Arthur . Schopenhauer :

Will . and . Representation

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings in this article.

I give a summary of his views that interest me and which clarify the role of science.

He split the understanding of reality into two aspects, those of representation (or idea) and will. In one way, the world is given as a representation to a perceiving subject. In the other way, it is given as the product of will. This duality makes his thinking different from that of Brunton. For Brunton, idea and will are just products of mind and so do not form any basis for a binary theory of reality.

Modelling his view of reality (as representation) on Kant’s view, Schopenhauer accepted that the world of objects lies within the forms of space and time, but that the individual subject does not. Instead, these forms reside in the subject’s consciousness as the innate ground of all perception.

Schopenhauer wanted to know why the world appears the same for everyone. The problem for him is why, when we see only colour and shape in visual perception, we nevertheless manage to construct images in our minds of a three-dimensional physical world.

The answer that he adhered to, showing his Kantian bias, was that causality was an a priori inference. The mind sees colour and shape as an effect and thereby presumes that the cause is a three-dimensional world. The mind’s a priori knowledge of causation creates the idea of the world. A priori knowledge is the same for everyone, as is the process whereby the mind translates the sensory effects into a visual cause. The world becomes the same for all minds. The world thus seen is common to all.

In this perspective of reality, the perception of the world is not the product of experience. The subject’s experience is controlled by the two forms of space and time, and so cannot influence them. Experience arises only from causality and motivation, and hence is relative (in the traditional meaning of the word), always depending on something else. However, the world of objects is the same for everyone, and so cannot be relative. Therefore, the person’s understanding of the world is innate and not acquired by experience.

a priori or Reincarnation

I reject most of Kant’s ideas. In explanatory power a theory of a priori causation is inferior to a theory of reincarnation. Hence I do not use the concept of a priori.

If a person accepts the theory of reincarnation, with its associate theory of karma, then all forms of knowledge of the world can be derived from experience alone. Anything that appears to be innate has actually been learned experientially in previous incarnations. A theory of reincarnation can explain the learning process and why different peoples are at different levels of development (a priori theory cannot explain this unevenness).

If reincarnation theory is rejected then the only framework that can produce a passable explanation of life is one that depends on the concept of a priori knowledge. Nowadays, views on innate knowledge have been updated from the concept of a priori to the concept of genetic determinism. However, I do not accept that genetics applies to mental inheritance ; it applies only to inheritance of physical characteristics. Hence genetics is not a genuine alternative to a priori views.

Both reincarnation and a priori knowledge (as well as genetic ideas on mental inheritance) are metaphysical theories. Either way, metaphysics is bound up with any attempt to understand the world.

In the field of ethics both theories can be abused. Schopenhauer believed that a priori causation applied to morality, so morality became ruled by determinism ; anything that is innate cannot be changed, so the concept of free will was essentially an illusion. Brunton viewed karma as retributive punishment for a person’s past sins ; this view carries a lot of unfairness within it.

Basis of Science

Schopenhauer impressed me in his understanding of the basis of scientific laws and forces.

A typical scientific ‘explanation’ does nothing more than describe the orderly arrangement by which the states of matter appear in space and time. This orderly arrangement is interpreted as a relationship, and produces the concept of causality. Regular and predictable forms of causality are termed laws of nature (for example, Newton’s laws of motion) and govern the interaction of phenomena. Laws are statements of allowable relationships. Describing states of matter, identifying laws of nature and describing causality is the whole field of scientific investigation.

The world is a world of phenomena, and the inner nature of any one of these phenomena is a natural force, such as gravitation or electricity. A law of nature governs the manner in which these forces interact with each other, but gives no understanding of what a force is. We know how electricity acts on matter, but we do not know what electricity is.

Force, by itself, is outside the realm of causality. Causality, as a law of nature, describes only the interaction of forces on states of matter. The inner nature of force remains strange and mysterious to science. For Schopenhauer, force is really a form of an impersonal will. [In my understanding, the impersonal will is the will of that aspect of god that is immanent in matter].

For Schopenhauer, a state of matter is an idea (or representation). Causality is produced by relating an idea to other ideas in a regular manner.

Are objects more than just ideas ? . Is the world only idea (or representation), or is it something more than idea ? . If it is more than an idea, then what is its significance ? . If it has no significance, then it can be no more than an empty dream. If the world is more than idea then it must be very different in its inner nature from the idea. The laws of the idea, that is, causality, must be completely foreign to it.

Laws are only relations ; they do not reflect inner nature. We can never arrive at the real nature of things from outside them. However much we investigate, we can never reach anything but images and names. We have to sense the inner nature from the inside, from the body.

Body as Idea and Will

The body gives us the clue to the puzzle of force. The body can do this because the subject is not a pure observer but is rooted, via his body, in the world of representations. The subject is rooted in what he is perceiving. This situation allows the body to be given in two entirely different ways to the subject. It is given as an idea in his perception, as an object among objects. And it is given as a manifestation of his will.

Every time he wills an action, it appears as a movement of the body. The reverse is also true: any impression on the body is also an impression on the will. This is not cause and effect, but a relation of identity.

The action of the body needs to be understood as the objectification of an act of will, that is, the act of will translated into something that is objectively perceptible. More generally, the whole body is nothing but an objectified act of will, that is, the body is will expressing itself as idea. Schopenhauer expressed this belief in the axiom that the body and the will are one.

Once we realise that will is the inner nature of each person then we have the key to understanding nature. My will manifests itself to me as my phenomenal, or material, body. My body is a part of nature. By analogy, all the phenomena of nature are only manifestations of will (a will that is an impersonal one). The difference between the will in man and the will in nature is only one of degree – the will is the same in both cases.

What is called ‘ will ’ in man is called ‘ force ’ in nature.

The phenomena of nature are objectified acts of an impersonal will, or expressions of that will as ideas. The will itself is objectified into many different grades. The lowest grades of objectification consist of all the various forces of nature : examples are rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, chemical properties. The highest grades are Plato’s Ideas or archetypes: for example, ‘individuality ’.

Will itself is outside of space and time but the process of objectification brings it within these two forms as a force of nature. The function of a law of nature is only to govern the particular kind of change requisite to a situation. A law is now seen to be the relation of a particular objectification of will (that is, a particular force) to the form of its manifestation (its representation, or the way that it appears to us).

Laws mediate between a force and its physical expression.

For example, consider a streak of lightning. Force is represented by electrical charges on the water particles in the rain clouds. The path that the lightning takes is governed by the laws of electrical attraction and repulsion between water particles. Therefore the lightning (which is accumulated electricity) represents the force, and its path (which is the visible manifestation) is determined by the laws of nature.

In my interpretation, laws of nature describe how interaction happens ; forces of nature indicate why interaction happens. In other words, laws of nature (mind) are the ways that forces (will) interact. Mind is the playground of will. This is the significance of the world.

Schopenhauer solved for me my conflict with science. I can now put causality and scientific laws in their proper niche. They are rules that shape the objective aspects of mind. Science cannot lead beyond mind.

Free Will

Schopenhauer was good at metaphysics but not so good at psychology. In his view, motivation is included within the concept of causality, so it is associated with the representation. Acts of will have a reason or a motive, yet the nature of will cannot be explained from these motives. Motives determine only the manner in which the will is expressed. (Therefore the motives are acting like psychological laws ; they are not actually laws since they differ between people).

The will is different from its expressions. Will is outside of space, time and causality. Hence will is outside of motivation. If I put aside the influence of my character and then ask, why do I will this and not that, no answer is possible.

The paradox for Schopenhauer was that the will is free, but the person’s character, and hence motivation, is within the world as idea, and so is subject to causality (and determinism). Therefore a person finds that he cannot change his character, even if he dislikes it.

[Here we have an error in Schopenhauer’s thinking. He had no insight into subconscious motivation ; this was early nineteenth century. What obviously baffled him was that he could not explain his pessimistic disposition ; his theory had to justify the fact that he could not change his pessimism. His psychological limits shaped his philosophy].

Struggle and Conflict

There was another source to his pessimism. It resulted from his view of the will’s activities. The will objectifies itself into forces of various grades, each force following its own blind impulse. Different forces produce different effects on matter, and usually these effects conflict. Therefore there is struggle between the various forces, which results in the lower grades being assimilated so that a higher expression of will can be achieved. There is no victory without struggle and conflict.

The grades of the impersonal will engage in a blind struggle or striving in order to create higher expressions of this will. Eventually consciousness is formed. Nevertheless, even within the animal consciousness, there is still the ceaseless conflict of grades of will. But once man is reached in evolution, reason can take control of the blind and arbitrary will.

However, what must have dismayed Schopenhauer was that, although the will can be controlled, it cannot be changed. Even in man, determinism rules reality. Life, in all its forms, remains a drama of unending struggle and conflict.

Schopenhauer considered that knowledge only applies to ideas, which constitute the world of phenomena, and not to will. However, acts of will require knowledge.
Therefore the will creates for itself an intellect so as to serve it and to allow it to achieve its aims ; the magnitude of that intellect is proportional to the needs of the will.

This was a brilliant insight into the reason why intellectual development and attainments differ in people.

The world as idea can have no existence at all outside the realm of knowledge. Therefore it cannot be ultimately real.

The will itself is free. However, all the manifestations of it have to conform to causality. So he believed that in the world as idea there was no freedom, except one: the freedom to deny the will. The basis of the individual's own will is the impersonal will, which creates endless conflict and struggle. The individual is ruled by determinism and sorrow, and the only way of escape is to turn to asceticism. He considered asceticism to be a higher stage than morality (as I do), and he tried to practise in his life the denial of the impersonal will.

Schopenhauer was one of the three major thinkers who confronted nihilism in the nineteenth century. But his aesthetics and his mundane desires kept him from embracing the nihilism inherent in his thinking.

He thus avoided the psychological fate of Friedrich Nietzsche (who went insane) and the philosophical fate of Max Stirner (who is ignored in traditional philosophy).

Books

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Dover Publications, USA, 1969. In two volumes.

The overall framework of my metaphysics is also outlined in the articles Objective Idealism and Monism and Dualism and End States of Mind.

The articles in this section are :

Subjective Idealism

Criticisms

Will and Representation

Objective Idealism

Copyright © 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

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Ian Heath
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