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.