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. ]