Our last seminar covered two topics not addressed within The Fourfold Root. The student presentations were good and I regretted not having read the material which they were discussing. The first topic, moral awareness, got only a brief presentation and Schopenhauer's basic ideas seemed fairly predictable... just basing moral awareness on empathy - suffering with - rather than giving it any intellectual rationale (ala Kant). This familiar idea was elegantly wedded to his metaphysics: the individual psychological will is fundamentally an illusion; we are all really a manifestation of the singular unity that is the metaphysical Will. In moral awareness, then, we escape the bounds of subject-object cognition to perceive this fundamental truth in a primordial way.
On the second topic, it seemed like Schopenhauer was claiming that aesthetic contemplation opens up a new perceptual modality: one which is non-conceptual and somewhat 'purified'. I'm not sure why Schopenhauer choose the term 'purified' rather than simply 'less mediated' or 'less / non-cognitive'... the religious connotation of 'purification' worries me a little. Taken at face value, it suggests our normal existence is somehow impure. It sounds like we're reaching out to some kind of salvation which I'm not really attracted to. A student called it 'aesthetic nirvana'.
On the way home I wondered whether the term 'purified' might also be alluding to Kant's pure vs empirical distinction. This would relate to Schopenhauer's claim that the thing-in-itself is basically the realm of Platonic ideas; the perfect forms which appear to us imperfectly in normal experience. This latter claim is obviously quite interesting but I've read nothing of his writing on the topic, so I can't say anything right now.
Some of our discussion today seemed to further support the proto-Heideggarian reading I presented yesterday. In particular, there was brief mention of Schopenhauer's later views that (?existential) truth is best seeked not through philosophy, but through art and music. My impression is that Heidegger also said things in this spirit, and there'd also be a biographical parallel in so far as he too fell out of love with philosophy in the later stages of his intellectual life. Anyway, good news on this front is that Dina gave me the ok to write my long essay on this very topic (my proto-Heideggarian reading of his epistemology), so I will doubtless have an opportunity to explore all this further in the coming months. I'm also seriously excited about having the excuse to read Being and Time, especially as I'm now perfectly set to 'virtually' attend Tanja's Heidegger course back at Sussex, which begins next week!
It's been a great month, I feel like I've learnt a lot. I've enjoyed returning to transcendental idealism, and one of the important things I've taken from this course is, finally, the beginnings of a comprehension of how to think beyond subject and object.
Finally, this has been the first time I've kept a study journal, and I must say it's been an extremely useful exercise. In fact, I'm thinking of starting one for the Nietzsche course. I'll see how things go this weekend...
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Schopenhauer's pessimism (and my presentation)
Today's seminar began with a nice presentation on Schopenhauer's pessimism (not explictly presented in The Fourfold Root). The student did a great job of bringing out Schopenhauer's beautifully valid arguments to the conclusion that life is awful, suffering is endless. They were (1) the argument from lack of satisfaction and (2) the argument from boredom. I wont reconstruct them here, but the basic thought is that permenant satisfaction is impossible, because our desires are either insatiable, or, once achieved, prone to satiation, so quickly leaving us intolerably bored. Ergo, our existence is a permenant oscillation between unsatisfaction and boredom, which are both themselves a form of pain. True happiness - a state of permenant pleasure, according to Schopenhauer - is, accordingly, unattainable.
Well, many in the class were surpressing laughter during the presentation; somehow it all just seemed a little absurd. I actually find this reaction more interesting than the arguments themselves. In a different mood, I might not have been able to laugh so easily. In the past, I've surely entertained so-called 'pesssimistic' thoughts - but I never really tried to rationalise them in this way. Actually, that's not entirely true... but I didn't attempt to develop a systematic philosophical worldview on the basis of them.
I'm reminded of something Paul Davies (lecturer at Sussex) once suggested to me: that sound arguments are not in themselves sufficent to affect our views on anything of profound importance. If we're facing a serious question like the one at stake here, our views, he suggested, wont be particularly amenable to rational argumentation.
I'll be thinking about this much more during this year. For now, I'll end this journal entry by reporting that I'm fairly happy with how my own presentation went today. It was really the first time I've presented a paper in that way. I've added the audio recording to my Tuesday post; I'm looking forward to listening to it through, to see how I might improve my approach in time for the Nietzsche presentation next week.
Well, many in the class were surpressing laughter during the presentation; somehow it all just seemed a little absurd. I actually find this reaction more interesting than the arguments themselves. In a different mood, I might not have been able to laugh so easily. In the past, I've surely entertained so-called 'pesssimistic' thoughts - but I never really tried to rationalise them in this way. Actually, that's not entirely true... but I didn't attempt to develop a systematic philosophical worldview on the basis of them.
I'm reminded of something Paul Davies (lecturer at Sussex) once suggested to me: that sound arguments are not in themselves sufficent to affect our views on anything of profound importance. If we're facing a serious question like the one at stake here, our views, he suggested, wont be particularly amenable to rational argumentation.
I'll be thinking about this much more during this year. For now, I'll end this journal entry by reporting that I'm fairly happy with how my own presentation went today. It was really the first time I've presented a paper in that way. I've added the audio recording to my Tuesday post; I'm looking forward to listening to it through, to see how I might improve my approach in time for the Nietzsche presentation next week.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Presentation: 'Schopenhauer on Knowing the Thing-in-itself'
OK so I'm posting this ahead of time in order to stop myself doing any more... I keep saving 'final' copies only to think of another crucial amendment. This is the final final handout / slides for my presentation tomorrow.
Now... I must work on Nietzsche!
Download links:
Audio Recording (.mp3) | Handout (.pdf) | Slides (.pdf)
Now... I must work on Nietzsche!
Download links:
Audio Recording (.mp3) | Handout (.pdf) | Slides (.pdf)
§40-45: 'On the Fourth Class of Objects'
I've been working pretty hard on my presentation today, so it'll have to be a short journal entry this time. (I've also got a Nietzsche presentation due for Friday!)
Today's student presentation discussed the principle of sufficient reason of motivation. I suddenly came to comprehend Schopenhauer's prima facie puzzling claim about all willing being necessarily active. Previously I'd taken 'will' in this context in the narrow psychological sense, but of course, it's much better to read it in the wider sense of Schopenhauer's general metaphysic. Now the idea of will as necessarily active is far more congenial.
We also briefly touched upon Schopenhauer on the question of free will. Though an arch-determinist, he does make sort of Kantian noises on this. In an essay titled ‘On The Antitheses of Thing in itself and Appearance', he writes about the determination of all objects in the empirical world, including the individual, but notes that, nevertheless, at the level of the noumenal, the ‘same man would have to be explained as the apparitional form of his own, utterly free and primal will, which has created for itself the intellect appropriate to it.’ Dina pointed out that Nietzsche's conception of freedom was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer; I will be interested to investigate this further.
Today's student presentation discussed the principle of sufficient reason of motivation. I suddenly came to comprehend Schopenhauer's prima facie puzzling claim about all willing being necessarily active. Previously I'd taken 'will' in this context in the narrow psychological sense, but of course, it's much better to read it in the wider sense of Schopenhauer's general metaphysic. Now the idea of will as necessarily active is far more congenial.
We also briefly touched upon Schopenhauer on the question of free will. Though an arch-determinist, he does make sort of Kantian noises on this. In an essay titled ‘On The Antitheses of Thing in itself and Appearance', he writes about the determination of all objects in the empirical world, including the individual, but notes that, nevertheless, at the level of the noumenal, the ‘same man would have to be explained as the apparitional form of his own, utterly free and primal will, which has created for itself the intellect appropriate to it.’ Dina pointed out that Nietzsche's conception of freedom was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer; I will be interested to investigate this further.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
§35-39: 'On the Third Class of Objects'
In §35, Schopenhauer identifies the third class of objects as the pure intuitions of space and time. ‘Pure’ here, of course, means devoid of Matter; Schopenhauer’s idea of a pure intuition seems to be lifted straight out of Kant. We looked closely at the following sentence on p.153:
Schopenhauer gives two brief arguments for the representability of space and time as pure intuitions. Regarding space, he says that complete representations (empirical intuitions) add the determination of being empty or filled. I presume the implication is that we must be able to represent the formal (infinite) container - namely space - first. Secondly, he states that ‘the infinite expansion and the infinite divisibility of Space and Time are exclusively objects of pure intuition and foreign to empirical perception.’ Presumably this is a reference to Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic, and I suppose he would refer anyone who asks him to say more about the representability of pure intuitions to those pages in Kant (in fact, he rehashes Kantian arguments in §36).
In §35 paragraph 3, Schopenhauer states that the form of Causality is not a pure intuition, belonging as it does, to the understanding. He writes that we cannot have consciousness of it (i.e. represent it) ‘until it is connected with what is material in our knowledge’ (p.154). Notably, he does not argue further for this claim. Why does he feel the need to state this view, yet not to argue for it? It reads as though he’s reminding us of an obvious point, proved elsewhere. Perhaps he simply thinks that Kant’s arguments in the Aesthetic just obviously don’t apply to the form of Causality; it being, after all, merely a condition of thought, not a condition of experience.
The PSR of Being is the ‘law by which the divisions of Space and Time determine one another reciprocally’. That is to say, the law by which ‘all parts stand in mutual relation... [and] each... conditions and is conditioned by another.’ Dina asked why he called it the PSR of Being. I think he chose the term to connote two things, namely: (1) the eternal, unchanging nature of these forms and (2) their status as conditions of experience, and hence, of objective existence.
A consequence of all this, for Schopenhauer, is that axioms of geometry and mathmatics can be explained as founded upon pure intuitions. In §39 he distinguishes between a reason of Being - corresponding to a conviction that something is the case - and a reason of Knowing - which supports an understanding of why something is the case. The fundamental axioms are of the former sort. So, a reason of Being can underwrite a series of reasons of Knowing. Someone asked whether the opposite can happen too. I think not, because I take the distinction to be asymmetrical: a reason of Knowing must surely contain a reason of Being - knowledge why X is the case must presuppose that X is the case. So a reason of Knowing couldn’t support a reason of Being.
‘That which distinguishes the third class of representations, in which Space and Time are pure intuitions, from the first class, in which they are sensuously (and moreover conjointly) perceived, is Matter, which I have therefore defined, on the one hand, as the perceptibility of Space and Time, on the other, as objectified Causality.’The first part of this is straightforward enough, but the ‘therefore’ was initially rather puzzling. Why should those two definitions of Matter follow from the representability of both pure and empirical intuitions? Well, after some discussion, we decided that the ‘therefore’ only pertains to the first definition of Matter, ‘as the perceptibility of Space and Time’. Perhaps this is Schopenhauer writing poorly, or a problem with the translation. In any case, having bracketed the second definition, I could understand the connection, namely that it is Matter which makes spatio-temporal perceptions possible, in the synthesis of Matter and Form which comprises an empirical intuition. Of course, space and time can be represented independently of matter, as pure intuitions, according to Schopenhauer (and Kant). I think I need to clarify the different senses which the word 'representation' seems to have in Schopenhauer.
Schopenhauer gives two brief arguments for the representability of space and time as pure intuitions. Regarding space, he says that complete representations (empirical intuitions) add the determination of being empty or filled. I presume the implication is that we must be able to represent the formal (infinite) container - namely space - first. Secondly, he states that ‘the infinite expansion and the infinite divisibility of Space and Time are exclusively objects of pure intuition and foreign to empirical perception.’ Presumably this is a reference to Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic, and I suppose he would refer anyone who asks him to say more about the representability of pure intuitions to those pages in Kant (in fact, he rehashes Kantian arguments in §36).
In §35 paragraph 3, Schopenhauer states that the form of Causality is not a pure intuition, belonging as it does, to the understanding. He writes that we cannot have consciousness of it (i.e. represent it) ‘until it is connected with what is material in our knowledge’ (p.154). Notably, he does not argue further for this claim. Why does he feel the need to state this view, yet not to argue for it? It reads as though he’s reminding us of an obvious point, proved elsewhere. Perhaps he simply thinks that Kant’s arguments in the Aesthetic just obviously don’t apply to the form of Causality; it being, after all, merely a condition of thought, not a condition of experience.
The PSR of Being is the ‘law by which the divisions of Space and Time determine one another reciprocally’. That is to say, the law by which ‘all parts stand in mutual relation... [and] each... conditions and is conditioned by another.’ Dina asked why he called it the PSR of Being. I think he chose the term to connote two things, namely: (1) the eternal, unchanging nature of these forms and (2) their status as conditions of experience, and hence, of objective existence.
A consequence of all this, for Schopenhauer, is that axioms of geometry and mathmatics can be explained as founded upon pure intuitions. In §39 he distinguishes between a reason of Being - corresponding to a conviction that something is the case - and a reason of Knowing - which supports an understanding of why something is the case. The fundamental axioms are of the former sort. So, a reason of Being can underwrite a series of reasons of Knowing. Someone asked whether the opposite can happen too. I think not, because I take the distinction to be asymmetrical: a reason of Knowing must surely contain a reason of Being - knowledge why X is the case must presuppose that X is the case. So a reason of Knowing couldn’t support a reason of Being.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
§26-34: ‘On the Second Class of Objects’
This class pertains to knowledge, and its ‘objects’ are concepts. The associated form of the PSR is the PSR of Knowing, which states that no one can make a knowledge claim without a [sufficient?] ground. That is, a judgement can count as known iff it has sufficient ground. [ perhaps a ‘sufficient’ ground is one which ‘tracks’ the truth condition of the judgement ] Ground comes in four varieties, corresponding to the four classes of objects.
While the other three classes of objects are given to us as immediate representations, Schopenhauer defines concepts as representations of representations. While our perceptual representations are intuitive, which is to say, singular, complete and determinate, our conceptual representations are abstract, which is to say general and, to at least some degree, indeterminate. Our Faculty for Abstraction removes differentiating details from numerous representations to bring out their commonalities. The more we abstract, the less content the resulting concept contains, until, we reach the limits of abstraction, that is, the completely empty concepts of being, thing, essence and becoming. The guy [name?] who presented today reminded us of Kant’s famous phrase: ‘concepts without sensations are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind’.
The Faculty of Judgement mediates between our rationality, which is conceptual, and our understanding, which is intuitive. It is both ‘reflective’ and ‘subsuming’, in its former capacity, bringing out the content of concepts for inspection, and in the latter, applying them to intuitions. Schopenhauer claims that in ‘abstraction’, intuitions forfeit their perceptibility. Nevertheless, we can (obviously) represent concepts to ourselves: through either signs (words) or through mental images. We often think (or imagine) using images to represent a concept (e.g. ‘dog’). But Schopenhauer is keen to stress that concepts are not pictures: pictorial representations of conceptions are always inadequate to them, bearing, as they do, countless arbitrary determinations (e.g. the dog I think of is brown).
My favourite part of this chapter wasn’t discussed in much detail today. It is the part just before Schopenhauer characterises Reason - given its passive, formal character - as feminine, and the Understanding - given its substantive, material content - as masculine. For him, Reason, which permits conceptual thought, bears no material content, only a formal one - namely, the metalogical rules which constitute the conditions of thought. Therefore, he writes (§28, p.125) ‘mere rational talk thus renders the result of given conceptions clearer, but does not, strictly speaking, bring anything new to light’. I find this thought quite palatable, though (or, perhaps, because) it seems to bear within it the end of first philosophy. Indeed, the student presentation concluded with a criticism that this view of the material emptiness of Reason (i.e. purely conceptual thought) seems to undermine the possibility of transcendent metaphysics of exactly the flavour Schopenhauer will later espouse in his doctrine of the World as Will.
The student presentation also mentioned another criticism of Schopenhauer’s discussion, namely that he doesn’t adequately account for the origins of concepts. This becomes clear when we ask: how do we explain the first abstractions without presupposing concepts such as similar, different, colour, size, shape, etc? If certain concepts are presupposed in our first abstractions, the origin of these still need to be explained. If concepts are not presupposed, then there must be some non-cognitive process taking place to get abstraction going... perhaps some kind of cognitive mechanism? Schopenhauer doesn’t discuss the issue of the first abstractions in this chapter, but I think he’d be quite happy to say that they originate from some mechanical process. This view seems quite compatible with his system in general, with his emphasis on of the embodiment of perception and the intellect, and with his previous claim regarding the continuity of some explanatory chains of knowledge with those of the empirical world. Indeed, I’d be quite happy, prima facie, to accept this basic non-cognitivism, as it seems to sit comfortably with (the little I know of) current views in contemporary science. This discussion reminds me of reading McDowell and Sellars... maybe this is the topic I will write on for the long essay.
While the other three classes of objects are given to us as immediate representations, Schopenhauer defines concepts as representations of representations. While our perceptual representations are intuitive, which is to say, singular, complete and determinate, our conceptual representations are abstract, which is to say general and, to at least some degree, indeterminate. Our Faculty for Abstraction removes differentiating details from numerous representations to bring out their commonalities. The more we abstract, the less content the resulting concept contains, until, we reach the limits of abstraction, that is, the completely empty concepts of being, thing, essence and becoming. The guy [name?] who presented today reminded us of Kant’s famous phrase: ‘concepts without sensations are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind’.
The Faculty of Judgement mediates between our rationality, which is conceptual, and our understanding, which is intuitive. It is both ‘reflective’ and ‘subsuming’, in its former capacity, bringing out the content of concepts for inspection, and in the latter, applying them to intuitions. Schopenhauer claims that in ‘abstraction’, intuitions forfeit their perceptibility. Nevertheless, we can (obviously) represent concepts to ourselves: through either signs (words) or through mental images. We often think (or imagine) using images to represent a concept (e.g. ‘dog’). But Schopenhauer is keen to stress that concepts are not pictures: pictorial representations of conceptions are always inadequate to them, bearing, as they do, countless arbitrary determinations (e.g. the dog I think of is brown).
My favourite part of this chapter wasn’t discussed in much detail today. It is the part just before Schopenhauer characterises Reason - given its passive, formal character - as feminine, and the Understanding - given its substantive, material content - as masculine. For him, Reason, which permits conceptual thought, bears no material content, only a formal one - namely, the metalogical rules which constitute the conditions of thought. Therefore, he writes (§28, p.125) ‘mere rational talk thus renders the result of given conceptions clearer, but does not, strictly speaking, bring anything new to light’. I find this thought quite palatable, though (or, perhaps, because) it seems to bear within it the end of first philosophy. Indeed, the student presentation concluded with a criticism that this view of the material emptiness of Reason (i.e. purely conceptual thought) seems to undermine the possibility of transcendent metaphysics of exactly the flavour Schopenhauer will later espouse in his doctrine of the World as Will.
The student presentation also mentioned another criticism of Schopenhauer’s discussion, namely that he doesn’t adequately account for the origins of concepts. This becomes clear when we ask: how do we explain the first abstractions without presupposing concepts such as similar, different, colour, size, shape, etc? If certain concepts are presupposed in our first abstractions, the origin of these still need to be explained. If concepts are not presupposed, then there must be some non-cognitive process taking place to get abstraction going... perhaps some kind of cognitive mechanism? Schopenhauer doesn’t discuss the issue of the first abstractions in this chapter, but I think he’d be quite happy to say that they originate from some mechanical process. This view seems quite compatible with his system in general, with his emphasis on of the embodiment of perception and the intellect, and with his previous claim regarding the continuity of some explanatory chains of knowledge with those of the empirical world. Indeed, I’d be quite happy, prima facie, to accept this basic non-cognitivism, as it seems to sit comfortably with (the little I know of) current views in contemporary science. This discussion reminds me of reading McDowell and Sellars... maybe this is the topic I will write on for the long essay.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
§21-23: ‘Substance = matter = causality’, reason vs cause, laws of nature, inner outer world
Dina began the seminar by re-stating some important questions from last week:
Thoughts on (1b): Schopenhauer needs to retain a distinction between the knower and the known, between mind and world, or between judgement-maker and subject of judgements. Our knowledge claims aren’t true or false merely because we have reasons for them, they must have a truth condition which is (potentially) independent of their warrant.
Thoughts on (2): At the end of §21 (p.97), Schopenhauer writes that ‘causality itself, objectively thought’ is ‘nothing but mere activity in general’. Further, the essence of Matter is ‘action in general’.
So, lets take Matter to be the raw essence of the mind-independent world (the in-itself): a formless, undifferentiated, unity which undergoes changes. Matter is a metaphysical notion, it refers to the universe as a whole; the word is used here almost as a proper noun. In contrast, for Schopenhauer both substance and causality are concepts which pertain only to the world of appearances. What does it mean to identify a thing with two concepts? Well, maybe he’s just being a deflationist here: emphasising there’s no such thing as substance, it’s just a concept. The thing philosophers are groping towards when they talk about substance (as, say, the subject of all predicates) is, simply, Matter. Similarly, there is no such thing [or attribute?] as causality, except in so far as we understand what we experience as causality (e.g. successive events unfolding) to (somehow) arise out of the changes undergone by Matter, at the metaphysical level.
[ Would Kant accept this view of Matter? ] [ Might there be a problem with talking of formless change? Is change a concept? If so, how can we apply it transcendentally? Lastly, isn’t to call Matter formless, undifferentiated, unified, to make positive - apparently unwarranted - metaphysical claims? ]
At the end of the seminar we briefly talked about Schopenhauer on laws of nature. For him [I’m slightly hesitant on this], what we call laws of nature are basically an expression of our experience of the unfolding of the changes undergone by Matter in the past. Presumably they are underwritten by a degree of regularity in the way Matter has manifested itself in the past - it is this which allows us to generalise. I hope we will explore this in more detail when we look at Ch. V tomorrow.
Finally, we briefly looked at §22, ‘Of the Immediate Object’. Schopenhauer says that given some sensations, we apply the causal law to infer the existence of an outside world, distinct from us, as ‘cause’ of these sensations. My first impression is that this is a little weak: can we really apply a law of the understanding before we’ve made the distinction between ourselves and the outer world? Who / what makes the judgement, to what is it applied?
(1a) what is the difference between reason and cause?Thoughts on (1a): While, in the past, reason and cause have been conceived as epistemological and ontological notions (respectively), this is not straightforwardly done within the framework of transcendental idealism. For one thing, ontology is not possible according to this system, so the familiar notion of causality is not taken to apply at the level of ontology. Rather, it is understood as one of the transcendental conditions of experience. That is to say, the notion of causality has its origin in our cognitive faculties; it is one of the formal structures that our Intellect (specifically, in Schopenhauer, our Understanding) imposes upon the world. Hence, it is a ubiquitous feature of the world of appearances: in all cases of change in this world, we may ask ‘what is the cause?’
(1b) why is it important for Schopenhauer to maintain this distinction?
(2) what does Schopenhauer mean when he identifies causality with substance, and matter with substance, thus leaving the three terms synonymous?
Thoughts on (1b): Schopenhauer needs to retain a distinction between the knower and the known, between mind and world, or between judgement-maker and subject of judgements. Our knowledge claims aren’t true or false merely because we have reasons for them, they must have a truth condition which is (potentially) independent of their warrant.
Thoughts on (2): At the end of §21 (p.97), Schopenhauer writes that ‘causality itself, objectively thought’ is ‘nothing but mere activity in general’. Further, the essence of Matter is ‘action in general’.
So, lets take Matter to be the raw essence of the mind-independent world (the in-itself): a formless, undifferentiated, unity which undergoes changes. Matter is a metaphysical notion, it refers to the universe as a whole; the word is used here almost as a proper noun. In contrast, for Schopenhauer both substance and causality are concepts which pertain only to the world of appearances. What does it mean to identify a thing with two concepts? Well, maybe he’s just being a deflationist here: emphasising there’s no such thing as substance, it’s just a concept. The thing philosophers are groping towards when they talk about substance (as, say, the subject of all predicates) is, simply, Matter. Similarly, there is no such thing [or attribute?] as causality, except in so far as we understand what we experience as causality (e.g. successive events unfolding) to (somehow) arise out of the changes undergone by Matter, at the metaphysical level.
[ Would Kant accept this view of Matter? ] [ Might there be a problem with talking of formless change? Is change a concept? If so, how can we apply it transcendentally? Lastly, isn’t to call Matter formless, undifferentiated, unified, to make positive - apparently unwarranted - metaphysical claims? ]
At the end of the seminar we briefly talked about Schopenhauer on laws of nature. For him [I’m slightly hesitant on this], what we call laws of nature are basically an expression of our experience of the unfolding of the changes undergone by Matter in the past. Presumably they are underwritten by a degree of regularity in the way Matter has manifested itself in the past - it is this which allows us to generalise. I hope we will explore this in more detail when we look at Ch. V tomorrow.
Finally, we briefly looked at §22, ‘Of the Immediate Object’. Schopenhauer says that given some sensations, we apply the causal law to infer the existence of an outside world, distinct from us, as ‘cause’ of these sensations. My first impression is that this is a little weak: can we really apply a law of the understanding before we’ve made the distinction between ourselves and the outer world? Who / what makes the judgement, to what is it applied?
§21-23: Schopenhauer's Criticisms of Kant
Patrick’s presentations outlined Schopenhauer’s two main criticisms of Kant. I didn’t understand one of them [ must read about this ], but the other, presented in §23, was convincing. Schopenhauer cites Kant’s looking at house vs watching boat going by the house, and argues, against him, that in both cases, the series of events is determined by the changes of relative position in two bodies. In a nutshell, Kant’s mistake is to neglect the embodied aspect of perception. There is no such thing as ‘mere apprehension’ in which my impressions change, yet nothing objective changes. Looking at the house involves objective changes in my perceiving body. I will write on both Schopenhauer’s criticisms of Kant at greater length sometime soon.
The Fourfold Root, Still 'on the First Class of Objects'
The class started with a presentation by Patrick where he talked about Schopenhauers criticism of the Kantian proof of the a priori nature of causality. Unfortunately I was late, so I didn't get most of lecture. Patrick claimed that Schopenhauer criticised Kants claim, that all sequence is consequence. So for Schopenhauer there was a difference between follow upon - something that pure sensibility could recognize - and follow from, which we would need the law of causality to make sense of.
As much as I agree that follow upon and follow from are definitely not the same thing, I made a suggestion that for Schopenhauer all sequence might be in some sense consequence. Since for him the whole state of the empirical world is caused by the state that preceded it. You can not distinguish between objects in that sense, it is not the hammer that causes the object to go in, it is the state of the empirical world at the time of the hammering that causes the state of the world at the time of the nail going into the wood.
We turned again to the questions of last seminar: (1) Why does Schopenhauer insist on the distinction between cause and reason if he has annihilated ontology, and (2) Why, for Schopenhauer, does causality equal matter and matter equal substance?
If I understood it right, the answer to the first question would be that, reason, or more clearly the principle of sufficient reason, is a cognitive ability of the subject. Cause is just one manifestation of that cognative ability, the one that is manifested in empirical, intuitive representatuions.
Concerning the second question Schopenhauer says that matter “is the residue which remains over after bodies have been divested of their shape and of all their specific qualities,” (96) and this must be identical in all bodies. The only thing that remains is the “mere activity in general” and that is causality. So if you remove both time and space you don't get many different matters, since they are all the same, only a one big blob of action.
A bit further down, Schopenhauer claims that Substance is this same action viewed in abstracto. So if substance is only another way of viewing that action, it as well, is equal with causality.
Then we talked about the two things that causality does not apply to. They are matter and the laws of nature.
Matter, since it is equal with causality, can not be subject to itself, like the eye can not see itself.
I did not quite get the talk about the laws of nature! Could anyone please clear that up, or point out in which part he formulates the thought? Or else I will need read through that stuff again (which would actually be a good, but time-consuming idea)
We also touched on the threefold distinction Schopenhauer makes between different kind of causes in the empirical world. The first one concerns inorganic objects and is simply called cause, the second one is stimuli in organic objects, and the third one is motives in a knowing consciousness, human beings. Someone asked if the motives are not a jump from one class of representation to another and therefore breaking Schopenhauers own rules. I assume we'll get an answer to that soon.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
The Fourfold Root, ‘On the First Class of Objects’, §20-21
Today we focussed on §20 of The Fourfold Root. Schopenhauer begins by stressing that the law of causality (so notions of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’) refers exclusively to changes (undergone through time) in states of affairs, not to objects. Antecedent states cause consequent states, antecedent objects do not cause consequent objects. Objects themselves are never causes or effects. In his words, an effect ‘is a change... which infallibly indicates some other change which preceeds it’ - a cause.
We made a brief aside to consider the notions of substance, matter and cause, as traditionally conceived in Western philosophy. Substance is taken to be the subject of all predicates, that to which properties are ascribed. Matter has been construed as the metaphysical essence of things, persisting eternally. And cause has been taken as an epistemological notion, that which, essentially, our ‘why?’ questions trade upon. ‘Why?’ is often unpacked to mean ‘what cause?’ or ‘what reason?’. Schopenhauer, of course, will emphasis the importance of differentiating between different kinds of ‘why?’.
We discussed Schopenhauer’s identification of (1) causality with matter, and (2) matter with substance. To do so we focussed on the beginning of §20 and the end of §21. Initially, regarding (1), I suggested that we must understand him to mean the experience of causality, not the concept of it. That is to say, the law of causality is evidently not matter. But, to experience a causal chain unfolding is to witness matter - the seething undifferentiated manifold - undergoing change (albeit in a mediated way, in the synthesis of form and matter which comprises a perception). As the discussion continued, I wondered about another way of understanding (1), namely... [ too tired to formulate... will try next week ]
As to (2), the identification of matter with substance comes more naturally to me. I think I’ve failed to properly distinguish the two notions in the past; I’ve been quite happy with the idea that the ultimate subject of all our predicates is simply matter. I guess that makes me a materialist. Even if matter as a whole persists eternally, presumably we must accept that it goes through changes in state.
We made a brief aside to consider the notions of substance, matter and cause, as traditionally conceived in Western philosophy. Substance is taken to be the subject of all predicates, that to which properties are ascribed. Matter has been construed as the metaphysical essence of things, persisting eternally. And cause has been taken as an epistemological notion, that which, essentially, our ‘why?’ questions trade upon. ‘Why?’ is often unpacked to mean ‘what cause?’ or ‘what reason?’. Schopenhauer, of course, will emphasis the importance of differentiating between different kinds of ‘why?’.
We discussed Schopenhauer’s identification of (1) causality with matter, and (2) matter with substance. To do so we focussed on the beginning of §20 and the end of §21. Initially, regarding (1), I suggested that we must understand him to mean the experience of causality, not the concept of it. That is to say, the law of causality is evidently not matter. But, to experience a causal chain unfolding is to witness matter - the seething undifferentiated manifold - undergoing change (albeit in a mediated way, in the synthesis of form and matter which comprises a perception). As the discussion continued, I wondered about another way of understanding (1), namely... [ too tired to formulate... will try next week ]
As to (2), the identification of matter with substance comes more naturally to me. I think I’ve failed to properly distinguish the two notions in the past; I’ve been quite happy with the idea that the ultimate subject of all our predicates is simply matter. I guess that makes me a materialist. Even if matter as a whole persists eternally, presumably we must accept that it goes through changes in state.
The Fourfold Root, 'On the first class of objects', §20-21
Dina ones more empasized the difference between 'cause' and 'reason', which has become quite clear by now. The cause is an ontological term that points out that which brings something else into existence, e.i. answers the question why something is. Reason, on the other hand, is an epistemological explanation of our knowledge of something.
The big question then is: why does Schopenhauer want to keep this distinction after annihilating ontology by claiming that every entity is a subjective representation?
I assume that he must keep the distinction because of the different classes of representations. Cause applies to intuitive representations (the first class), while reason applies to conceptual representations (the second class)
Schopenhauer asserts that causality only applies to change. This change occurs in the state of the empirical world, but not in independent objects. So each state is the effect of the state that preceded, and thus caused, it. Then it seems impossible that this change in the whole of the empirical reality started at some point without a cause. (Nothing is without a cause... or what?
too cheeky? Sorry, I'll continue)
This makes perfect sense since the causality is only a subjective principle of the knowing consciousness. It does not begin or end.
Schopenhauer claims that causality is matter, and matter is substance.
At first (realist) glance it seems as if causality is only a quality of the matter, but in Schopenhauers account it isn't. While time and space are only empty forms, they need matter to fill it up. Matter only appears when the understanding adds the form of causality to the spatio-temporal emptiness.
The second claim made perfect sense to me until we went through the meaning of the concepts in the history of philosophy. Substance corresponds usually to the greek word Ousia, 'that what makes the thing what it is' (roughly essence), while matter has only been referred to as the physical material, that the things are made of. So if you build a house, the wood would be the material but the form of the house the substance. But Schopenhauer doesn't agree with this.
I guess that matter equals substance for him because matter itself is not made up of the three forms but the manifestation of them. Substance, as what makes the thing what it is, is as well nothing but the three forms that we impose on the sensations.
Since both substance and matter are equal to causality, they must also be without a beginning and an end. So matter/substance exists eternally but changes infinitely.
The class ended with a presentation from Kristófer, he talked about the function of the faculty of the understanding. He gets all my respect for plunging into these rather dry chapters. I still find that Schopenhauers focus on sight and touch is too limited. I think we can definitely get some idea of space with only our hearing (and even just smelling, even though it is much poorer), this we can see in the cases of blind people, bats and the comic-book hero Daredevil. But I agree that this doesn't change the main claim that the chapter supports: the sensation needs the understanding, whose form is the principle of sufficient reason, to make perceptions.
Kristján
The big question then is: why does Schopenhauer want to keep this distinction after annihilating ontology by claiming that every entity is a subjective representation?
I assume that he must keep the distinction because of the different classes of representations. Cause applies to intuitive representations (the first class), while reason applies to conceptual representations (the second class)
Schopenhauer asserts that causality only applies to change. This change occurs in the state of the empirical world, but not in independent objects. So each state is the effect of the state that preceded, and thus caused, it. Then it seems impossible that this change in the whole of the empirical reality started at some point without a cause. (Nothing is without a cause... or what?
too cheeky? Sorry, I'll continue)This makes perfect sense since the causality is only a subjective principle of the knowing consciousness. It does not begin or end.
Schopenhauer claims that causality is matter, and matter is substance.
At first (realist) glance it seems as if causality is only a quality of the matter, but in Schopenhauers account it isn't. While time and space are only empty forms, they need matter to fill it up. Matter only appears when the understanding adds the form of causality to the spatio-temporal emptiness.
The second claim made perfect sense to me until we went through the meaning of the concepts in the history of philosophy. Substance corresponds usually to the greek word Ousia, 'that what makes the thing what it is' (roughly essence), while matter has only been referred to as the physical material, that the things are made of. So if you build a house, the wood would be the material but the form of the house the substance. But Schopenhauer doesn't agree with this.
I guess that matter equals substance for him because matter itself is not made up of the three forms but the manifestation of them. Substance, as what makes the thing what it is, is as well nothing but the three forms that we impose on the sensations.
Since both substance and matter are equal to causality, they must also be without a beginning and an end. So matter/substance exists eternally but changes infinitely.
The class ended with a presentation from Kristófer, he talked about the function of the faculty of the understanding. He gets all my respect for plunging into these rather dry chapters. I still find that Schopenhauers focus on sight and touch is too limited. I think we can definitely get some idea of space with only our hearing (and even just smelling, even though it is much poorer), this we can see in the cases of blind people, bats and the comic-book hero Daredevil. But I agree that this doesn't change the main claim that the chapter supports: the sensation needs the understanding, whose form is the principle of sufficient reason, to make perceptions.
Kristján
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
The Fourfold Root, ‘On the First Class of Objects’, §17-20
In §17, Schopenhauer identifies the first class of objects as that of intuitive (as opposed to mere thoughts), complete (both formal and material), empirical representations. This class corresponds with Kant’s empirical reality, the domain of everyday judgement formation and also that of the natural sciences.
We did a close reading of §18, ‘Outline of a Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality’, in order to answer the question of how the representation of empirical objects takes place. Empirically real objects were said to bear the following characteristics: (a) located in space, (b) persist through time, (c) can affect and be affected. [ In this early definition, I see the outline of Schopenhauer’s threefold division of the Intellect’s a priori forms: space, time, principle of sufficient reason ]
According to Transcendental Idealism, the raw matter of experience is first given to us through sensations, as an undifferentiated, formless manifold of feeling. This matter is then given form by the Intellect, in order to generate a perception. The Sensibility imposes the representations of time and space, the former allowing us to perceive a succession of states, the latter allowing us to perceive an arrangement of discrete entities, existing side by side. Schopenhauer defines time as the ‘possibility of opposite states in one and the same thing’. Co-existence is only possible as a synthesis of time and space. [ elaborate ] The Understanding then applies the law of causality, and thus, we proceed from the formless unitary manifold to objective representation.
We looked briefly at §19 and Schopenhauer’s criticism of realism. Key is p.35, where he accuses the realist of upholding an unsustainable distinction between the ‘immediate presence’ of representations to our consciousness and ‘the representation of an all-comprehensive complex of reality.’ Specifically, the realist understands representations in the latter sense to be ‘real’, where, in fact, they are of course, still merely representations. In a slogan, the ‘Realist forgets that the Object ceases to be an Object apart from reference to the Subject’. Objective existence nonsensical without such reference. We will continue to look at this criticism of realism tomorrow.
Kristjan gave an excellent presentation at the end of class. He outlined a familiar criticism of transcendental idealism, namely that its claims about the nature of the knowing subject have to be understood realistically in the transcendental sense, that is, in precisely the sense the system prohibits us from doing. The system’s point of departure is illegitimate according to its own prescriptions. He also mentioned Hamlyn’s criticism of Schopenhauer’s argument for transcendental idealism, which is apparently slightly different from Kant’s, being, I understand, grounded in the distinction he makes later between sensation and perception. [ I’ll be interested to explore this further, indeed, I’d like to clarify this distinction. Are representations of empirical object in time and space ‘sensation’, becoming perceptions only when causality is added by the Understanding? Or is sensation more primal than this, taking place before the processing of the Sensibility? I’d taken it in this latter sense, but Krisjan’s presentation implied the former sense is correct. ]
[ Lastly: I was impressed by Schopenhauer’s deduction of the a priori nature of the law of causality, because I find the definition of objects (above) quite plausible, and it seems to follow pretty easily from this that objective representation presupposes this form of the PSR. I can’t remember the details of Kant’s argument for causality, but I don’t think it was as simple or compelling as this. ]
We did a close reading of §18, ‘Outline of a Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality’, in order to answer the question of how the representation of empirical objects takes place. Empirically real objects were said to bear the following characteristics: (a) located in space, (b) persist through time, (c) can affect and be affected. [ In this early definition, I see the outline of Schopenhauer’s threefold division of the Intellect’s a priori forms: space, time, principle of sufficient reason ]
According to Transcendental Idealism, the raw matter of experience is first given to us through sensations, as an undifferentiated, formless manifold of feeling. This matter is then given form by the Intellect, in order to generate a perception. The Sensibility imposes the representations of time and space, the former allowing us to perceive a succession of states, the latter allowing us to perceive an arrangement of discrete entities, existing side by side. Schopenhauer defines time as the ‘possibility of opposite states in one and the same thing’. Co-existence is only possible as a synthesis of time and space. [ elaborate ] The Understanding then applies the law of causality, and thus, we proceed from the formless unitary manifold to objective representation.
We looked briefly at §19 and Schopenhauer’s criticism of realism. Key is p.35, where he accuses the realist of upholding an unsustainable distinction between the ‘immediate presence’ of representations to our consciousness and ‘the representation of an all-comprehensive complex of reality.’ Specifically, the realist understands representations in the latter sense to be ‘real’, where, in fact, they are of course, still merely representations. In a slogan, the ‘Realist forgets that the Object ceases to be an Object apart from reference to the Subject’. Objective existence nonsensical without such reference. We will continue to look at this criticism of realism tomorrow.
Kristjan gave an excellent presentation at the end of class. He outlined a familiar criticism of transcendental idealism, namely that its claims about the nature of the knowing subject have to be understood realistically in the transcendental sense, that is, in precisely the sense the system prohibits us from doing. The system’s point of departure is illegitimate according to its own prescriptions. He also mentioned Hamlyn’s criticism of Schopenhauer’s argument for transcendental idealism, which is apparently slightly different from Kant’s, being, I understand, grounded in the distinction he makes later between sensation and perception. [ I’ll be interested to explore this further, indeed, I’d like to clarify this distinction. Are representations of empirical object in time and space ‘sensation’, becoming perceptions only when causality is added by the Understanding? Or is sensation more primal than this, taking place before the processing of the Sensibility? I’d taken it in this latter sense, but Krisjan’s presentation implied the former sense is correct. ]
[ Lastly: I was impressed by Schopenhauer’s deduction of the a priori nature of the law of causality, because I find the definition of objects (above) quite plausible, and it seems to follow pretty easily from this that objective representation presupposes this form of the PSR. I can’t remember the details of Kant’s argument for causality, but I don’t think it was as simple or compelling as this. ]
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
Today we looked at the ‘Introduction’ and the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ from Kant’s Critique. Having recapped the distinction between appearances and the in-itself which is characteristic of transcendental idealism, we talked through his most important early distinctions, namely those between analytic / synthetic propositions, a priori / a posteriori justification and necessary / contingent truths. We noted how he stakes the possibility of metaphysics on the question: are synthetic a priori judgements possible? He does this because he thinks metaphysics must deal with substantive, necessary truths about the (mind-independent) world, and accepts, with Hume, that a posteriori justification can never lead to necessary truth. The critical method prescribes that we must approach metaphysics through epistemology, rather than heedlessly embarking upon the former as the ‘dogmatic’ philosophers have done.
We briefly examined Kant’s arguments for the synthetic a priori status of space and time. Dina also flagged how Schopenhauer will reject a large part of Kant’s deduction of the categories, on the grounds that the subject is unknowable. He will preserve only one of the Kantian categories: that of causality, as it is underwritten by the PSR, itself a formal constituent of the Understanding.
We briefly examined Kant’s arguments for the synthetic a priori status of space and time. Dina also flagged how Schopenhauer will reject a large part of Kant’s deduction of the categories, on the grounds that the subject is unknowable. He will preserve only one of the Kantian categories: that of causality, as it is underwritten by the PSR, itself a formal constituent of the Understanding.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Introduction to The Fourfold Root
Today we looked at The Fourfold Root (herein TFR) for the first time. The Principle of Sufficient Reason (herein PSR) can be characterised as the presumption that ‘nothing is without ground or reason why it is’. According to Schopenhauer, such a presumption (at least in local form) is implicit in all attempts at explanation: to ask for an explanation of a state of affairs is to ask for the sufficient reason(s) that bring it about. [ Seems to me that an analytic philosopher will surely endorse this... have any tried to develop a conception of explanation which doesn’t rely on the PSR? Are there questions which don’t presuppose the PSR? For example, questions which don’t admit of, or don’t demand, a definite answer? ]
A sufficient reason X for state of affairs Y is one which brings about Y ( X -> Y). A necessary reason X may be a pre-requisite for state of affairs Y, but not enough, or not sufficient, to bring it about (Y -> X).
Schopenhauer’s aim in The Fourfold Root is to analyse various applications of the PSR. He will suggest that there are four distinct applications of it, which bear important differences. In Ch.2 he surveys the way that previous philosophers have failed to recognise these different applications, and so been led into error. No proof of the PSR is possible: it is the foundation of all explanation, so cannot itself be explained. To seek an explanation of it is ‘especially flagrant absurdity’ (§14).
In §49, Schopenhauer defines necessity as ‘the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited’. To be necessary is just to follow from a given reason. ‘Accordingly’, he writes, ‘every necessity is conditioned’. So, the idea of absolute necessity is contradictory, inconceivable. [ What about definitions like ‘could not have been otherwise’, which seem quite conceivable? ] [ I need to revisit my metaphysics notes... ]
Dina’s question: why does Schopenhauer need to make a distinction between reason and cause, given that he buys into transcendental idealism? My reply: not sure I understand the question, unless she’s simply trying to bring out the importance of maintaining the distinction between the knower and what is known, which requires that the domain about which we form judgements is distinct from, and, in some important sense, independent of, the judgements we make of it.
A sufficient reason X for state of affairs Y is one which brings about Y ( X -> Y). A necessary reason X may be a pre-requisite for state of affairs Y, but not enough, or not sufficient, to bring it about (Y -> X).
Schopenhauer’s aim in The Fourfold Root is to analyse various applications of the PSR. He will suggest that there are four distinct applications of it, which bear important differences. In Ch.2 he surveys the way that previous philosophers have failed to recognise these different applications, and so been led into error. No proof of the PSR is possible: it is the foundation of all explanation, so cannot itself be explained. To seek an explanation of it is ‘especially flagrant absurdity’ (§14).
In §49, Schopenhauer defines necessity as ‘the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited’. To be necessary is just to follow from a given reason. ‘Accordingly’, he writes, ‘every necessity is conditioned’. So, the idea of absolute necessity is contradictory, inconceivable. [ What about definitions like ‘could not have been otherwise’, which seem quite conceivable? ] [ I need to revisit my metaphysics notes... ]
Dina’s question: why does Schopenhauer need to make a distinction between reason and cause, given that he buys into transcendental idealism? My reply: not sure I understand the question, unless she’s simply trying to bring out the importance of maintaining the distinction between the knower and what is known, which requires that the domain about which we form judgements is distinct from, and, in some important sense, independent of, the judgements we make of it.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Introduction to Schopenhauer and German Idealism
Dina began the course by giving a brief overview of German Idealism, outlining how the tradition developed in response to Kant, in particular to his distinction between the world-of-appearance and the world-as-it-is-in-itself (herein: ‘appearance’ / ‘in-itself’ ). Despite the name, transcendental idealism is a form of (intuitive) metaphysical realism which is usually understood to carry minimal ontological commitments (indeed, Kantian epistemology declares ontology impossible). Fichte, Shelling and Hegel criticise Kant for his intuitive realism, claiming that the notion of the in-itself, which exists independently of all minds, should be dispensed with. Their absolute idealism consists in a flat denial of the in-itself. For them, Dina says, ‘epistemology becomes ontology’. [ I'm not sure how to understand this. ]
Schopenhauer accepts Kant’s distinction between the appearances and the in-itself but rejects a key tenet of his epistemology, namely that the in-itself is completely unknowable. He accepts that it cannot be a subject of knowledge in the normal sense, but thinks, contra Kant, that some kind of approach is possible, due to the fact that we, subjects, are ourselves manifestations of the in-itself.
Broadly, the German Idealists are systematic philosophers who held that philosophy should aim at a complete explanation of the world, a final and eternal Weltanshauung. Both Hegel and Schopenhauer sincerely claimed to have achieved this. [ I wonder whether the late Schopenhauer might have retracted this claim: did he really consider the world to be so fundamentally understandable? While I can imagine how this view might come naturally within a Hegelian framework, my current impression is that Schopenhauer’s will is much more formless, blind, dionysian... so if the world really is this way, why should we expect to be able to develop such a comprehensive, unchanging system of thought? Perhaps idealists are just prone to this presumption; the world’s dependency on the mind making the mind’s phenomenal (posited) ability to comprehend it so comprehensively seem less incredible. Nevertheless, given Schopenhauer’s anticipation of Darwinian / Nietzschean themes concerning motivation and the role of consciousness, it would be surprising if he didn’t question this idea. ]
Schopenhauer accepts Kant’s distinction between the appearances and the in-itself but rejects a key tenet of his epistemology, namely that the in-itself is completely unknowable. He accepts that it cannot be a subject of knowledge in the normal sense, but thinks, contra Kant, that some kind of approach is possible, due to the fact that we, subjects, are ourselves manifestations of the in-itself.
Broadly, the German Idealists are systematic philosophers who held that philosophy should aim at a complete explanation of the world, a final and eternal Weltanshauung. Both Hegel and Schopenhauer sincerely claimed to have achieved this. [ I wonder whether the late Schopenhauer might have retracted this claim: did he really consider the world to be so fundamentally understandable? While I can imagine how this view might come naturally within a Hegelian framework, my current impression is that Schopenhauer’s will is much more formless, blind, dionysian... so if the world really is this way, why should we expect to be able to develop such a comprehensive, unchanging system of thought? Perhaps idealists are just prone to this presumption; the world’s dependency on the mind making the mind’s phenomenal (posited) ability to comprehend it so comprehensively seem less incredible. Nevertheless, given Schopenhauer’s anticipation of Darwinian / Nietzschean themes concerning motivation and the role of consciousness, it would be surprising if he didn’t question this idea. ]
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