanly a good point. Schopenhauer is inconsistent in whether he says that we can know about the thing-in-itself. He seems to have two senses of the notion:
-WWR vol II
Atwell has a good reading of it - that there are two meanings of thing in itself at play. I think it may have been an attempt to deal with the topic in the language of the philosophy of the time (Kant’s, evidently) which ultimtately didn’t pay off. But I’m not convinced that he isn’t entitled to say what he does say about will - maybe just to call it ‘the thing in itself’.
“about which one can say nothing positively), and he’s wrong about the world (i.e. he hopelessly contradicts modern science, particuarly evolution, quantum physics, and relativity”
He believed in a clockword universe, and he rejected the then-new theory of atoms. He also said that all life has always been there in its current form, which is at odds with evolutionary theory.
But for me, his main error is in asserting things positively about the thing-in-itself. He denies spatial extent in the thing-in-itself, and therefore denies it plurality, which is fair enough. But he then assigns it singularity, which was a mistake, because 1 is a number as much as 2 and 3, and makes sense only in a spatial world.
Schopenhauer did not say that the thing-in-itself was a singularity. He said, rather, that the thing-in-itself was a unity, and at that a unity that was unlike the unity that a concept or an object has.
To add my two cents, I think I’ll reiterate lycurgus. From what I read, he basically thinks of the PSR as being a loophole of sorts, whereby communicable paradigms of reasoning and logic sufficiently categorize the Will into its representations. In this manner, the PSR also separates the thing-in-itself from objects by virtue of the fact that we perceive phenomena of inexplicable causation all the time. That is to say that the thing-in-itself indirectly affects us because we can separate and categorize the known from the unknown.
A predicament I’m in is this: if you want to lump all of existence itself into a phenomena without obvious causation, doesn’t that prove the presence of transcendental, non-immanent forms, at lteast in terms of the PSR?
I’m sorry - but thats just not true. The truth is that he anticipated Darwin’s theory of evolution 50 years before Darwin wrote it. In The World as Will and Representation volume 1 he writes:
This refutes your claim. I don’t know what you base your other claims on but I sincerely doubt they match up to the text either.
I think you may mean the following passages, in which case you are also sorely mistaken:
pg184-185
Schopenhauer is not here denying the existence of any sceintific truth. What he is saying is that it is false to try and reduce all phenomenon to these things, i.e. to explain everything using these scientific truths. The reason that this is unacceptable is because, according to the Principal of Suffiecient Reason, these things themselves necessarily reuqire explanations. This is what Schopenhauer calls materialism - the attempt to reduce all phenomenon to physical occurences. Sections 1-7 of WWR vol I deal with this line of thinking quite spledidly. These passages certainly don’t support your hyothesis - can you find any that do? I doubt it - but its childsplay anyway. Schopenhauer sets his account up so that it has no reliance whatsoever on paticular matters of fact (e.g. scientific truths of any sort). Even if he was to say something that contradicted science, it would not damage his metaphysic whatsoever.
On the thing in itself, I have shown you one passage already in which Schopenhauer expicitly states that there are things about the thing in itself which we can not know. What do you say to this?
From what I can tell, Schopenhauer seems to simply take a more pessimistic view on what had already been known. Yet, he also introduced (or helped popularize) some highly interesting concepts like the Will to Live.
I just recently bought Schopenhauer’s Essays and Aphorisms, and I will be reading them today actually. I’ll let you know my interpretation.
To Brevel (sorry for the delay). Those quotes do indeed contradict what I said. Btw, they’re from the Haldane Kemp translation which I didn’t read (I read the Payne one) and I can’t find them in the newer version.
I’ve had a look but can’t find the passages I was thinking of… I guess I’ll have to back down, because I don’t have the time to re-read it all. I’m sure I remember reading what I said I’ve read, and I have to say I find it surprising that this is the first time I’ve seen it said that Schopenhauer anticipated Darwin.
I don’t know if this helps the dialogue here at all or not, but… Years ago I came across a quip of Schopenhauer’s, and I can’t remember where, that said something to the effect of: I have a name for my pain. I call it Dog. …and then some witty commentary sprouts out of that idea which is now lost to me. My long checklist of things to do includes rediscovering the source of that quip… I’ve found many moments when it would have been appropriate to raise, but not without citation. Anyone?
They are in the Payne one - its the version I read too. I seem to have mislaid my copy though, I’ll try and find it and give you a page no at some point. I think its about half way through section 7 if that helps.
I think there’s a good sub-chapter on Schopenhauer and Darwinism in Robert Wick’s new book, as it happens. But yes, its an interesting passage not often given its rightful credit in the history of thought!
I don’t interpret him ‘denying’ it in the strict sense of the word, just that the will of life is the most accurate representation of true reality…and indistinguishable from life itself, since the will can’t be said to exist in time and space, can’t be identified to have a cause and is a perpetual stream of activity. Intellectually we may claim to know it within time as a succession of thoughts or impulses, but that’s the representation, not the same thing as the reality. So the will of life itself isn’t definable or explainable in terms of time and space because of its direct nature.
Or whatever you like.