THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
The title of Schopenhauer's chief work is rendered in the English
translation, _The World as Will and Idea_. Here the term 'idea' is used
in the sense it had for Locke and Berkeley; namely, any object of mental
activity. Thus it includes not merely imagery, but also perception.
Since Hume distinguished ideas' from 'impressions,' it has tended to be
specialised in the former sense. The German word, _Vorstellung_, which
it is used to render, conveys the generalised meaning of the Lockian
'idea,' now frequently expressed in English and French philosophical
works by the more technical term 'presentation' or 'representation.' By
Schopenhauer himself the word 'Idea' was used exclusively in the sense
of the Platonic Idea, which, as we shall see, plays an important part in
his philosophy. The distinction is preserved in the translation by the
use of a capital when Idea has the latter meaning; but in a brief
exposition it seems convenient to adopt a more technical rendering of
_Vorstellung_; and, from its common employment in psychological
text-books, I have selected 'presentation' as the most suitable.
The first proposition of Schopenhauer's philosophical system is, 'The
world is my presentation.' By this he means that it presents itself as
appearance to the knowing subject. This appearance is in the forms of
time, space and causality. Under these forms every phenomenon
necessarily appears, because they are _a priori_ forms of the subject.
The world as it presents itself consists entirely of phenomena, that is,
appearances, related according to these forms. The most fundamental form
of all is the relation between object and subject, which is implied in
all of them. Without a subject there can be no presented object.
Schopenhauer is therefore an idealist in the sense in which we call
Berkeley's theory of the external world idealism; though the expressions
used are to some extent different. The difference proceeds from his
following of Kant. His Kantianism consists in the recognition of _a
priori_ forms by which the subject constructs for itself an 'objective'
world of appearances. With Berkeley he agrees as against Kant in not
admitting any residue whatever, in the object as such, that is not
wholly appearance. But while he allows that Berkeley, as regards the
general formulation of idealism, was more consistent than Kant, he finds
him, in working out the principle, altogether inadequate. For the modern
mind there is henceforth no way in philosophy except through Kant, from
whom dates the revolution by which scholastic dualism was finally
overthrown. Kant's systematic construction, however, he in effect
reduces to very little. His is a much simplified 'Apriorism.' While
accepting the 'forms of sensible intuition,' that is, time and space,
just as Kant sets them forth, he clears away nearly all the superimposed
mechanism. Kant's 'Transcendental AEsthetic,' he says, was a real
discovery in metaphysics; but on the basis of this he for the most part
only gave free play to his architectonic impulse. Of the twelve
'categories of the understanding,' which he professed to derive from the
logical forms of judgment, all except causality are mere 'blind
windows.' This alone, therefore, Schopenhauer adopts; placing it,
however, not at a higher level but side by side with time and space,
Kant's forms of intuition. These three forms, according to Schopenhauer,
make up the understanding of men and animals. 'All intuition is
intellectual.' It is not first mere appearance related in space and
time, and waiting for understanding to organise it; but, in animals as
in man, it is put in order at once under the three forms that suffice to
explain the knowledge all have of the phenomenal world.
To Reason as distinguished from Understanding, Schopenhauer assigns no
such exalted function as was attributed to it in portions of his system
by Kant, and still more by some of his successors. The name of 'reason,'
he maintains, ought on etymological grounds to be restricted to the
faculty of abstract concepts. This, and not understanding, is what
distinguishes man from animals. It discovers and invents nothing, but it
puts in a generalised and available form what the understanding has
discovered in intuition.
For the historical estimation of Schopenhauer, it is necessary to place
him in relation to Kant, as he himself always insisted. Much also in his
chief work is made clearer by knowledge of his dissertation _On the
Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason_, to which he is
constantly referring. Later, his manner of exposition became more
independent; so that he can be read by the general reader with profit
simply by himself, and without reference to antecedents. Still, it will
always be advisable for an expositor to follow his directions, at least
to the extent of giving some short account of the dissertation. This I
proceed to give approximately in the place to which he has assigned it
in his system.
The name of the principle (_principium rationis sufficientis_) he took
over from Leibniz and his successor Wolff, but gave it a new amplitude.
With him, it stands as an inclusive term for four modes of connection by
which the thoroughgoing relativity of phenomena to one another is
constituted for our intelligence. The general statement adopted is,
'Nothing is without a reason why it should be rather than not be.'
Its four forms are the principles of becoming (_fiendi_), of knowing
(_cognoscendi_), of being (_essendi_), and of acting (_agendi_).
(1) Under the first head come 'causes.' These are divided into 'cause
proper,' for inorganic things; 'stimulus,' for the vegetative life both
of plants and animals, and 'motive,' for animals and men. The law of
causation is applicable only to changes; not to the forces of nature, to
matter, or to the world as a whole, which are perdurable. Cause precedes
effect in time. Not one thing, but one state of a thing, is the cause of
another. From the law of causation there results an infinite series _a
parte ante_ as well as _a parte post_. (2) The principle of sufficient
reason of knowing is applicable to concepts, which are all derived from
intuition, that is, from percepts. The laws of logic, which come under
this head, can yield nothing original, but can only render explicit what
was in the understanding. (3) Under the third head come arithmetical and
geometrical relations. These are peculiar relations of presentations,
distinct from all others, and only intelligible in virtue of a pure _a
priori_ intuition. For geometry this is space; for arithmetic time, in
which counting goes on. Scientifically, arithmetic is fundamental. (4)
As the third form of causality was enumerated 'motive' for the will; but
in that classification it was viewed from without, as belonging to the
world of objects. Through the direct knowledge we have of our own will,
we know also from within this determination by the presentation we call
a motive. Hence emerges the fourth form of the principle of sufficient
reason. This at a later stage makes possible the transition from physics
to metaphysics.
All these forms alike are forms of necessary determination. Necessity
has no clear and true sense but certainty of the consequence when the
ground is posited. All necessity therefore is conditional. In accordance
with the four expressions of the principle of sufficient reason, it
takes the fourfold shape of physical, logical, mathematical, and moral
necessity.
The sharp distinction between logical and mathematical truth, with the
assignment of the former to conceptual and of the latter to intuitive
relations, comes to Schopenhauer directly from Kant. So also does his
view that the necessary form of causation is sequence; though here his
points of contact with English thinkers, earlier and later, are very
marked. Only in his statement of the 'law of motivation' as 'causality
seen from within' does he hint at his own distinctive metaphysical
doctrine. Meanwhile, it is evident that he is to be numbered with the
group of modern thinkers who have arrived in one way or another at a
complete scientific phenomenism. Expositors have noted that in his
earlier statements of this he tends to lay more stress on the character
of the visible and tangible world as mere appearance. The impermanence,
the relativity, of all that exists in time and space, leads him to
describe it, in a favourite term borrowed from Indian philosophy, as
Maya, or illusion. Later, he dwells more on the relative reality of
things as they appear. His position, however, does not essentially
alter, but only finds varying expression as he turns more to the
scientific or to the metaphysical side. From Hume's view on causation he
differs not by opposing its pure phenomenism, but only by recognising,
as Kant does, an _a priori_ element in the form of its law. German
critics have seen in his own formulation an anticipation of Mill, and
this is certainly striking as regards the general conception of the
causal order, although there is no anticipation of Mill's inductive
logic. On the same side there is a close agreement with Malebranche and
the Occasionalists, pointed out by Schopenhauer himself. The causal
explanations of science, he is at one with them in insisting, give no
ultimate account of anything. All its causes are no more than
'occasional causes,'--merely instances, as Mill expressed it afterwards,
of 'invariable and unconditional sequence.' From Mill of course he
differs in holding its form to be necessary and _a priori_, not
ultimately derived from a summation of experiences; and, with the
Occasionalists, he goes on to metaphysics in its sense of ontology, as
Mill never did. The difference here is that he does not clothe his
metaphysics in a theological dress.
In the later development of his thought, Schopenhauer dealt more
expressly with the question, how this kind of phenomenism is
reconcilable with a scientific cosmogony. On one side the proposition,
'No object without subject,' makes materialism for ever impossible; for
the materialist tries to explain from relations among presentations what
is the condition of all presentation. On the other side, we are all
compelled to agree with the materialists that knowledge of the object
comes late in a long series of material events. Inorganic things existed
in time before life; vegetative life before animal life; and only with
animal life does knowledge emerge. Reasoned knowledge of the whole
series comes only at the end of it in the human mind. This apparent
contradiction he solves by leaving a place for metaphysics. Our
representation of the world as it existed before the appearance of life
was indeed non-existent at the time to which we assign it; but the real
being of the world had a manifestation not imaginable by us. For this,
we substitute a picture of a world such as we should have been aware of
had our 'subject,' with its _a priori_ forms of time, space, and
causality, been then present. What the reality is, is the problem of the
thing-in-itself (to use the Kantian term). This problem remains over;
but we know that the metaphysical reality cannot be matter; for matter,
with all its qualities, is phenomenal. It exists only 'for
understanding, through understanding, in understanding.' These
discriminations made, Schopenhauer offers us a scientific cosmogony
beginning with the nebular hypothesis and ending with an outline of
organic evolution. This last differs from the Darwinian theory in
supposing a production of species by definite steps instead of by
accumulation of small individual variations. At a certain time, a form
that has all the characters of a new species appears among the progeny
of an existing species. Man is the last and highest form to be evolved.
From Schopenhauer's metaphysics, as we shall see, it follows that no
higher form of life will ever appear.
A word may be said here on a materialistic-sounding phrase which is
very prominent in Schopenhauer's later expositions, and has been
remarked on as paradoxical for an idealist. The world as presentation,
he often says, is 'in the brain.' This, it must be allowed, is not fully
defensible from his own point of view, except with the aid of a later
distinction. The brain as we know it is of course only a part of the
phenomenon of the subject,--a grouping of possible perceptions. How
then, since it is itself only appearance, can it be the bearer of the
whole universe as appearance? The answer is that Schopenhauer meant in
reality 'the being of the brain,' and not the brain as phenomenon. He
had a growing sense of the importance of physiology for the
investigation of mind; and his predilection led him to adopt a not quite
satisfactory shorthand expression for the correspondence we know
scientifically to exist between our mental processes and changes capable
of objective investigation in the matter of the brain.
In science his distinctive bent was to the borderland between psychology
and physiology. Hence came the attraction exercised on him by Goethe's
theory of colours. To his own theory, though, unlike his philosophical
system, it has always failed to gain the attention he predicted for it,
the merit must be allowed of treating the problem as essentially one of
psychophysics. What he does is to attempt to ascertain the conditions in
the sensibility of the retina that account for our actual
colour-sensations. This problem was untouched by the Newtonian theory;
but Schopenhauer followed Goethe in the error of trying to overthrow
this on its own ground. He had no aptitude for the special inquiries of
mathematics and physics, though he had gained a clear insight into their
general nature as sciences. On the psycho-physical side there is to-day
no fully authorised theory. The problem indeed has become ever more
complex. Schopenhauer's attempt, by combination of sensibilities to
'light' and 'darkness,' to explain the phenomena of complementary
colours, deserves at least a record in the long series of essays of
which the best known are the 'Young-Helmholtz theory' and that of
Hering. It marks an indubitable advance on Goethe in the clear
distinction drawn between the mixture, in the ordinary sense, that can
only result in dilution to different shades of grey, and the kinds of
mixture from which, in their view, true colours arise.
A characteristic position in Schopenhauer's theory of knowledge, and one
that is constantly finding new expression in his writings, is the
distinction between abstract and intuitive knowledge already touched on.
Intuitive knowledge of the kind that is common to men and animals, as we
have seen, makes up, in his terminology, the 'understanding'; while
'reason' is the distinctively human faculty of concepts. When he
depreciates this, as he often does, in comparison with 'intuition,' it
must be remembered that he does not limit this term to perception of
particulars, but ascribes to what he calls the 'Platonic Idea' a certain
kind of union between reason and 'phantasy,' which gives it an intuitive
character of its own. Thus intuition can stand, though not in every case
for what is higher, yet always for that which is wider and greater and
more immediate. Whatever may be done with reflective reason and its
abstractions, every effectual process of thought must end, alike for
knowledge and art and virtue, in some intuitive presentation. The
importance of reason for practice is due to its generality. Its function
is subordinate. It does not furnish the ground of virtuous action any
more than aesthetic precepts can enable any one to produce a work of art;
but it can help to preserve constancy to certain maxims, as also in art
a reasoned plan is necessary because the inspiration of genius is not
every moment at command. Virtue and artistic genius alike, however,
depend ultimately on intuition: and so also does every true discovery in
science. The nature of pedantry is to try to be guided everywhere by
concepts, and to trust nothing to perception in the particular case.
Philosophy also Schopenhauer regards as depending ultimately on a
certain intuitive view; but he allows that it has to translate this into
abstractions. Its problem is to express the _what_ of the world in
abstract form: science dealing only with the _why_ of phenomena related
within the world. This character of philosophy as a system of abstract
concepts deprives it of the immediate attractiveness of art; so that, as
he says in one place, it is more fortunate to be a poet than a
philosopher.