Schopenhauer on the Character of the World: The Metaphysics of Will - Couverture rigide

Atwell, John E.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0520087704 ISBN 13 : 9780520087705

Editeur : University of California Press, 1995

Synopsis

The most extensive English-language study of Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the will yet published, this book represents a major contribution to Schopenhauer scholarship. Here, John E. Atwell critically but sympathetically examines the philosopher's main work, The World as Will and Representation, demonstrating that the philosophical system it puts forth does constitute a consistent whole. The author holds that this system is centered on a single thought, "The world is self-knowledge of the will." He then traces this unifying concept through the four books of The World as Will and Representation, and, in the process, dissolves the work's alleged inconsistencies.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

John E. Atwell, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, is author of Schopenhauer: The Human Character (1990) and Ends and Principles in Kant's Moral Thought (1986).

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

"I suspect that this will become the book on Schopenhauer's metaphysics for many years to come, and will be required reading for any serious student of Schopenhauer's thought."—David E. Cartwright, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

À propos de la deuxième de couverture

"I suspect that this will become the book on Schopenhauer's metaphysics for many years to come, and will be required reading for any serious student of Schopenhauer's thought."—David E. Cartwright, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Schopenhauer on the Character of the World: The Metaphysics of Will

By John Everett Atwell

University of California Press

Copyright 1995 John Everett Atwell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0520087704


Introduction

On 28 March 1818 Dr. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote to the publisher F. A. Brockhaus of Leipzig about a manuscript that he had been working on for four years. "My work," he said, "is a new philosophical system, but new in the complete sense of the wordnot a new presentation of what is already on hand, but a series of thoughts hanging together in the highest degree that up to now has never come into any human head." He went on to express his "firm conviction" that the book would later "become the source and occasion of a hundred other books."1 This conviction, seemingly unwarranted for decades, has probably been borne out: The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung ) has spawned scores of books, dozens of dissertations, and countless shorter discussions.2

In almost every case, however, critics of Schopenhauer's "main work" argue that the "series of thoughts" contained therein do not "hang together" at all. They contend, in other words, that Schopenhauer's "philosophical system" cannot be regarded as a genuine system, for it is riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and irresolvable paradoxes. This judgment has not persuaded all critics to dismiss Schopenhauer's philosophy entirelyfor many individual aspects have been lauded and appreciatedbut it has convinced most of them that as a whole his philosophy cannot withstand critical scrutiny. Many critics claim that there is not even a modicum of unity in Schopenhauer's main work, the judgment being that Schopenhauer (as he admits) takes up one idea, then another, and subsequently others simply as they occur to him, without any consideration for how these ideas might fit together. Perhaps this procedure attests to Schopenhauer's honesty, but, the critics continue, it hardly conduces to a consistent, coherent philosophy.

The chief aim of this book is not to enumerate, examine, and possibly

resolve, one by one, the alleged inconsistencies in Schopenhauer's main work (although certain central ones will be dealt with in some detail); it is rather to discover "the single thought" that unifies the several aspects of The World as Will and Representation and then to indicate how that "thought" applies to the various topics and issues that Schopenhauer addresses. I refer to "the single thought" because in the preface to the first edition of The World as Will and Representation (appearing in late 1818, but dated 1819) Schopenhauer informs the reader that the whole of his book "imparts" no "system of thoughts" but only "a single thought."3 A system of thoughts (System von Gedanken ), he suggests, resembles a huge building whose parts are connected such that one part supports a higher part but is not supported by it, and the foundation stone bears all higher parts up to the pinnacle that upholds no part at all. As a consequence, the soundness of the whole architectonically connected structure depends on the soundness of every supporting part and ultimately on the soundness of the foundation stone. And in like fashion such a philosophical system will be sound only if every supporting thought truly bears the one above it and the foundational thought bears them all. If any part proves unsound, everything above it will crumble; and if the foundational thought is faulty, the entire edifice will collapse. Hence, the mere fact that a system of thoughts consists of many "thought-parts," arranged architectonically, threatens the unity or coherence of the system.

On the other hand, a single thought [ein einziger Gedanke ], however comprehensive, must preserve the most perfect unity. If, all the same, it can be split up into parts for the purpose of being communicated, then the connection of these parts must once more be organic, i.e., of such a kind that every part supports the whole just as much as it is supported by the whole; a connection in which no part is first and no part last, in which the whole gains in clearness from every part, and even the smallest part cannot be fully understood until the whole has been first understood.4

A single thought resembles, then, not a huge building but a living organism, every part of which supports and is supported by every other part, and no specific part can be called foundational. So, in the case of such a philosophical system, the soundness of the whole does not depend on the soundness of a foundational part: Either all parts of it are sound or none is.

Schopenhauer frequently likens his philosophy to an organic body, indeed, to a human body whose overall soundness (health and vitality) rests with the satisfactory interrelationships of its several parts. As early as 1813 he compared his quickening philosophical work to the development of a child in the mother's womb.5 Probably because he was so certain of the appropriateness of this comparison, he was confident that "his child" would remain free from contradiction and, like any healthy organism, long endure. He described himself thus: "I become aware of one member,

one blood vessel, one part after another, i.e., I write them down unconcerned how each will fit the whole; for I know that it is all sprung from one basis. Thus originates an organic whole and only such a thing can live ."6 If in fact The World as Will and Representation does contain only "a single thought," then it cannot contradict itself: A self-contradiction requires at least a double thought. Whether there is a single thought uniting the contents of Schopenhauer's main work, and if so what that thought is, will be explicitly discussed in chapter l, and alluded to throughout the entire book.

Given Schopenhauer's conception of his philosophical system as an organic whole or simply a single thought, it is not surprising that the first demand made on the reader of The World as Will and Representation is to read the book twice, and, he adds, "to do so the first time with much patience."7 Later parts will clarify earlier parts, he notes, and earlier parts will clarify later parts; hence full understanding of the book requires (at least) two readings. Schopenhauer admits, however, that the beginning does not presuppose the ending as much as the ending presupposes the beginning, so where the system commences is not entirely arbitrary; and indeed, he adds, he has made an effort to place early on what can be fairly easily grasped upon initial reading. Chapter 2 of this book, called "From Perceptual Knowledge to Metaphysical Inquiry," examines the first aspect of Schopenhauer's system.

Observed further is the fact that Schopenhauer's book will occasionally be repetitious: "The structure of the whole, which is organic and not like a chain, in itself makes it necessary sometimes to touch twice on the same points."8 The book's organic structure and its interconnected parts make unnecessary and indeed inappropriate a division of the contents into chapters and sections, for that would suggest (what is not the case) that one unit leads logically into the next, which leads logically into a subsequent unit, and so on. (And we may note that the contents were not divided in this manner in the first edition.)9 The book does consist, however, of  "four principal divisions, four aspects [Gesichtspunkten ], as it were, of the one thought."10 When Schopenhauer comes to these divisions, he calls them Books, hence The World as Will and Representation consists of four Books. In just a moment I shall provide a sketch, or general picture, of these four Books, and then discuss the important facets thereof in separate chapters later on. By means of the initial sketch, I am trying to accommodate, as best as I can, Schopenhauer's admonition to the reader to read his work twice.

The second demand that Schopenhauer makes on the reader is that "the introduction be read before the book itself,"11 by which he means his doctoral dissertation of 1813: Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde Eine philosophische Abhandlung (On the Fourfold Root of the

Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Philosophical Essay ).12 "Without an acquaintance with this introduction and propaedeutic," Schopenhauer writes, "it is quite impossible to understand the present work properly, and the subject-matter of that essay is always presupposed here as if it were included in the book."13 The dissertation, which will be outlined briefly in this introduction, contains two highly significant theses: The subject of knowing is (somehow) identical with the subject of willing; and the principle of sufficient reason, expressed in four forms and rooted in four kinds of representations, is the law of objects that the subject of knowing knows.14

The third, and final, demand that Schopenhauer makes on the reader is "an acquaintance with the most important phenomenon which has appeared in philosophy for two thousand years," namely, "the principal works of Kant." He remarks further that "the effect those works produce in the mind to which they really speak is very like that of an operation for cataract on a blind man."15 Schopenhauer devotes a long appendix to a "critique of the Kantian philosophy," and he says that "it would be advisable to read the appendix first." What then does Schopenhauer find so significant in Kant's works? He certainly does not agree with everything that Kant espoused, as he makes abundantly clear, but he never fails to acknowledge his considerable debt to Kant; indeed, he writes, "my work presupposes an acquaintance with the Kantian philosophy," and in many letters he claims to be a Kantian.16 Just how valid this self-assessment is will be discussed several times in this book, with special attention focused on, how Schopenhauer can purport to advance a metaphysics of will when, apparently, Kant had closed the door on such a project?

"Kant's greatest merit," Schopenhauer asserts in the appendix, "is the distinction of the phenomenon [Erscheinung , appearance] from the thing in itself."17 And although Kant did not come to recognize that "the phenomenon is the world as representation and the thing in itself is the will,"18 he did show that "the phenomenal world [die erscheinende Welt ] is conditioned by subject and object," so that "the most universal forms" of the phenomenal world can be recognized by examining the subject as well as the object. Kant concludes, however, that recognizing the forms connecting subject and object precludes our recognition of the "inner nature" of either the subject or the object, hence he makes "the essence of the world, the thing in itself," unknowable. Kant did not come to see that the thing in itself, either on the side of the object or on the side of the subject, is will, but he made a great step in this direction by calling attention to "the undeniable ethical significance of human conduct," which he showed to be completely different from and not dependent on "the laws of the phenomenon [Erscheinung ]."19 So, although Kant left the essence of the world, or the thing in itself, shrouded in darkness, he actually pointed to its very nature by locating the ethical significance of human conduct

not in the external world of normal phenomena but in the internal world of the willing human agent. It is this clue that Schopenhauer exploits in arriving at the conclusion that the essence of the world, or the thing in itself, is will. Kant's emphasis on the ethical significance of human conduct constitutes, Schopenhauer holds, "the second great point of view for assessing his merit."20

The third point is that Kant completely overthrew scholastic philosophy, which extends, according to Schopenhauer, from Augustine up to Kant's time, and not merely up to, say, 1500.21 Specifically, Kant demonstrated the impossibility of proving the existence of God (speculative theology) or the immortality of the soul (rational psychology).22 From now on, then, philosophy must abandon all alleged knowledge of God and of an immortal soul; indeed, philosophy must become wholly secular, free from every trace of theology or religion. By much the same token, philosophy must reject realism (that is, the theory that objects of normal perception have an existence apart from being perceived) and accept idealism (that is, the theory that objects are "conditioned by" the knowing subject). Schopenhauer suggests that Kant's destruction of scholastic philosophy amounts to a destruction of realism, and, indirectly, to an advocacy of idealism.23

With the rejection of realism, Kant also redefined the province of ethics. No more is ethics tied to the phenomenon, where it consisted of a doctrine of happiness (eudaimonism, a set of rules for achieving personal happiness), or of obedience to the will of God, or of conformity to the concept of human perfectionall of which ideas presuppose that ethical conduct remains situated in the alleged real world of phenomena, hence in the world of space, time, and causality. What Kant showed is that "the undeniable, great ethical significance of actions" belongs to the nonphenomenal world, that is, to the thing in itself or the innermost nature of the world.24 In short, the moral worth of human actionstheir genuine ethical significanceis "not of this world"; it does not pertain to the world of nature, that is, the world investigated by the natural sciences. This, too, Kant has demonstrated.

Of the demands made on the readerand formidable ones they are!the third, namely, to study Kant's principal works, has been touched on, but hardly more than touched on. Perhaps, however, enough has been said to proceed. The second demand, to examine Schopenhauer's dissertation of 1813, will now be treated briefly, with emphasis placed on those points that figure importantly in the main work. And then, to accommodate the demand that the reader read The World as Will and Representation twice, I shall provide an overall sketch of the book. This introduction will then prepare us for a close examination of the salient features of Schopenhauer's main work.

The Fourfold Root is a relatively short monograph on philosophical (or any cognitive) inquiry.25 It is meant to be a propaedeutic, or set of procedural instructions, whose several tenets must be observed if confusion and obscurity are to be avoided and lucidity and precision are to be attained. As a general formulation, the principle of sufficient reason may be stated thus: Nothing is without a reason for being rather than not being. This principle, Schopenhauer holds, is the basis of all science (Wissenschaft ); it is the ultimate principle of explanation and demonstration or proof; it is further that principle that allows us to ask of anything "why (is it so and not otherwise)?"

Everyone, Schopenhauer notes, appeals to the principle of sufficient reason in the course of presenting a line of argument, but almost no one makes clear what sort of sufficient reason or ground (Grund ) is actually meant at specific times. Especially unfortunate, Schopenhauer believes, is the widespread tendency of philosophers to conflate the notion of ground as cause (Ursache ) and the notion of ground as reason (Grund ). Quite clearly, he believes, a cause is very different from a reason, and indeed the two notions operate in very different areas of philosophical and cognitive inquiry. For example, when we ask for the ground of an object's suddenly igniting, we have in mind ground as cause; and when we ask for the ground of a conclusion in a syllogism, we have in mind ground as reason. Schopenhauer proposes to establish that the general notion of sufficient reason or ground must be broken down into four subnotions, or four roots; further, he wants to show that the four roots correspond to four distinct faculties of the human mind and a fortiori they apply to four distinct classes of possible objects of knowledge.

The first class consists of intuitive representations, that is, of natural objects in time and space, whose changes (such as a match's igniting) are governed by the law of causality. This law is also called the principle of sufficient reason of becoming , no doubt because it operates in the realm of change. Whenever a change in a natural (spatio-temporal) object occurs, that faculty of our mind known as the understanding assigns, albeit preconsciously, to this change a causewhether known or notwhereby the change itself is deemed an effect. And the necessity of the effect from the causewhich necessity derives from the principle of sufficient reason in generalgoes by the name of physical necessity. In short, every change in the natural or physical world has a cause, which cause is in turn the effect of a preceding cause, and so on and so on, implying that there can be for the human mind at least no such thing as a "first cause." It follows, for Schopenhauer, that God cannot be conceived as the first cause of all subsequent natural causes, and that it makes no sense to speak of "the cause" of the entire series of natural causes; in his judgment, the series of natural

causes goes on endlessly, and this series cannot have a cause because it is not itself a change or effect at all. On these grounds Schopenhauer rejects the so-called cosmological (or first cause) "proof" of the existence of God.

The second class of possible objects of knowledge consists of abstract representations or concepts (Begriffe ), which, when joined to each other in various ways, make up judgments. Pursuant to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing , which operates in this area, a judgment qualifies as genuine knowledge only if it is justified by (or grounded on) something other than itself, such as another judgment, an empirical experience, a condition for any experience (e.g., an arithmetical or geometrical truth, or the law of causality), or a law of logic. The faculty of mind that forms concepts and draws inferences from a ground to a consequent is reasonwhich only human beings possessand the sort of necessity holding between the ground and consequent is "logical." Nothing, at least for our purposes, turns on all of this except that a ground as reason for a conclusion (say, in a syllogism) is not to be identified with a ground as cause of an effect. It might be added, however, that in this section of the dissertation Schopenhauer says a good deal about language, the use of concepts in science, rational action, and abstract thinking.

The third class of possible objects has only two members, the pure or a priori intuitions of space and time. Or they might be called mathematical objects whose properties of space and time mutually entail each other. For, according to Schopenhauer, space provides the basis of geometry and time serves as the basis of arithmetic. Every division in space determines and is determined by every other one, and every instant of time is conditioned by the preceding one and conditions the succeeding one. The principle of sufficient reason operative in this class is called the principle of being , presumably because geometrical and arithmetical relations are not subject to becoming or change: The sides of a triangle determine and are determined by the angles, and the number ten determines and is determined by the sum of, say, six and four. The sort of necessity pertinent here is called mathematical, and the faculty of mind operative here is called pure sensibility.

The fourth class of objects has only one member, the will. In the dissertation Schopenhauer claims that it is subject to a form of the principle of sufficient reason, namely, to the law of motivation, though in the main work five years later this claim will be denied. Here, however, the principle of sufficient reason is said to be that of willing or acting , and the law it yields is the law of motivation. This means that for any action one performs there has to have been a sufficient reason in the form of a motive, such that nothing but that action could have been performed at the time. Hence we may speak of moral necessity, where "moral" refers directly to

the notion of will or conduct and not specifically to ethics or virtue. This form of the general principle of sufficient reason is supposed to derive from self-consciousness.

A sketch:

Principle of Sufficient Reason Roots: Becoming Knowing Being Willing or acting Ground: Cause Reason Mutual implication Motive Faculty: Understanding Reason Pure Sensibility Self-consciousness Objects: Natural; intuitive representations Concepts; abstract representations A priori intuitions; time and space Will

In 16, called "The Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," Schopenhauer provides this full statement:

Our consciousness, so far as it appears in sensibility, understanding, and reason, is divisible into subject and object, and contains, until then, nothing else. To be object for the subject and to be our representation are the same. All our representations are objects of the subject, and all objects of the subject are our representations. But nothing obtaining for itself and independent, also nothing single and detached, can become object for us; rather, all our representations stand [to each other] in a lawful connection that according to form are determinable a priori . This connection is that kind of relation that the principle of sufficient reason expresses, taken in general. That law ruling over all our representations is the root of the principle of sufficient reason. It is fact and the principle of sufficient reason is its expression.

Schopenhauer has therefore an explanation for the old Latin saying, natura non facit saltum (nature makes no leap): The human mind or subject of consciousness allows no leap in nature, which is to say that its very constitution precludes any natural object's arising spontaneously, unconditionally, detachedly, independently, or nonrelationally. Quite to the contrary: Every object of the knowing subject, hence every natural object or intuitive representation, is encountered only in connection with other objects (whether known or not), and none can "leap" into the world of objects all by itself. The truth expressed in the principle of sufficient reason cannot be proved, that is, derived from any higher or preceding principle, because it is the ultimate principle of all proof or derivation. Since that principle has its source in the knowing subject, since it is, as it were, imposed by the knowing subject on every possible object of knowledge, it is not learned by observing what occurs in the world of objects; and this is to say

that the principle of sufficient reason is knowable a priori. Without it there would be no knowledge or observation of the world of objects at all; it is, in other words, a condition of all such knowledge, hence not something gained by such knowledge. The most significant entailment of this argument is that the principle of causality, which governs changes in natural objects, is not empirical and its linguistic formulation is not a synthetic proposition a posteriori, but rather a priori and its formulation is a synthetic proposition a priori. (Later, Schopenhauer will claim that the statement "subject and object mutually entail each other"the principle of knowingis an analytic proposition knowable a priori, and the principle of sufficient reason per se is a synthetic proposition knowable a priori.)

To acknowledge both the unity of the principle of sufficient reason and the variety of its applications (its four roots) is to conform to the procedural laws of all cognitive inquiry recommended by "the divine Plato" and "the marvelous Kant," namely, the law of homogeneity and the law of specification. The law of homogeneity instructs us to unite kinds of things into species, then into wider genera, and finally into the highest unity that embraces everything; and the law of specification instructs us to distinguish from each other the species comprehended under a wider genus, and then to distinguish from each other the kinds of things falling within a species. In short, it may be said, the first law tells us to seek the one in the many, and the second tells us to seek each of the many and keep them separate from each other; or, as Schopenhauer puts it, "the number of entities must not be increased unnecessarily" and "the varieties of entities must not be diminished unnecessarily." With the principle of sufficient reason, Schopenhauer has observed the law of homogeneity, for it is the one principle of all knowledge; and with the four varieties or "roots" of this principle, he has observed the law of specification, for they are the four specific versions of the one principle.

What Schopenhauer's dissertation aims to accomplish is truly remarkable: To condense into one ultimate principle, while never forgetting its four "roots," the vast, complicated, many-sided cognitive apparatus that Kant had attributed to the human faculty of knowledge. With Kant, there are two forms of sensibility (time and space), twelve categories of the understanding (substance, causality, etc.), the so-called transcendental unity of apperception (the "I think" that must accompany all of one's experiences), and more; but for Schopenhauer, all of the human being's cognitive functions can be comprehended in one fundamental principle, the principle of sufficient reason, albeit with its four "roots" corresponding to the four possible classes of objects of knowledge. All of our knowledge presupposes the correlativity of subject and object, and all types of knowledgeempirical, logical, mathematical, and motivationalhave one and only one basis, consequent of a ground. Everything knowable is condi-

tioned by or dependent on something else, hence occasionally the principle of sufficient reason is called the "principle of dependence."

In the dissertation of 1813 Schopenhauer says practically nothing about two issues that figure prominently in his subsequent thought: the Platonic Ideas and the Kantian thing in itself. He does not even mention the Ideas, and he speaks only once of the thing in itself, and then in a derogatory manner ( 59). Castigating his predecessors with conflating cause and reason, Schopenhauer remarks that "Kant himself speaks of the infamous thing in itself as the Grund of appearance," then of the Grund of the possibility of all appearance, then of the intelligible Grund of appearances, of the intelligible cause, and so on. Not even the marvelous Kant is free from the error that Schopenhauer exposes. In later discussions Schopenhauer will insist that the thing in itself and appearance or representation are not connected by any version of the principle of sufficient reason, for that principle has application only within the world of appearance or representation, hence not between that world and something outside or other than it.

All the same, in 46 of the dissertation Schopenhauer is quite willing to acknowledge the empirical and the intelligible character, where the former belongs to appearance or representation and the latter belongs to the thing in itself. This paragraph, which does not appear in the revised version of 1847, has this rifle: "Motive, Decision, Empirical and Intelligible Character." Schopenhauer's concern in this paragraph is to explain how a wish differs from a decision, or specifically, how competing wishes eventuate in one decision: One wishes to do A and one wishes to do B (both of which pertain, often strongly, to one's will), but one cannot do both A and B; then one decides to do one rather than the other. What accounts for that? One can be motivated or at least volitionally "inclined" to do something that one does not actually decide to do. So does this mean that the decision (and the deed) is completely unconditioned, subject to no rule at all, or does it mean that the decision presupposes a condition of the subject of willing which cannot be perceived? The latter alternative is the correct one. It points to an enduring condition of the subject of willing, from which its decisions follow with necessity, and according to which one and the same person under exactly the same conditions acts always in the same way. And the person has the liveliest consciousness that he could act in a completely different way if only he had wanted to, that is, that his will is not determined by anything foreign; and here there is no talk of capacity but only of a willing that by its very nature is free in the highest degree, and indeed is itself the innermost essence of the person independent of everything else. The inner nature of the person, which accounts for actual decisions in contrast to mere wishes, is a permanent condition outside of time, and as such there is for it no expression. Figuratively, it might

be called a universal act of will outside of time, of which all acts occurring in time are its manifestation or appearance. "Kant," Schopenhauer adds, "called this the intelligible character (perhaps more correctly the unintelligible)."

Another crucial topic for what Schopenhauer called his "main work," The World as Will and Representation , is the relation between the subject of knowing and the subject of willing. In 47 of the dissertation Schopenhauer suggests that "the will has causality not only on the immediate object [i.e., the body] and thus on the external world, but also on the knowing subject; it necessitates knowing to repeat representations that at one time were present to knowing, mainly by directing attention to this or that and to call back at pleasure a series of thoughts." Later, in the "main work," Schopenhauer will deny that the will causally acts on the body, and in the later edition of The Fourfold Root he will claim that the will exercises influence, not causality, through the "identity" of the two. In 43 this "identity" is said to be "absolutely inconceivable," but nevertheless "immediately given "; as a consequence it may be called "the miracle par excellence [das Wunder kat' exochen ]." This curious discussion has to be noted because in The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer remarks that that entire work "to a certain extent" is an explanation of the "coincidence" of the subject of knowing and the subject of willing.26

What follows now is an overview or general picture of Schopenhauer's "main work," a work that he divides into four Books, each of which allegedly portrays a distinctive aspect of "the single thought."27 Book 1 considers the world as intuitive or perceptual representation (anschauliche Vorstellung ), which, because its topic is "the representation subject to the principle of sufficient reason," repeats material dealt with in the earlier dissertation. From this first aspect the world is simply a world of knowledge or cognition, hence it is a one-sided world in that it disregards any explicit reference to the world as will. The world as representation has two components: the knowing subject and the known object. Being mutually implicatory, there is no object without a subject and no subject without an object, that is, no representation without a representer and no representer without a representation. Schopenhauer therefore denies that objects exist apart from being known (by the subject) and he denies that the subject exists apart from knowing (objects). He contends that normal perceptual objects have only a relative or conditioned existence, for they are relative to or conditioned by the knowing subject: They have, as objects, no existence absolutely or unconditionally, that is, in themselves. Normal perceptual objects are objects only relative to the knowing subject, and they are qualified in three waystemporally, spatially, and causallyin virtue of the knowing subject's modes of knowing objects. This final provision entails that normal perceptual objects are, as it were, tied to each other in

a gigantic network of time, space, and causality, such that no object can be known (intuited, perceived) or even conceived independently of its relations to other objects.

Although very little is said about will in Book 1, it becomes evident later on that the knowing subject of normal perceptual objects (or "intuitive representations") is governed by will: In fact it is because of this that these objects are necessarily related to each other temporally, spatially, and causally. In Book 1 Schopenhauer also discusses abstract representations or concepts (Begriffe ), which are said to be "representations of (intuitive) representations" built up by the human faculty of reason (Vernunft ). Only human beings possess the faculty of reason, while they share with animals the faculty of understanding (Verstand ) whereby normal perception or intuition (Anschauung ) comes about on the basis of sensation (Empfindung ). Reason has several functions: It accounts for the creation of "general objects" or concepts (such as traveling, the human race, animate being, etc.); it is that by means of which inferring or drawing conclusions in thought occurs, hence it makes possible doubt and error; it allows human beings to survey the past and anticipate the future, thereby occasioning the unpleasant experiences of repentance or regret (Reue ) and concern (Sorge ) along with knowledge of an oncoming death; and it permits human beings to formulate in language their conceptual thoughts. So, in a way, reason is both a blessing and a curse. What reason cannot do, Schopenhauer suggests here, is create concepts that have no basis in percepts, that is, concepts that are not mere generalizations of intuitive representations. "The first cause," for example, is a pseudo concept, for it has no basis in intuition or perception.

Having learned that perceptual objects are nothing but intuitive representations according to their general formin virtue of which they have temporal, spatial, and causal propertieswe now, in Book 2, want to inquire into their content or meaning. We ask whether the perceptual world is mere representation of the knowing subject, which accounts for its being object with its three formal dimensions (time, space, causality), or whether it is "something more," something that would provide it with content, meaning, or, as it were, "substance." In short, do intuitive representations have an essence, or foundation, or reality, in addition to being perceived and thus conditioned by the knowing subject? Many past philosophers (so-called realists) have held that some object existing independently of the intuitive representation is the foundation or basis of the intuitive representation. But, says Schopenhauer, we have no way of distinguishing object from representation; indeed, as shown in Book 1, object and representation are one and the same. So this sort of philosophy cannot help us locate what we are inquiring into; nor can mathematics or the physical sciences.

Fortunately, we who are asking about the content of intuitive representations are not simply knowing subjects (if we were, we could never find an answer); we are also bodies, hence not just knowers of the world of rely resentation but also members of that world. It is the body then that serves as the entrance point into the inner nature of the world as representation. Each of us is aware of his or her body in a twofold manner: as an object like all other objects, hence as a representation of the knowing subject, and as will, hence as a willing or conative subject that undergoes pleasant or unpleasant feelings and that "acts." From the recognition that in us will is the essence or underlying nature of the body, we may conclude that will is the real nature of the perceptual "bodies" that otherwise are mere representations of the knowing subject. Hence these representations are not mere representations; their "formal" dimensions, namely, time, space, and causality, all of which derive from the knowing subject, do not exhaust them; they have (or "point to") a genuine realityand it is that which we find in ourselves as will. Not only is the world representation; it is also will.

In effect, then, about halfway through Book 2 Schopenhauer has completed his presentation of "the world as will and representation." And one might expect that there would be nothing further to say. What is called the essence of the world and nature has been discovered (alternatively, what Kant called the thing in itself has been identified), and it is will; all representations are therefore merely manifestations of will; and the story is completed. But Schopenhauer continues. What prompts him to continue is the recognition that will is manifested not so clearly in individual representations (such as this chair, that dog, etc.) as in different kinds of things, which he calls "grades" (or levels) of the will's objectification (or "objectity" or visibility). The grades range from the lowest and most pervasive things of nature (such as gravity) to the highest and most rare (such as the human genius), with countless examples between (from crystallization to the sunflower to the dog to the common human being). These grades, and not their innumerable instances, are the proper or genuine manifestations of will: It is in them that, above all, will objectifies and reveals itself. (These grades, Schopenhauer contends, are what Plato called Ideas.) A close examination of nature shows us that the various grades, through their individual instances , are in constant conflict. This is particularly obvious on the animal level, at which a beast of prey (such as the lion) pursues and feeds on another animal (such as the gazelle). It is pretty obvious on the human level too; typically, individuals struggle against one another for whatever they happen to want. For the most part human life is, as Thomas Hobbes said, a war of all against all. Indeed, life in general is a gigantic arena in which one grade of the will preys on another grade, and in which individuals by the millions perish: Life is suffering, and the source of this suffering is the will's conflict with itself.

In Book 3 Schopenhauer turns to that release from enslavement to will that comes to some people, now and again, in aesthetic contemplation (after which he discusses in great detail various types of art). It is here that the second aspect of representationwhat I shall call the "pure" aspectcomes to the fore. That which is represented here is a grade of the will's objectification, that is, a Platonic Idea. It is an object for a knowing subject, as every representation is, but it is a special objectan object that is not subject to the specific forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and therefore not subject to temporal, spatial, and causal dimensions. In other words, the Idea retains only the universal form of representation, namely, that of being a certain kind of object, but it gets free from the three aforementioned specific forms of representation, namely, time, space, and causality.

If the knowing subject were always and necessarily subordinate to the willing subject (if all knowing were enslaved to willing), then the knowing subject would always and necessarily be "individual" and its objects would always and necessarily be "individual" too. For a knowing subject to be individual is for it to be governed by will, the consequence of which makes the subject's objects individual, that is, caught up in the network of time, space, and causality, and regardable solely as potential motives for action. In such a case the knowing subject could not discern those grades of the will's objectification called Platonic Ideas. But the power of will over knowing is not absolute, and this fact makes possible knowledge of the Ideas. It is the subject's mode of knowing that determines the kind of object known; hence if that mode of knowing is individual (i.e., dominated by willful interest) then the known object is individual (i.e., viewed as to its utility); hence, further, the Ideas can become objects of knowledge only if individuality in the knowing subject is suppressed. The knowing subject must become "pure," free from will and therefore objective or disinterested, which means that it must not be concerned with any motivation the object might offer; then, and only then, the object becomes "pure" too, free from the subordinate forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and therefore Idea. Such knowledge occurs when one, so to speak, "loses" oneself in a natural object or work of art, whereby the Idea of the natural object or the Idea expressed in the work of art "fills one's consciousness." Knowing exists, but willing disappears; pure delight obtains, and suffering vanishes. But not very often, not for very long, and not for very many.

The chief concern of Book 4 is ethics, understood not as a prescriptive discipline that lays down moral rules but as a descriptive study that interprets and explains human conduct. The secondary, and perhaps ultimately more important, concern is an analysis of the denial of the will to live exemplified most poignantly in the mystic, whereby the entire world, both as representation and as will, sinks into "relative" nothingness and salvation ensues.

The life of an individual human being caught up in affirmation of will consists of a perpetual struggle to live and to propagate, but the individual encounters frustrations at every turn and inevitable death at the end. Momentary experiences of happiness give way to new pursuits or boredom: Lasting contentment is not the human being's lot. The world of the individual human being, whose motivations are almost exclusively egoistic, is a "vale of tears" (Jammerthal ), not unlike a penal colony to which the individual is condemned upon birth and from which he or she is released only upon death. This conception of human life reflects the Idea of humanity insofar as affirmation of will (egoism, hedonism, sexuality) holds the upper hand. It is this conception of human life that lies at the basis of Schopenhauer's pessimism.

Now and again, however, nature produces a moral saint, whose behavior can be understood as a sort of identification with other suffering creatures: Such an individual, as rare in ethics as is the genius in art, pierces through the forms of time and space, and thereby overcomes the separation and antagonism that typically characterizes human relationships. To the moral saint one must attribute the knowledge that all "individual wills" are really one, that others' suffering is the saint's own suffering, that individuation is at bottom illusion. The moral saint's "knowledge" is not theoretical; it does not consist of conceptual and theoretical assent to the deep philosophical truth contained in the Sanskrit formula, Tat tvam asi (this art thou), that is, the inner nature of others is identical with your inner nature; indeed, it has nothing to do with intellect or philosophical insight. The moral saint's "knowledge" is practical; it is exhibited in behavior that seeks to relieve others' suffering and that, if necessary, forfeits personal life for the benefit of others. Although it is not explicable by means of our typical forms of explicationthose forms dictating that human behavior is subject to egoistic motivationthe conduct of the compassionate moral saint can be seen (though hardly fully understood) as release from the world of separate, differentiated existence and as entry into the world of will wherein only the one will reigns supreme.

Beyond even the moral saint is the ascetic, in whomto take the extreme casethe will has been denied altogether. Consequently, this person, also rare, becomes indifferent to all suffering, which is to say that he or she makes no effort to avoid personal suffering or to relieve the suffering of others. In some sense the extreme ascetic "identifies" with all of reality, such that in him or her the divisions and distinctions obtaining in the world disappear, along with the world itself. At this point, Schopenhauer fully realizes, all human cognition, and thus all philosophy, ceases. For this reason, the "state" of the extreme ascetic (or perhaps better of the mystic) cannot be conceptually described or communicated; and if a being were to depict this "state," we human beings occupying the world would understand nothing of it. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer believes, the

"state" of the extreme ascetic (or of the mystic) must be acknowledgedeven though no legitimate metaphysics can characterize it positively; at most it may be said that this "state" is not that of the world. (The issues sketched here are taken up in some detail in chapter 7.)

I hope that the three demands that Schopenhauer makes on the reader of The World as Will and Representation have now been satisfied. But there should be a fourth demand, without which Schopenhauer's inquiry into "the essence of the world"that is, his asking "What is the world besides representation?"cannot be comprehended. No one asks about the "essence" of the world, no one poses the question, "What is the world ultimately or at bottom?" without a special reason. Something must be regarded as troubling, disturbing, mysterious, or puzzling about "the world" if one is to seek that which would resolve "the fiddle of the world." In short, if the core of philosophy (let it be called metaphysics) is to resolve the riddle of the world, then this pursuit presupposes that there is from the start a genuine riddle. So Schopenhauer might have explicitly urged his reader to reflect upon life and the world, convinced that if the reader does so, he or she will realize that suffering permeates the whole of conscious existence, upon which he or she will then very likely wonder what can possibly explain this fact, this "riddle of the world." It is this very wonder that, for Schopenhauer, constitutes the metaphysical thrust. Anyone lacking this wonder will be wholly unreceptive to Schopenhauer's philosophy as a whole. And any critic who fails to recognize the fourth demand that Schopenhauer makes on his reader will never understand what the metaphysician of will is all about.

In his youth Schopenhauer accompanied his father and mother on a long trip throughout much of Europe. The long journey had a powerful, lasting effect: the teeming masses in London appalled him, the plight of 6,000 galley prisoners in Toulon horrified him, and the general misery of human life in all of Europe stamped itself on his mind. In later years he was to note:

In my 17th year, without any learned school education, I was gripped by the misery of life , as was Buddha in his youth when he looked upon sickness, old age, pain, and death . . . and my conclusion was that this world could not be the work of an all-good being, but rather that of a devil who had brought creatures into existence in order to take delight in their suffering; to this the data pointed, and the belief that it is so won the upperhand."28

A few years later, when Schopenhauer was developing his philosophical scheme, he ascribes the source of the world and life not to the devil, but to something just as evilthe will manifested in the world. Schopenhauer provides us, therefore, with a wholly nonreligious account of the misery of

life, probably the only one in the history of Western thought. But he also offers a "way out" of this world of suffering: denial of the will to live.

One could well divide Schopenhauer's philosophy into three main parts: (1) an observationthe world and life is essentially suffering; (2) a diagnosisthe world and life of suffering is the manifestation of the blind, irrational will to live; and (3) a cureby ceasing to will, suffering abates and, in the extreme case, totally disappears. Metaphysics figures primarily as the diagnosis of the world and life of suffering: It aims at an account of the world and life whereby the existence of suffering will be rendered intelligible, and possibly even recognized as justified. For the world is as it is because the willas the essence of every beingis as it is. On the individual and personal level, my world and life is essentially suffering because, and solely because, my will is as it is; hence in not too strange a sense, I am fully responsible for the suffering I experience, and indeed I deserve it. On this noteSchopenhauer's effort to advance a sort of "theodicy," a justification of suffering and miseryI close the introduction.29

Continues...

Excerpted from Schopenhauer on the Character of the World: The Metaphysics of Will by John Everett Atwell Copyright 1995 by John Everett Atwell. Excerpted by permission.
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Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of California Press
• Date d'édition: 1995
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0520087704
• ISBN 13: 9780520087705
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 240
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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