At the outset, this has both intuitive strengths and weaknesses. Schopenhauer is not talking about our freedom to deliberate, to choose one action over another. He is claiming that behind this power of rationality humans have, underpinning each rational deliberations is this will to maintain life and there is nothing rational to be found in why we decide to pursue this. This seems valid; we seemingly do have some general mindset or tendency installed in us to survive and it is not at all obvious why this is the case. However, there are strong criticisms that Schopenhauer does little in the way of proof to transfer this powerful claim to the claim that the entire world of representation is in fact constituted by such blind forces as the will to live that manifests itself within us. There seems little more then an analogy in this respect.
This paper will examine how Schopenhauer comes to make this powerful claim about the will and evaluate its credibility.
The World as Will and Representation (WWR) begins by echoing the transcendental idealism of Kant, stating that the empirical world is something presented to the mind. Crucially, Schopenhauer distinguishes between the subject – that which has experience – and the object – that which is experienced. Each and every object we have experience of is perceived through the interpretation of our intellect and hence is a representation rather than a thing in itself:
“…everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word, representation” (p.3 WWR)
Schopenhauer continues to stick close to Kant by examining how we come to know the empirical world presented to us. Upon examination into each and every object – each and every representation – presented to the subject, the conditions that a world of objects must satisfy in order to exist are those of space, time and causality. These are the necessary conditions of experience without which there couldn’t be a world for us.
Schopenhauer begins to diverge from Kant by noting that our body is one such individuated object; presented to us in space and time, interacting with other objects according to casual laws. However, “…something in the consciousness of everyone distinguishes the representations of his own body from all others that are in other respects quite like it”. I am aware of the body I “inhabit” in a way that is different to my awareness of other physical bodies. This distinction “…is denoted by the word will”.
This can only be fully understood in context of Schopenhauer’s explicit rejection of dualism. The idea that a mental act is casually connected to a physical act - for example, that I think to extend my hand and then this is what my body consequently does – is misleading; this is just a cause and effect we observe as representation, just as much as we perceive a brick to cause a window to smash. The fact that our mental state is seen to be ‘doing the causing’ - as occupying the role of the brick - is no different since our mind is a physical object – a brain – just as much as the brick is. Schopenhauer’s point is that we know this particular physical object in a more intrinsic sense since we are literally a part of it. Not only do we observe it therefore in action, as an object just like every other object, but we also have an insight into what it is beyond this representational level. Schopenhauer suggests that what we discover is that we act under a force which he terms will. More specifically, a “life force”
“in motivation causality is no longer only externally observed…but actually experienced from within in its effect on the will”
Furthermore, the fact that we think about our act and choose one of a number of actions available to us doesn’t change the fact that we do act; “freedom of deliberation is not freedom from motivation”. And the motivation that underpins our action is that of will. Just as a sun flower grows up and turns its head to greet the sun and strives to grow as tall as possible in order that it is not deprived of sun by taller flowers around it, similarly human organisms strive to sustain life. Our actions are often not impulsive like that of flowers and other non human organisms since as humans we possess the facuclty of reason. However, this is merely a means to achieve the same ends as the flower. Despite our ability to deliberate, we are only deliberating over the action which best suits the will, which best contributes towards the sustenance of our life.
“…the force itself lies outside the domain of the relation between cause and effect; it underlies all casual relation but is not subject to it”
“…there emerges something non-physical, even metaphysical, at the very core of physical reality”
Brain = processes what we see according to principle of sufficient reason: “…the principle is…the epistemological form of the human mind itself…the worlds spatio-temporal appearance is a reflection of our own objectification
= physical object in which force is inherent
manifest = appear
Such mental “causes” There Although for Schopenhauer there exist mental representations, these are entirely physical; they are products of the brain, a material substance which fulfils a function for the human organism and its species.
Willing something is synonymous with the physical act itself
“The act of will and the action of the body are not two different states objectively known, connected by the bond of causality; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect, but are one and the same thing, though given in two entriely different ways, first quite directly and then in perception for the understanding”
“The action of the body is nothing but the act of the will objectified, i.e. translated into perception” [100]
determinism?
physical organism and can hence be explained by the will to live
A mental representation is distinct from the act of willing
This seems initially counter intuitve since often we are faced with situations in which we are torn between a number of actions and can only do one of them
could you regard it is a motivational force rather than a cause of action
So far Schopenhauer has presented an account of the will in us; he then moves to extend this to account for every representation, the entire empirical world is a manifestation of such will.
“Schopenhauer argues that a human being can just as little get up from a chair without a motive to do so than a billiard ball can move on a table before recievieng a push”
This amounts to “…a philosophical leap of faith”.
The essence of the human being is the same of all nature and we are simply doing in a more conscisius rational way what all of anture does
“If therefore the material world is to be something more than our mere representaion, we msut say that, besides being the representation, and hence in itself and of its inmost nature, it is what we find immediately in ourselves as will”
Bibliography
Wicks, Robert, "Arthur Schopenhauer", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2003/entries/schopenhauer/>.
The World as Will and Representaion: Arthur Schopenhauer
Prize essay on the freedom of the will: Arthur Schopenhauer
