A Companion to Schopenhauer E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1079

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A Companion to Schopenhauer provides a comprehensive guide to all the important facets of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The volume contains 26 newly commissioned essays by prominent Schopenhauer scholars working in the field today.

• A thoroughly comprehensive guide to the life, work, and thought of Arthur Schopenhauer
• Demonstrates the range of Schopenhauer’s work and illuminates the debates it has generated
• 26 newly commissioned essays by some of the most prominent Schopenhauer scholars working today reflect the very latest trends in Schopenhauer scholarship
• Covers the full range of historical and philosophical perspectives on Schopenhauer’s work
• Discusses his seminal contributions to our understanding of knowledge, perception, morality, science, logic and mathematics, Platonic Ideas, the unconscious, aesthetic experience, art, colours, sexuality, will, compassion, pessimism, tragedy, pleasure, and happiness

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Blackwell Companions to Philosophy

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgments

A Note on Cross-References

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I: Nature, Knowledge and Perception

1 Schopenhauer on Scientific Knowledge

1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason and Knowledge

2. Some Epistemological Distinctions

3. Non-Conceptual Knowledge of Objects

4. Non-Conceptual Knowledge of Causal Relations

5. Causal Regularity and Its Cognitive Status

6. Induction and Scientific Method

7. Empirical Knowledge and Its Experiential Basis

8. Two Related Issues

9. Scientific and Philosophical Knowledge

10. Concluding Remarks

2 Perception and Understanding

1. Schopenhauer on Perception and Understanding

2. Reid on Perception and Understanding

3. Kant on Understanding and Perception

3 Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics

1. Logical and Mathematical Background

2. Intuitive versus Abstract Knowledge

3. Logical Intuition and Abstract Reasoning

4. Intuitive and Abstract Knowledge of Mathematics

5. Principium Individuationis, Physics and Idealist Metaphysics of Space and Time

6. Schopenhauer’s Philosophical Geometry

7. Intuitive Reduction of Arithmetic to Counting in Time

4 Schopenhauer’s Color Theory

5 Schopenhauer and Transcendental Idealism

1

2

3

4

5

Part II: World, Will and Life

6 Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of the Dark Origin

1

2

3

4

5

6

7 The Consistency of Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics

1. The Miracle “Par Excellence”

2. The Nature of the Noumenon

3. The Principle of Perceptual Verifiability

4. The Platonic Forms

5. Mysticism

6. Asceticism

8 Schopenhauer on Sex, Love and Emotions

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

9 Schopenhauer and Platonic Ideas

1. The Nature of Schopenhauer’s Platonic Ideas and Their Relation to Individuals

2. The Exclusion of Mathematical Ideas

3. The Exclusion of Value Ideas

4. Schopenhauer’s Justification of His Restriction of Ideas to Ideas in Nature

5. Schopenhauer’s Theory of Art Considered in Itself

6. Irresoluble Conflicts between Plato and Schopenhauer

10 Schopenhauer’s On the Will in Nature

1. Non-Scientific Confirmations of Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics in “The Wisdom Deposited in Language,” Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism, Animal Magnetism and Magic

2. Scientific Confirmations of Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics in Plant and Animal Physiology, Comparative Anatomy and Physical Astronomy

3. The Independence of Will from Intellect

4. The Will as Kant’s “Thing-in-Itself”

5. Schopenhauer’s Paradoxical References to the Brain

6. Some Nietzsche-Related Parerga in On the Will in Nature

Part III: Art, Beauty and the Sublime

11 Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Music

12 Schopenhauer’s Theory of Architecture

1. The Will and Modernity

2. Schopenhauer’s Architectonic Idealism

3. An Argument against Hegel

4. In Defense of Classicism

5. Structure, Function and Form

6. Architecture and Contemplation

13 The Artist as Subject of Pure Cognition

1. The Pure Subject of Cognition

2. The Artist as Pure Subject of Cognition

14 Schopenhauer on Tragedy and the Sublime

15 Schopenhauer and the Objectivity of Art

1. Will-Lessness, Science and Art

2. Art, Objectivity and Death

3. Objective Knowledge of (Platonic) Ideas

4. Tragic Art, Concerned Individuals and the Objective Stance

5. The Objectivity of Art and the Abolition of the Self

Part IV: Compassion, Resignation and Sainthood

16 Schopenhauer on the Metaphysics of Art and Morality

1. Background: Schopenhauer’s Methodological Presuppositions

2. Empirical Consciousness

3. Aesthetic Consciousness

4. Moral Consciousness and the Path to Salvation

5. Concluding Remarks

17 Schopenhauer on the Value of Compassion

1. Compassion in Schopenhauer’s Oeuvre

2. Schopenhauer’s Method of Ethics and Rejection of Moral Skepticism

3. The Moral Point of View

4. The Nature of Compassion

5. Metaphysical Explanations of Compassion

18 Schopenhauer and Indian Philosophy

1. Schopenhauer’s Invocation of Indian Philosophies

2. Schopenhauer on His Affinities with Indian Philosophy

3. Assessing the Perceived Affinities

4. Reasons for Focusing on Schopenhauer’s Relationship to Indian Philosophy

19 Life-Denial versus Life-Affirmation

1. Saying No

2. Will-to-Life: Affirmation and Denial

3. A Summary of Schopenhauer’s Argument for the Denial of the Will

4. Nietzsche’s Projects

5. The Schopenhauerian Basis to Nietzsche’s Pessimism

6. Diagnosing Nihilism

7. Diagnosing Asceticism

8. The Appeal of Nietzsche’s Values

20 Schopenhauer on the Inevitability of Unhappiness

1. Schopenhauer on the Inevitability of Suffering

2. Criticisms of Schopenhauer’s Thesis that to Desire Is to Suffer

3. The Unattainability of True Satisfaction

4. The Inevitability of Boredom

5. The Negative Nature of Pleasure and Satisfaction

6. Happiness and Well-Being

7. Degrees of Unhappiness: The Possibility of Amelioration

8. The Paradox of the Suspension or Negation of the Will

9. The Inevitability of Unhappiness

Part V: Schopenhauer’s Context and Legacy

21 Schopenhauer and Freud

1. Case Study I: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)

2. Case Study II: Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)

3. Case Study III: The Future of an Illusion (1927)

4. Conclusion

22 Schopenhauer’s Impact on European Literature

23 Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wagner

1. The Elusiveness of Fulfillment and Complete Resignation

2. Nietzsche’s “New Happiness”

24 Schopenhauer’s Influence on Wittgenstein

I

II

III

IV

V

25 Schopenhauer’s Fairy Tale about Fichte

1. Resented Relations

2. Back to Fichte

3. Schopenhauer Hears and Reads Fichte

4. A Fairy Tale

5. A Fairy Tale in a Leaden Age

6. From the Freedom of the Will to the Freedom of Non-Willing

Index

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8. A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Second Edition

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9. A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Second Edition

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10. A Companion to the Philosophy of Language

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23. A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy

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25. A Companion to African-American Philosophy

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26. A Companion to Applied Ethics

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27. A Companion to the Philosophy of Education

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28. A Companion to African Philosophy

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29. A Companion to Heidegger

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30. A Companion to Rationalism

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31. A Companion to Pragmatism

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32. A Companion to Ancient Philosophy

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33. A Companion to Nietzsche

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34. A Companion to Socrates

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35. A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism

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36. A Companion to Kant

Edited by Graham Bird

37. A Companion to Plato

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38. A Companion to Descartes

Edited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero

39. A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology

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40. A Companion to Hume

Edited by Elizabeth S. Radcliffe

41. A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography

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42. A Companion to Aristotle

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43. A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Edited by Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks

44. A Companion to Latin American Philosophy

Edited by Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte, and Otávio Bueno

45. A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature

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46. A Companion to the Philosophy of Action

Edited by Timothy O’Connor and Constantine Sandis

47. A Companion to Relativism

Edited by Steven D. Hales

48. A Companion to Hegel

Edited by Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur

49. A Companion to Schopenhauer

Edited by Bart Vandenabeele

Forthcoming:

A Companion to Rawls

Edited by Jon Mandle and David Reidy

A Companion to Foucault

Edited by Chris Falzon, Timothy O’Leary, and Jana Sawicki

A Companion to Derrida

Edited by Leonard Lawlor and Zeynep Direk

A Companion to Locke

Edited by Matthew Stuart

This edition first published 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A companion to Schopenhauer / edited by Bart Vandenabeele.

p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to philosophy ; 49)

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-4051-7103-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)

 1. Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860. I. Vandenabeele, Bart.

 B3148.C635 2012

 193–dc23

2011024994

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs ISBN 9781444347548; Wiley Online Library ISBN 9781444347579; ePub ISBN 9781444347555; Mobi ISBN 9781444347562

To Veerle, Sarah and Eline

with all my heart

Notes on Contributors

Stephan Atzert lectures in German Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. He studied German and English Literature and wrote his PhD on the appropriation of Schopenhauer in the late novels of the modernist Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, published as Schopenhauer bei Thomas Bernhard. Zur literarischen Verwendung von Philosophie (Rombach, 1999). Since then he explores the writings of Schopenhauer, as well as the reception of Schopenhauer by Freud, Nietzsche and Western orientalists such as Paul Deussen.

Paul Bishop is Professor of German at the University of Glasgow. He has written on various topics in German intellectual history (including Cassirer, Goethe, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer). He has recently published Analytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics (two vols., 2007–2008).

Vojislav Bozickovic is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. Previously he was Lecturer at the University of Tasmania and Macquarie University. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and is the author of Demonstrative Sense (1995) and a number of articles, mostly in philosophy of language.

Daniel Came is a Lecturer in Philosophy at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford and a member of the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Oxford. Previously he was Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, and Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. He has published several articles on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and aesthetics, and is the editor of Nietzsche on Art and Life (Oxford University Press, 2011).

David E. Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Director of the North American Division of the Schopenhauer Society and a member of the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat of the Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft. In addition to publishing numerous articles on Schopenhauer, focusing on his ethics, he is the author of Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, co-translator (with Joachim Baer) of Arthur Hübscher’s The Philosophy of Schopenhauer in Its Intellectual Context, and the editor of Payne’s translations of Schopenhauer’s On the Will in Nature and On Vision and Colors. He has recently published Schopenhauer: A Biography.

David E. Cooper is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. He has been a visiting professor at universities in the USA, Canada, Germany, Malta, and Sri Lanka. He is the author of twelve books, including World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction, The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery and (with Simon P. James) Buddhism, Virtue and Environment.

William Desmond is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University of Leuven, where he has been since 1994. In recent years he has also been David Cook Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Villanova University, USA. Among his books are Art and the Absolute: A Study of Hegel’s Aesthetics (SUNY, 1986), Being and the Between (SUNY, 1995), Ethics and the Between (SUNY, 2001), Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Art and Philosophy (SUNY, 2003), Is There a Sabbath for Thought: Between Religion and Philosophy (Fordham University Press, 2005) and God and the Between (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).

Ken Gemes is a Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Southampton. His published research is in general philosophy of science and Nietzsche, and appears in various journals including Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Science, Nous, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, European Journal of Philosophy and Synthese. He is co-editor with Simon May of Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy (Oxford University Press), and co-editor with John Richardson of the Oxford Handbook on Nietzsche (Oxford University Press).

Paul Guyer, who received his PhD from Harvard University in 1974, is Professor of Philosophy and Florence R.C. Murray Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous works on Kant, editor of numerous volumes on Kant, and general co-editor of the Cambridge Edition of Kant, in which he has collaborated on new translations of the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of the Power of Judgment, and Notes and Fragments. His most recent books are a Reader’s Guide to Kant’s Groundwork (Continuum) and a volume of essays on Kant’s response to Hume (Princeton). He is currently writing a history of modern aesthetics.

Robert W. Hall is James Marsh Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Vermont. He has published books on Plato and the Philosophy of Religion. His many publications include articles on Plato, Natural Law, Medieval Philosophy, Kant, Philosophy of Religion and Aesthetics.

Dale Jacquette is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bern. Author of numerous articles on logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and Wittgenstein, he has recently published On Boole, Ontology, David Hume’s Critique of Infinity, and The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, and edited the Cambridge Companion to Brentano, Schopenhauer, Philosophy, and the Arts, the Blackwell Companion to Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Logic, the North-Holland (Elsevier) Handbook of the Philosophy of Science series, and has released a new translation of Gottlob Frege’s Grundlagen der Arithmetik.

Christopher Janaway is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. His publications include Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy (2007), Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (2002), Images of Excellence: Plato’s Critique of the Arts (1995), and Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (1989); he also edited The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (1999) and Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator (1998).

W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz received his PhD from the University of Oxford. Presently he is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and International Relations at Bilkent University. His recent publications include: “How International Relations Theorists Can Benefit by Reading Thucydides,” The Monist 89 (April 2006) and “Heidegger’s Hidden Path: From Philosophy to Politics,” The Review of Metaphysics 61 (December 2007). His book On the History of Political Philosophy is forthcoming.

Matthias Kossler is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mainz. He is the President of the international Schopenhauer-Society and managing editor of the Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch. His numerous publications include Substantielles Wissen und subjektives Handeln, dargestellt in einem Vergleich von Hegel und Schopenhauer (1990) and Empirische Ethik und christliche Moral. Zur Differenz einer areligiösen und einer religiösen Grundlegung der Ethik am Beispiel der Gegenüberstellung Schopenhauers mit Augustinus, der Scholastik und Luther (1999).

Paul F. H. Lauxtermann received his PhD from the University of Utrecht. From 1982 until 2004 he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente in the Department of History of Science. He is the author of Schopenhauer’s Broken World View. Colours and Ethics between Kant and Goethe (Kluwer, 2000).

Douglas McDermid is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Trent University. His primary research interests are in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy and literature, and the history of modern philosophy (with four distinct sub-foci: Schopenhauer; Pragmatism and American philosophy; Scottish philosophy; and the development of analytic philosophy). In addition to publishing journal articles on these topics, he is the author of The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum, 2006).

G. Steven Neeley, Esq., former practicing Attorney-At-Law, Philosophical Psychotherapist, and Professor of Philosophy at Saint Francis University. He has had twelve teaching awards to his credit and has published in numerous and diverse areas which include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Bio-Medical Ethics, Constitutional Law, Philosophical Thanatology, and Philosophical Psychotherapy.

Alex Neill is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the editor, with Aaron Ridley, of Arguing about Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates, and The Philosophy of Art: Readings Ancient and Modern, and author of a number of articles on topics in philosophical aesthetics and the history of philosophy. His recent work has been mainly on the history of aesthetics, with a particular emphasis on Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory.

Bernard Reginster is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. He specializes in ethics, moral psychology and philosophy of mind in nineteenth-century German philosophy and twentieth-century continental philosophy. He is the author of a number of articles on Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Sartre, among others, and his book The Affirmation of Life. Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism appeared with Harvard University Press (2006).

Severin Schroeder is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of three books on the philosophy of Wittgenstein: a monograph on the private language argument (Das Privatsprachen-Argument, Schöningh, 1998), Wittgenstein: The Way Out of the Fly-Bottle (Polity, 2006), and Wittgenstein lesen (Frommann-Holzboog, 2009). He is the editor of Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (Palgrave, 2001), and Philosophy of Literature (Blackwell, 2009).

Ivan Soll is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work is concerned with figures in the Continental tradition, especially Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre and Freud, and with issues arising in aesthetic theory and the philosophy of life.

Gudrun von Tevenar began her philosophical studies late in life after a career in design. She teaches at Birkbeck, University of London, and has published papers on the moral philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

Bart Vandenabeele is Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at Ghent University. His research interests include Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, tragedy, the sublime, aesthetic judgment, and the values of art and literature. He has published chiefly in the areas of philosophical aesthetics, the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy, and the philosophy of language and communication. He is associate editor of Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication.

Frank C. White, former emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, has published numerous books and articles, particularly on Plato, Schopenhauer, Kant, education and knowledge.

Robert Wicks is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. He specializes in the philosophies of Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Hegel and has written books on each of these philosophers.

Günter Zöller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Munich. He is the author of numerous publications on Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer and German idealism, including The Cambridge Companion to Fichte and Figuring the Self: Subject, Individual, and Others in Classical German Philosophy.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the Arts and Philosophy Faculty Board of Ghent University and especially to the Dean of the Faculty, Freddy Mortier, for granting me research leave in 2008, without which the pieces of this volume might never even have come together. I would also like to thank the contributors to this volume for their excellent chapters, and Jeff Dean, Tiffany Mok, Leah Morin, Rebecca du Plessis, and the other collaborators at Wiley-Blackwell for their patience, support, helpful suggestions and kind nudges. I am especially grateful to Stijn Van Impe for his editorial assistance. I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to my wife, the incomparable Veerle Rotsaert, for kindly holding the mirror, and to our great daughters, Sarah and Eline, for appearing in it. I wholeheartedly dedicate this book to her and to our two gorgeous daughters.

B.V.

The authors and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book:

Chapter 5: excerpt from the Payne translation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, ISBN: 978-0-486-21761-1, published by Dover, June 1969. Used with permission from Dover Publications.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

A Note on Cross-References

A system of cross-referencing has been deployed throughout the volume. Only chapters outside the section in which a particular chapter appears are cross-referenced. Readers are advised to examine all chapters in any given section where a chapter they wish to consult appears. The decision of where to place a chapter was made on the basis of where it would gain its greatest pertinence and relevance.

List of Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used for Schopenhauer’s writings: BMOn the Basis of MoralityEFROn the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [i.e. Schopenhauer’s Early Fourfold Root, 1813 edition]FROn the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [second edition, 1847]FWOn the Freedom of the WillMRManuscript RemainsPP I; PP IIParerga and Paralipomena, vols. 1 and 2VCOn Vision and ColoursWWR I; WWR IIThe World as Will and Representation; vols. 1 and 2WNOn the Will in Nature

Unless otherwise specified, the number immediately following the work’s abbreviation gives a volume and page reference to the work listed here. The contributors to this volume have used different editions of Schopenhauer’s texts, but have sought to provide reference to an English source where available. Some have relied exclusively on their own translations. Exact references are given at the end of each chapter.

Introduction

Arthur Schopenhauer: The Man and His Work

BART VANDENABEELE

It is safe to say that Arthur Schopenhauer, who was born in Danzig (now Gdansk) in 1788 and died in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1860, was always an outsider among philosophers. He was considered as too literary and rhetorical by analytical philosophers, too metaphysical by the logical positivists and scientific naturalists, and was too unhistorical and apolitical for the Hegelians and phenomenologists. Moreover, he was totally neglected or dismissed by philosophers such as Russell, Sartre, Heidegger, Adorno and Levinas, and by “postmodern” authors such as Derrida and Lyotard. And, although recent scholarship has begun to show a change of attitude, it is still often the case that, if contemporary philosophers study Schopenhauer’s oeuvre at all, they are often more interested in its influence on Nietzsche, Freud or Wittgenstein than in reading his work for its own sake.

Engaging with Schopenhauer’s philosophy is, however, a tremendously rewarding experience. Not just because of the extraordinary qualities of its prose, but perhaps even more so because of the generous cosmopolitan world view it conveys, the relentless search for truth it displays, the clarity of its arguments and its deeply human concern with the sufferings, pleasures and values of human (and animal) existence. It will be hard to find a more genuine and comprehensive example in the history of philosophy of such an honest quest for truth, human value and inner peace and salvation, for it does not refer solely to Western philosophies (above all Plato’s and Kant’s theories of knowledge, being and value), but is also deeply and passionately engaged with the Vedic, Hindu and Buddhist outlook on perception and consciousness, asceticism and mysticism, and animal and human life and death (see Chapter 18 by Cooper).

The kernel of his thought is to be found in his magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation, which was published in 1818 – when Schopenhauer was hardly 30 years old. This extraordinary work is undoubtedly one of the richest philosophical books in Western history. It not merely offers a complicated metaphysics of the will – the blind drive that pervades everything – but also expounds intriguing theories of nature, the self, art, and scientific, religious, aesthetic and ethical values, and yields a fascinating naturalistic account of knowledge and perception, which severely criticizes Kant’s epistemology (see Chapter 1 by Bozickovic, Chapter 2 by Guyer and Chapter 5 by McDermid).

At the instigation of his cosmopolitan father, who abhorred Prussian nationalism and was very ambitious for his son, Arthur studies French and English at an early age, and later also Italian and Spanish. He receives a broad and enriching education at school. In The World as Will and Representation, he frequently quotes ancient Greek texts and offers his own Latin (!) translations – to help the ignorant reader. At a fairly early age, he also visits most important museums in the European cities. When he turns 14, his parents offer him to join them on a tour around Europe, but only on the condition that he abandon his plans to become an academic and agree to commence an apprenticeship in the trading business. Young Arthur does not hesitate and joins his parents on their European tour. It is hard to imagine nowadays what such a long journey through Europe must have meant to a young boy in those days, but – as we can learn from his letters and notes – it clearly deeply affected him. During this European tour, he becomes not merely impressed with the rich European cultural and artistic heritage, but also significantly astonished at the wretched circumstances in which so many people live. It makes him lose his faith in God for the rest of his life, and this strong concern with the suffering of human beings and animals never leaves him and pervades his whole philosophy. Schopenhauer has to keep his promise to his parents and starts his business apprenticeship. Meanwhile, however, he develops a much keener interest in natural sciences and independently reads several scientific books.

On April 20, 1805, when Arthur is 17 years old, his father – whose intense and formidable personality he has inherited – is found dead in a canal in Hamburg. His father’s death is officially the result of an accident, but more probably the man committed suicide. This is a terrible shock to Arthur, and he vigorously blames his mother for his father’s death. Relations with his mother have never been good, but after his father’s death, his relationship with his mother becomes more and more problematic. In one of her letters (dated May 17, 1814) his independently minded mother, Johanna, who has now become a successful novelist and who runs an artistic salon, writes that she cannot tolerate Arthur’s behavior any longer and threatens him that the door that he has slammed behind him, will forever remain closed. She complains that meeting up with her son again will severely damage her health and does not want to see him again.

In 1809, Schopenhauer moves to Göttingen to study natural sciences and two years later to Berlin, where he attends Johann G. Fichte’s philosophy classes (see Chapter 25 by Zöller). Under the influence of the Göttingen philosopher Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761–1833), he now especially concentrates on the work of Kant and Plato. This influence will last for a lifetime: he will desperately (though not always successfully) aim to combine Plato’s and Kant’s theories. In 1813, he moves to Rudolstadt, near Weimar, to complete his first essay, entitled The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which gains him a doctoral degree in philosophy at the University of Jena, followed by his underestimated essay On Vision and Colours (1816), in which he develops a fascinating theory of the nature of color, influenced by Goethe, who did not appreciate Schopenhauer’s criticism of his own earlier views on the subject.

His earliest work, the dissertation on The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, analyzes the principle that “nothing is without a reason for its being,” which Schopenhauer considers to be the best general formulation of the principle of explanation. In this work, which was first published at the age of 26 and which Schopenhauer considers the “basis of his whole system,” he offers a brilliant analysis of causation and related issues, which definitely rivals the more famous discussions of David Hume, and argues that perception is the product of understanding (Verstand) or intellect (Intellekt). We do not experience the things as they are in themselves but the understanding shapes them according to the subjective forms of space, time, and cause and effect. The empirical objects do not exist independently but are products of the senses and the understanding: the understanding applies the concept of causality to the raw sense data and turns them into intuitions and, thus, into empirically perceived objects. Furthermore, human beings are able to form abstract representations, i.e., concepts, which enable them to engage in abstract thought, which is a major evolutionary advantage compared to other animals but concepts can also degenerate into empty abstractions, in which – as Schopenhauer will not hesitate to stress again and again – German idealist philosophers often lose themselves completely.

Schopenhauer considers this work so crucial for a proper understanding of his whole philosophy that he will add many new ideas to it in later life. Readers, who struggle with the first book of The World as Will and Representation, will definitely profit immensely from studying this essay first, as it offers the indispensible tools for his epistemological theory and philosophy of science (see Chapter 1 by Bozickovic, Chapter 2 by Guyer, Chapter 3 by Jacquette and Chapter 5 by McDermid).

In On Vision and Colours, which was first published in 1816 and of which a revised version appeared in 1847, Schopenhauer convincingly defends Goethe’s theory against Newton’s. The first part of the book focuses on visual perception and addresses several key arguments in favor of transcendental idealism and develops fascinating issues concerning the nature of visual perception. In the second part of this exciting essay, Schopenhauer sets out to reduce the problem of the nature of colors and their perception to the strictly physiological (i.e., non-chemical and non-physical) problem of color perception. Clarity, darkness and color are modifications of the eye, which are directly perceived and can be reduced to modifications in the activity of the retina. Anticipating many philosophical and scientific theories and hypotheses (especially those of Wittgenstein and Young-Helmholtz), Schopenhauer expounds a theory of the color spectrum and develops a landmark synthesis of Newton’s and Goethe’s views. He persistently situates the phenomenon of color in the physiological subject – by which he surpasses Goethe’s perception theory and interestingly modifies Newton’s “physical” theory. For Newton characterized color as determined by the properties of light rays and focused on the light sources, and Goethe emphasized the contribution of the physical media which light rays meet as they travel to the eye. Schopenhauer, however, treats color as a physiological phenomenon and focuses on the effects in the retina and not on the physical or chemical sources that cause them (see Chapter 4 by Lauxtermann).

Schopenhauer is already brooding over an even more important project, however, which will result in one of the most important books in the history of philosophy. He is convinced that this book will guarantee him a place in the top ranking of famous philosophers. He is not even 30 years old when he finishes what will indeed become his most important work: The World as Will and Representation. The book – which will become known as the first volume of The World as Will and Representation – is published in 1818 (although 1819 is mistakenly mentioned on the cover).1

His magnum opus consists of four books: Books I and III address the world as representation, II and IV the world as will. The first book of this unparalleled work treats epistemological topics and aims to prove that “The world is my representation” (WWR I, 3). Schopenhauer further develops his own critical version of a (Kantian inspired) transcendental idealism, i.e., the view that the subject is “the universal condition of all that appears, of all objects, and it is always presupposed” (WWR I, 5). The subject of cognition constitutes a world of representation (Vorstellung) according to the subjective forms of space, time and causality. On Schopenhauer’s account, this implies that there can be no objects without subjects, but not that there can be no subjects without objects. This leads to his notorious theory of the self as “will,” i.e., the thought that there is a mode of being that is purely subjective: the will. The will (and hence, also the self) cannot be objectified, can never become an object for a subject. The will, which is the kernel of the self and analogously also of the whole world, is thus the true “thing-in-itself.” The whole world of representation is ultimately a dream world: the substance of reality, viz. the will, generates the things that appear to us, and since we are also products of the will, we ourselves too produce the objects that we perceive, although we are not conscious of this activity.

Schopenhauer’s will is ultimately cosmic energy that manifests itself objectively, but without being conscious of this objectifying activity (see Chapter 6 by Desmond, Chapter 7 by Neeley and Chapter 10 by Wicks). It is a blind irrational striving, beyond good and evil; raw energy, without any direction. We are all expressions of this amoral, aimless cosmic drive. The cosmic will manifests itself in different layers, the first of which consists of the “immediate objectifications” of the will, i.e., the universal, timeless forms of things, which are called (Platonic) Ideas (see Chapter 9 by White); within the second layer, in which the will manifests itself “indirectly,” human subjects become aware of stimuli, motives, reasons, i.e., those causes Schopenhauer identified as the roots of the principle of sufficient reason (cf. supra). Human beings do not make up a privileged, higher order than other natural beings, but are embodied creatures that are determined by their will, i.e., their affects, desires, urges and emotions (see Chapter 8 by von Tevenar). Contrary to Kant, Schopenhauer does not believe that rationality gives human beings more dignity or moral worth. The subject of cognition is thus ultimately nothing but a manifestation of a blind striving, which is neither individuated nor situated in time–space.

The third part of The World as Will and Representation illuminates how human beings can perceive the universal essences, i.e., the (Platonic) Ideas, through will-less, objective perception of natural objects and artworks, and develops fascinating accounts of artistic creativity, the beautiful and the sublime. Under the influence of Plato and the Upanishads, the young Schopenhauer characterized aesthetic perception as a “better consciousness” that transcends ordinary experience, which is typically boring or full of suffering, as it is determined by the will and its frustrations. Now he describes aesthetic experience, and especially contemplating a work of art, as a privileged state of consciousness that brings about objective cognition of universal Ideas. In aesthetic contemplation, “we no longer consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of things, but simply and solely the what” (WWR I, 178). Nothing disturbs us, for we have become a pure, disinterested and painless subject of knowledge. We are, as it were, momentarily “rid of ourselves” (WWR I, 390), for we are raised above our willing, striving and yearning, and have become one with the object of perception and have reached an exceptional state of repose and complete tranquility, which offers “objective” insight into the universal (Platonic) Ideas (see Chapter 12 by Korab-Karpowicz, Chapter 13 by Kossler, Chapte 14 by Neill and Chapter 15 by Vandenabeele), or directly – as is the case with music – into the metaphysical will (see Chapter 11 by Hall).

The fourth book of The World as Will and Representation aims to describe what kinds of action qualify as morally good. Actions from compassion are a case in point, since they show that human beings are able to transcend their natural egoism – which is dictated by their will to life – and sympathize with the pain and suffering of others. This kind of moral awareness does not, however, provide lasting salvation, and only when our will “turns around” and “a repugnance towards the will to life itself” arises (cf. WWR IV, § 68), are we able to reach a more permanent state of a kind of (Buddhist or Daoist) “happiness,” which can only occur if we are completely nauseated by the amount of suffering in the world, eventually deny the will to life and abolish the willing self altogether (see Chapter 16 by Came, Chapter 17 by Cartwright, Chapter 18 by Cooper, Chapter 19 by Gemes and Janaway, and Chapter 20 by Soll). Then we have reached “a condition,” which “is indicated by the names ecstasy, rapture, enlightenment, union and which should not actually be called knowledge, because it no longer has the form of subject and object” and “is not further communicable” (WWR I, 410). This aspect of Schopenhauer’s philosophy has often been severely criticized for being morose and hostile to life. Schopenhauer’s ethics does not ultimately involve a grim outlook on the world and bleak pessimism, though. On the contrary, it brilliantly shows the moral value of a special state of compassionate awareness in which one is genuinely appreciative of the worth of having less individual desires.

Schopenhauer is genuinely convinced that he has completed one of the most important books in the history of philosophy and leaves on holiday to Italy to get some well-deserved rest. He visits Venice, Bologna, Naples, Florence, Rome and Milan. When in Venice, he is very keen on meeting the notoriously charming poet, Lord Byron, and has managed to obtain a letter of introduction, written by Goethe, who has just finished his Italian Journey. On one occasion, during a walk on the Lido beach, his jealousy prevents him from actually making Byron’s acquaintance, for Schopenhauer’s female companion screams a bit too enthusiastically when she sees Byron riding his horse on the beach, and Schopenhauer’s desire to meet him suddenly diminishes.

In the meantime, Schopenhauer’s trip through Italy not only seems occupied with beauty, but even more strongly with beauties. While trying to find a suitable “female companion,” he learns about the birth of a daughter in Dresden, the result of a brief affair, who dies after two months. Further, he also learns that his mother’s and sister’s Danzig investment house is on the verge of bankruptcy, and he decides to return to Germany in July 1819, shortly before the death of his daughter.

On returning to Germany, he faces another shock, for hardly any copies of his book have been sold. His magnum opus will remain unnoticed for many years to come. Arthur is, of course, tremendously disappointed, and when he learns that his mother is very successful with her novel-writing, and regularly receives important intellectuals in her salon, he becomes even more depressed. Moreover, his archrival Georg W.F. Hegel – who epitomized about everything Schopenhauer abhorred – has become a very successful academic, and has assumed Fichte’s chair at the University of Berlin. Schopenhauer plans to counteract the neglect of his book by aiming to become a university professor himself. Unfortunately, he schedules his first lecture series at the University of Berlin at the same time as Hegel’s, with the result that hardly a few people attend Schopenhauer’s first class, whereas Hegel’s lecture room is packed. Schopenhauer is furious and immediately abandons the plan to become a university professor.

The following years will be extremely hard. Schopenhauer does some translation work: he translates, amongst others, Baltasar Graciàn’s great Oraculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647) [The Art of Worldly Wisdom] from Spanish into German, which will be published posthumously in 1862. In 1831, a cholera epidemic breaks out in Berlin and Schopenhauer decides to leave the city, while Hegel stays. He asks the actress Caroline Medon, with whom he has fallen in love, to accompany him, but she insists on taking her eight-year-old son with her, which he refuses. So he leaves Berlin alone and moves to Mannheim for a year, but then returns to Frankfurt-am-Main in 1833, where he spends his days with writing, walking, playing the flute, dining out, going to the theatre and the opera, and reading The Times. He will stay in that city until his death in 1860. He gradually recovers from his depression and in 1836 he publishes the captivating essay On the Will in Nature, hoping to show how recent scientific discoveries and advances in anatomy, plant and animal physiology, astronomy etc. corroborate his doctrine of the will (see Chapter 10 by Wicks).

In 1838 – the year of his mother’s death – and in 1839, he enters for essay competitions set by the Royal Norwegian and the Royal Danish Scientific Society, for which he submits two fine essays, dealing with ethical problems. The first, “On the Freedom of the Human Will,” will be awarded the first prize by the Norwegian Society; the second, “On the Basis of Morality,” part of which offers a trenchant critique of Kant’s ethics, expounded in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and other works, will not be awarded a prize, because it contains too many insults against Hegel and other idealist philosophers.

In the remarkable essay “On the Freedom of the Human Will,” Schopenhauer distinguishes three kinds of freedom: physical, intellectual and moral freedom. Physical freedom refers to the absence of material obstacles, intellectual freedom occurs when an individual understands the world correctly, and moral freedom concerns the question whether individuals at a given time are able to take any course of action they will, which ultimately boils down to the intricate issue of whether the human willing is subject to necessity or not. Schopenhauer argues that human willing is determined by the motives that enter into consciousness and, hence, is not free.

In the second essay, “On the Basis of Morality,” Schopenhauer attempts to demolish Kant’s foundation of morality, and offer his own positive view of the basis of morals. Kant’s foremost error, Schopenhauer contends, is to conceive of morality as a matter of duties and imperatives. Schopenhauer argues that Kant’s categorical imperative is really hypothetical, and he even claims that Kant ultimately realized this. The idea that one cannot will maxims of injustice and unkindness is ultimately grounded in the hypothesis that human beings are fragile. Schopenhauer argues that if human beings happened to be (or to think of themselves) as sufficiently powerful or reckless, willing maxims of injustice and unkindness would not be impossible. According to Schopenhauer, the highest maxim and ultimate foundation of ethics is not human rationality, but the principle “Harm no one, and help everyone to the extent that you can.” Being morally good implies developing an attitude towards life that consists of Mitleid (i.e., compassion, literally “to suffer with”), which is the very opposite of cruelty. Moral goodness consists in “a deeply felt, universal compassion for every living thing” (BM, § 20). But Schopenhauer’s ultimate foundation of compassion, and hence of morality, is to be situated in his metaphysics: the compassionate man’s outlook of the world is ultimately more “right” than that of the cruel, immoral or indifferent individual, for the separateness of individuals is ultimately illusory (see Chapter 16 by Came, Chapter 17 by Cartwright, Chapter 8 by von Tevenar and Chapter 19 by Gemes and Janaway). The compassionate man “knows” that his outlook on life tallies with the deepest truth about the world: that it is one and the same will. Attuning your character and actions with this ultimate metaphysical truth offers the only real foundation of moral value and good conduct; we imaginatively feel the others’ feelings as our own, and through this a moral community of sentient beings will be formed – a universal social bond between cosmopolitan people, which ideally culminates in the elimination of all individual willing.

The two essays will eventually be published together in 1841 under the title The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. In 1844, he also completes an additional volume to The World as Will and Representation, which he now publishes along with a new edition of the first volume, and which contains a series of excellent chapters that fall into line with the issues treated in the first volume. The second volume is actually longer than the first, and instead of rewriting his youthful work, both volumes will be published again together in a third edition in 1859, a year before his death.

In 1851, Schopenhauer’s final new work is published: Parerga and Paralipomena [Complementary and Omitted Matters], which contains not only the popular “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life” but also several other intriguing essays on such diverse subjects as education, suicide, reading and books, language and style, noise, religion, Indian literature, natural sciences, academic philosophy, etc., and which will eventually give him the recognition that he has been yearning for during his whole life. Not without sarcasm, he will say: “The comedy of my fame has finally come.” He now receives visitors from all over the world, and also much fan mail; for instance, from Richard Wagner, who truly adores Schopenhauer’s philosophy and sends him the libretto of the Ring of the Nibelungs. His portrait is painted and Elizabeth Ney comes from Berlin to make his bust.

Arthur Schopenhauer dies peacefully at home at the age of 72 on September 21, 1860. In the decades following his death, he will become one of the most prominent European philosophers in history, deeply influencing not only Nietzsche, but also Bergson, Freud, Horkheimer, Wittgenstein, and numerous artists and creative writers, including Beckett, Borges, Conrad, Dvorák, Gide, Gissing, Hardy, Huysmans, Kafka, Maeterlinck, Mahler, Mann, Proust, Schönberg, Turgenev, Wagner, and many others (see the chapters by Atzert, Bishop, Reginster and Schroeder). Over the last decades, interest in Schopenhauer has been growing again, after all too long a period of undeserved neglect of this unique virtuoso voice in the history of philosophy.2

Notes

1 The text of Volume I of The World as Will and Representation that we now commonly read is not the original 1818 version, but includes many changes made in 1844, including a modified “Critique of Kantian Philosophy” – which was heavily altered on the basis of Schopenhauer’s discovery of the first (so-called “A”) edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) – and several fresh polemical charges against the German idealists, especially Fichte and Hegel.

2 I wish to thank Veerle Rotsaert and Stijn Van Impe for helpful comments on this chapter.

Further Reading

Cartwright, D.E. (2010). Schopenhauer: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gardiner, P. (1963). Schopenhauer. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Hamlyn, D.W. (1980). Schopenhauer: The Arguments of the Philosophers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Hübscher, A. (1989). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer in Its Intellectual Context. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.

Jacquette, D. (2005). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Chesham: Acumen.

Janaway, C. (1988). Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Janaway, C. (1994). Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Magee, B. (1997). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Safranski, R. (1989). Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

White, F.C. (1992). On Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Leiden: Brill.

Wicks, R. (2008). Schopenhauer. Oxford: Blackwell.

Young, J. (1987). Willing and Unwilling: A Study in the Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

Young, J. (2005). Schopenhauer. London: Routledge.

Part I: Nature, Knowledge and Perception

1

Schopenhauer on Scientific Knowledge

VOJISLAV BOZICKOVIC

There is a good deal of truth in the way in which Schopenhauer describes the contrast between the genuine philosopher and the academic scholar who regards philosophy as a sort of scientific pursuit.

(Schlick 1981, 41)

Philosophy is for Schopenhauer not a sort of scientific pursuit nor is science a sort of philosophical pursuit, and it is in this context that he propounds his view of scientific knowledge and of knowledge in general. Those few philosophers who have given it proper consideration, notably Gardiner (1967) and Hamlyn (1980, 1999), and more recently Young (2005), have pointed out that Schopenhauer’s view presents some serious, seemingly insurmountable, difficulties. In this chapter I try to redress the balance by arguing that Schopenhauer can be credited with a coherent and viable, in some respects indeed very perceptive view of (scientific) knowledge once a couple of misconceptions, which are the source of these difficulties but which are neither required by this view nor are of any use to it, are disposed of. I offer instead some adequate replacements which are to its benefit, much as they are in line with the overall framework and the objectives of his philosophy. This will also enable us to assess this view in the context of the debates that have emerged in the modern-day philosophy of science and epistemology.

1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason and Knowledge

In The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (henceforth FR), Schopenhauer tackles the principle of the same name in the context of the relation that the knowing subject has to the object of knowledge, making his view of knowledge part of his account of this principle. This principle, which he calls the basis of all science (FR, 4), has for him four different forms sharing the same root, one of which is of particular interest for his view of scientific knowledge as obtained by the natural sciences. Owing to these interconnections, an examination of his view of scientific knowledge also needs to be an examination of this principle and of Schopenhauer’s conception of knowledge in general. This is evidenced by what he has to say about this principle and its root.

Schopenhauer states the principle of sufficient reason as follows: “Nothing is without a ground or reason why it is” (FR, 6). Then he provides the statement of its root:

Our knowing consciousness, … , is divisible into subject and object, and contains nothing else. To be object for the subject and to be our representation … are the same thing. All our representations are objects of the subject, and all objects of the subject are our representations. Now it is found that all our representations stand to one another in a natural and regular connexion that in form is determinable A PRIORI. By virtue of this connexion nothing existing by itself and independent, and also nothing single and detached, can become an object for us.

(FR, 41–42; italics in the original)

All knowledge thus concerns representations. But no representation can become an object of knowledge if it is not grounded, if it does not have a reason, in other representations.

Schopenhauer then goes on to remark that it is this connection which is expressed by the principle in its universality. This connection takes on different forms according to the difference in the nature of objects, but it is still always left with that which is common to those forms and is expressed in a general and abstract way by the principle. Hence, the relations, forming the basis of the principle, constitute its own root. “Their number can be reduced to four, since it agrees with four classes into which everything is divided that can for us become an object, thus all our representations” (FR, 42). As will become clear, it is two of these forms that are of special interest for the aims and the scope of the present chapter – that of becoming and that of knowing, as Schopenhauer calls them.

2. Some Epistemological Distinctions

According to Schopenhauer, not all of our knowledge is conceptual. Our basic knowledge of intuitive or perceptive representations, i.e., of objects presented to us in our sensory perception, does not involve concepts. In order to have this kind of knowledge it is required by the principle of sufficient reason that objects stand in natural and regular connections, although the knower need not know what they are. Our knowledge of these regular connections, which amount to causal, law-like, relations, is also taken to be non-conceptual. When, on the other hand, it comes to conceptual, abstract knowledge, this principle requires that if a judgment (representation) – itself composed of concepts – is to express a piece of knowledge, it must have a sufficient ground or reason, for which it is further required that it be known by the knower (FR, 156). Non-conceptual knowledge is the business of the faculty of understanding, which has the one function of causal inference, while conceptual knowledge is the business of the faculty of reason, which has the one function of forming concepts. Since the perception of the non-linguistic animals is in relevant respects similar to ours, Schopenhauer believes that they too have understanding though they do not use concepts, i.e., have no faculty of reason (see FR, 71–72; 110–11).

The following claims can be distinguished here:

1. In addition to conceptual knowledge of objects there is also non-conceptual knowledge of them.

2. In order to have non-conceptual knowledge of objects it is required that they stand in causal, law-like, relations which constitute their ground or reason.

3. Knowledge of causal, law-like, relations between objects is non-conceptual.

4. If a judgment is to express a piece of knowledge, it must have a sufficient ground or reason (to be specified below).

5. This ground or reason needs to be known by the knower.

One may think it impossible for us to apprehend causal, law-like, relations between objects short of applying any concepts (see Gardiner 1967, 121–22). If so, (3) is false and so is (2) insofar as it entails (3). One can also question (2) together with (4) and a fortiori (5) on a more general level by urging that our having the respective kinds of knowledge is not subject to the conditions respectively imposed on them by Schopenhauer in (2) and (4). Claim (5) may be found to be too severe; and (1) may seem problematic particularly because of its association with

6. The faculty of abstraction, pertaining to reason, which creates concepts by way of analyzing intuitive, i.e., perceptive, representations (e.g., FR, 146–47; see also WWR II, 66).

This doctrine, which Schopenhauer adopts from the British empiricists, is thought to be very dubious. On this issue Hamlyn remarks:

How reason is supposed to abstract from perceptions remains, as with all doctrines of abstraction, unclear. If the abstraction is a cognitive act it must work on what is already known in the perceptual instances; but if something is indeed known in them they must surely presuppose already some concept of the object perceived. How then is that concept obtained? On the other hand, if the abstraction is not a cognitive act of that kind, but the concept comes into being, so to speak mechanically, it remains quite obscure what principles govern the selection of instances in such a way that they give rise to the concept.

(Hamlyn 1980, 23)

(In order to assess Schopenhauer’s view of knowledge, all these claims need to be tackled, but since claim (2) is not directly relevant to the topic of the present chapter I shall not deal with it here. See Bozickovic (1996) for a discussion of some of the issues concerning this claim.)

3. Non-Conceptual Knowledge of Objects

Claim (1) raises the issue of whether all our perceptual knowledge of objects is conceptual. Many recent philosophers would side with Schopenhauer in claiming that it is not. One of them is Evans (1982) who has claimed that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. In a similar vein, Chalmers (1996) has urged that the content of awareness and of experience is generally non-conceptual in that it does not require an agent to possess the concepts that might be involved in characterizing that content. As he notes, it is quite plausible that an animal such as a dog or a mouse might have fine-grained representations of color distinctions in the cognitive system, while having only the simplest system of color concepts (Chalmers 1996, 383). (Schopenhauer would, of course, deny that it possesses any concepts, but the point is the same.) Conceptual content comes into play only when one moves from a perceptual experience to a judgment about the world based on that experience, usually expressible in some verbal form (Evans 1982, 227). Judgments belong with beliefs as more sophisticated cognitive states connected with the notion of reasons (Evans 1982, 124; see also Chalmers 1996, 232).