Notes on <The World as Will and Representation - Volume I> - First Book: The World as Representation. First Aspect
The Representation subject to the Principle of Sufficient Reason: The Object of Experience and of Science.
§1
The world is my representation: this is a truth valid with reference to every living and knowing being, although man alone can bring it into reflective, abstract consciousness. Everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word, representation. Every thing that in any way belongs and can belong to the world is inevitably associated with this being-conditioned by the subject, and it exists only for the subject. The world is representation. This will be the focus of the first book. One the other hand “the world is my will”, which will be examined later.
§2
That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject. It is accordingly the supporter of the world, the universal condition of all that appears, of all objects, and it is always pre-supposed; for whatever exists, exists only for the subject.
The world as representation, in which aspect alone we are here considering it, has two essential, necessary, and inseparable halves. The one half is the object, whose forms are space and time, and through these plurality. But the other half, the subject, does not lie in space and time, for it is whole and undivided in every representing being. These halves are in-separable even in thought, for each of the two has meaning and existence only through and for the other; each exists with the other and vanishes with it.
§3
The main difference among all our representations is that between the intuitive and the abstract. he latter constitutes only one class of representations, namely concepts; and on earth these are the property of man alone. The capacity for these which distinguishes him from all animals has at all times been called reason.
First of all we shall speak exclusively of the intuitive representation. One of Kant’s important contributions is that space and time can not only be thought in abstract (formal intuitions), but also directly conceived (form of intuition).
World as representation is subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, to the forms of intuition, time, space and causality.
§4
He who has recognized the form of the principle of sufficient reason, which appears in pure time, and on which all counting and calculating are based, has thereby also recognized the whole essence of time. Succession is the form of the principle of sufficient reason in time, and succession is the whole essence and nature of time.
He who has recognized the principle of sufficient reason as it rules in mere, purely perceived space, has thereby exhausted the whole nature of space.
He who has recognized that form of the principle of sufficient reason which governs the content of those forms (of time and space), their perceptibility, i.e., matter, and hence the law of causality, has thereby recognized the entire essence and nature of matter as such; for matter is absolutely nothing but causality, as anyone sees immediately the moment he reflects on it. Thus its being is its acting; it is not possible to conceive for it any other being. The consequence of the action of every material object on another is known only in so far as the latter now acts on the immediate object in a way different from that in which it acted previously; it consists in this alone. Thus cause and effect are the whole essence and nature of matter; its being is its acting. Thus its whole being and essence consist only in the orderly and regular change produced by one part of it in another; consequently, its being and essence are entirely relative, according to a relation that is valid only within its limits, and hence just like time and space.
What is determined by the law of causality is not the succession of states in mere time, but that succession in respect of a particular space, and not only the existence of states at a particular place, but at this place at a particular time. Thus change, i.e., variation occurring according to the causal law, always concerns a particular part of space and a particular part of time, simultaneously and in union. Consequently, causality unites space and time. Also, only through the combination of time and space arises matter, that is to say, the possibility of coexistence, and so of duration; and again, through duration the possibility of persistence of substance with change of states and conditions.
Causality is the sole function of the understanding and its only power. The first, simplest, ever- present manifestation of understanding is perception of the actual world. This is in every way knowledge of the cause from the effect, and therefore all perception is intellectual.
The changes experienced by every animal body are immediately known, that is to say, felt; and as this effect is referred at once to its cause, there arises the perception of the latter as an object. It is the cognitive method of the pure understanding, without which perception would never be attained; there would re- main only a dull, plant-like consciousness of the changes of the immediate object which followed one another in a wholly meaningless way, except in so far as they might have a meaning for the will either as pain or pleasure. What the eye, the ear, or the hand experiences is not perception; it is mere data. This world as representation exists only through the understanding, and also only for the understanding. All perception is not only of the senses, but of the intellect; in other words, pure knowledge through the understanding of the cause from the effect. Consequently, it presupposes the law of causality.
§5
Now we must guard against the grave misunderstanding of supposing that, because perception is brought about through knowledge of causality, the relation of cause and effect exists between object and subject. On the contrary, this relation always occurs only between immediate and mediate object, and hence always only between objects. The object always presupposes the subject, and hence between the two there can be no relation of reason and consequent.
On the one hand, realistic dogmatism, regarding the representation as the effect of the object, tries to separate these two, representation and object, which are but one, and to assume a cause quite different from the representation, an object-in-itself independent of the subject, something that is wholly inconceivable; for as object it presupposes the subject, and thus always remains only the representation of the subject.
Opposed to this is scepticism, with the same false assumption that in the representation we always have only the effect, never the cause, and so never real being; that we always know only the action of objects. But this, it supposes, might have no resemblance whatever to that being, and would indeed generally be quite falsely assumed, for the law of causality is first accepted from experience, and then the reality of experience is in turn supposed to rest on it.
Both these views are open to the correction, firstly, that object and representation are the same thing; that the true being of objects of perception is their action; that the actuality of the thing consists exactly in this; and that the demand for the existence of the object outside the representation of the subject, and also for a real being of the actual thing distinct from its action, has no meaning at all, and is a contradiction.
§6
In this first book we are considering everything merely as representation, as object for the subject. It happens that to everyone the thing-in-itself is known immediately in so far as it appears as his own body, and only mediately in so far as it is objectified in the other objects of perception.
The possibility of knowing the world of perception is to be found in two conditions; the first is, if we express it objectively, the ability of bodies to act on one another, to bring about changes in one another. The second condition is the sensibility of animal bodies, or the quality possessed by certain bodies of being directly objects of the subject. The body is immediately known, is immediate object. The conception of object, however, is not to be taken here in the fullest sense. the body as object proper, in other words, as representation of perception in space, is first known indirectly, like all other objects, through the application of the law of causality to the action of one of its parts on another.
§7
With regard to the whole of our discussion so far, we must still note the following. We started neither from the object nor from the subject, but from the representation, which contains and presupposes them both; for the division into object and subject is the first, universal, and essential form of the representation. The forms of time, space and causality can be found both in subject and object, and can be regarded as the boundary common to both, and they can all be referred to one common expression, the principle of sufficient reason.
This procedure distinguishes our method of consideration entirely from every other philosophy ever attempted. All previous ones started either from object or from subject and therefore sought to explain the one from the other. We, on the other hand, deny the relation between object and subject to the dominion of the principle of sufficient reason, and leave to it only the object.
One might consider philosophy of identity not following the above method. It started from neither object nor subject, but a third thing, namely the Absolute, the identity of the two. It combines subject and object in itself, and it is itself divided into two branches; first the transcendental idealism, Fichte’s doctrine of the ego, which regards the object being produced from the subject. Secondly, the philosophy of nature, which represents the subject coming gradually out of the object by the application of a method called construction.
Here Schopenhauer also gives a classification of the previous philosophy deriving object from subject into four types according the four fold root of principle of sufficient reason and an explanation of the materialism that derives subject from object. It’s particularly interesting to see how Schopenhauer reviewed the circularity in the materialistic position. The fundamental absurdity of materialism consists in the fact that it starts from the objective; it takes an objective something as the ultimate ground of explanation. Some such thing it takes as existing absolutely and in itself, in order to let organic nature and finally the knowing subject emerge from it, and thus completely to explain these; whereas in truth everything objective is already conditioned as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject with the forms of its knowing, and presupposes these forms; consequently it wholly disappears when the subject is thought away. Materialism is therefore the attempt to explain what is directly given to us from what is given indirectly. Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this can leave nothing to be desired. To the assertion that knowledge is a modification of matter there is always opposed with equal justice the contrary assertion that all matter is only modification of the subject’s knowing, as the subject’s representation. The world is entirely representation, and as such requires the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. The objective world, the world as representation, is not the only side of the world, but merely its external side.
An example of the philosophy which starts with subject and derives object is the philosophy of J.G. Fichte, which makes an opposite mistake from materialism, treating subject as the thing in itself.
Our method is different since we start neither from object nor from the subject, but from representation.
§8
As from the direct light of the sun to the borrowed reflected light of the moon, so do we pass from the immediate representation of perception, which stands by itself and is its own warrant, to reflection, to the abstract, discursive concepts of reason , which have their whole content only from that knowledge of perception, and in relation to it. Perception by itself is enough; therefore what has sprung purely from it and has remained true to it, like the genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be refuted through any passing of time, for it gives us not opinion, but the thing itself. Abstract knowledge is further away from the perception, so people might think that errors in abstract knowledge has little harm. Schopenhauer disagrees with this, and said we should still strive to obtain truth since errors in abstract knowledge are harmful in an indirect and unexpected ways.
Another faculty, reflection, makes man different from animal, it makes man live not only in present, but in past and future. The animal feels and perceives; man, in addition, thinks and knows; both will.
§9
The concepts form a peculiar class, existing only in the mind of man, and differing entirely from the representations of perception so far considered. Therefore we can never attain to a perceptive, a really evident knowledge of their nature, but only to an abstract and discursive one. Everything that distinguishes man from the animal, is to be explained by this one simple thing as its source, namely concepts, representations that are abstract not perceptive, universal not individual in time and space.
Although concepts are fundamentally different from representations of perception, they stand in a necessary relation to them, and without this they would be nothing. The whole world of reflection rests on the world of perception as its ground of knowledge.
In this section Schopenhauer seems to be talking about the relations between different concept.
§10
Through all this, the question becomes more and more pressing how certainty is to be attained, how judgements are to be established, in what knowledge and science consist. Reason is feminine in nature; it can give only after it has received. Of itself alone, it has nothing but the empty forms of its operation. There is absolutely no other perfectly pure rational knowledge than the four principles to which I have attributed metalogical truth, the principles of identity, of contradiction, of the excluded middle, and of sufficient reason of knowledge Concepts in general exist only after previous representations of perception, and in the reference to these lies their whole nature; consequently, they pre- suppose these representations. To know means generally to have within the power of the mind, ready to reproduce at will, such judgements as have their sufficient ground of knowledge in something outside them, in other words, such judgements as are true.
§11
Now in this respect, the true opposite of rational knowledge (Wissen) is feeling (Gefiihl), which we must therefore discuss at this point. The concept denoted by the word feeling has only a negative content, namely that something present in consciousness is not a concept, not abstract knowledge of reason.
§12
I have said that all abstract knowledge, i.e. all knowledge of reason, is rational knowledge (Wissen), and I have just explained that the concept of feeling is the contradictory opposite of this. But, as reason always brings again before knowledge only what has been received in another way, it does not really extend our knowledge, but merely gives it another form. Thus it enables one to know in the abstract and in general what was known intuitively and in the concrete.
§13
All these considerations of the advantages, as well as the disadvantages, of applying reason should help to make it clear that, although abstract rational knowledge is the reflex of the representation from perception, and is founded thereon, it is by no means so congruent with it that it could everywhere take its place; on the contrary, it never corresponds wholly to this representation. Hence, as we have seen, many human actions are performed by the aid of reason and deliberate method, yet some are better achieved without their application.
§14
By all these various considerations it is hoped that the difference and the relation between the cognitive method of reason, rational knowledge, the concept, on the one hand, and the immediate knowledge in purely sensuous, mathematical perception or intuition and in apprehension by the understanding on the other, has been brought out quite clearly. From all this I now return to a further discussion of science as being, together with speech and deliberate action, the third advantage which the faculty of reason confers on man.
We have seen that, with the exception of the basis of pure logic, all rational knowledge has its origin not in reason itself, but, having been otherwise gained as knowledge of perception, it is deposited in reason, since in this way it has passed into quite a different method of cognition, namely the abstract. All rational knowledge, that is to say, knowledge raised to consciousness in the abstract, is related to science proper as a part to the whole.
§15
We now want to turn the conviction that perception is the first source of all evidence to mathematics, as it was laid down in the form of a science by Euclid. We demand the reduction of every logical proof to one of perception. Mathematics, on the contrary, is at great pains deliberately to reject the evidence of perception peculiar to it and everywhere at hand, in order to substitute for it logical evidence.
§16
Here Schopenhauer talks about reason in so far as it guides man’s actions, namely, practical reason. At the beginning of our consideration of reason we remarked in general terms how the action and behaviour of man differ from those of the animal, and that this difference is to be regarded as solely the result of the presence of abstract concepts in consciousness.
We, by virtue of knowledge in the abstract, comprehend not only the narrow and actual present, but also the whole past and future together with the wide realm of possibility. Thus what the eye is in space and for sensuous knowledge, reason is, to a certain extent, in time and for inner knowledge. But just as the visibility of objects has value and meaning only by its informing us of their tangibility, so the whole value of abstract knowledge is always to be found in its reference to knowledge of perception. Therefore, the ordinary natural man always attaches far more value to what is known directly and through perception than to abstract concepts, to what is merely thought; he prefers empirical to logical knowledge.
Reason manifests itself practically, and thus practical reason shows itself, wherever action is guided by reason, where motives are abstract concepts, wherever the determining factors are not individual representations of perception, or the impression of the moment which guides the animal. But I have explained at length in the Appendix, and illustrated by examples, that this is entirely different from, and independent of, the ethical worth of conduct; that rational action and virtuous action are two quite different things; that reason is just as well found with great wicked- ness as with great kindness, and by its assistance gives great effectiveness to the one as to the other.
The most perfect development of practical reason in the true and genuine sense of the word is the ideal represented in the Stoic sage. For the Stoic ethics is originally and essentially not a doctrine of virtue, but merely a guide to the rational life, whose end and aim is happiness through peace of mind. Life is so full of troubles and vexations that we must either rise above it by means of corrected ideas, or leave it. It was seen that want and suffering did not result directly and necessarily from not having, but only from desiring to have and yet not having; that this desiring to have is therefore the necessary condition under which alone not having becomes privation and engenders pain. every keen pleasure is an error, an illusion, since no attained wish can permanently satisfy, and also because every possession and every happiness is only lent by chance for an indefinite time, and can therefore be demanded back in the next hour. But every pain rests on the disappearance of such an illusion; thus both originate from defective knowledge. Therefore the wise man always holds himself aloof from jubilation and sorrow. In conformity with this spirit, Epictetus said that we should bear in mind and distinguish what depends on us and what does not, and thus should not count on the latter at all. Now what depends on us is the will alone, and here there gradually takes place a transition to a doctrine of virtue, since it is noticed that, as the external world that is independent of us deter- mines good and bad fortune, so inner satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ourselves proceeds from the will.
Taken as a whole, Stoic ethics is in fact a very valuable and estimable attempt to use reason, man’s great prerogative, for an important and salutary purpose, namely to raise him by a precept above the sufferings and pains to which all life is exposed and in this way to make him partake in the highest degree of the dignity belonging to him as a rational being as distinct from the animal.
We find a complete contradiction in our wishing to live without suffering. This contradiction is revealed in this ethic of pure reason itself by the fact that the Stoic is compelled to insert a recommendation of suicide in his guide to the blissful life, since the sufferings of the body, incapable of being philosophized away by any principle and syllogisms, are paramount and incurable. Thus its sole purpose, namely blessedness, is frustrated, and nothing remains as a means of escape from pain except death. Different from Stoic ethics, other ethical systems make virtue directly the aim, but did not give good reason for rejecting suicide, this will be resolved in the fourth book.
Compared with Stoic, how entirely different appear the overcomers of the world and voluntary penitents, who are revealed to us, and are actually produced, by the wisdom of India; how different even the Savior of Christianity, that excellent form full of the depth of life, of the greatest poetical truth and highest significance, who stands before us with perfect virtue, holiness, and sublimity, yet in a state of supreme suffering.