On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)Schopenhauer, Arthur
Philosophy
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Sufficient reason; Will
The first class of objects possible to our representative faculty, is
that of _intuitive, complete, empirical_ representations. They are
_intuitive_ as opposed to mere thoughts, _i.e._ abstract conceptions;
they are _complete_, inasmuch as, according to Kant's distinction,
they not only contain the formal, but also the material part of
phenomena; and they are _empirical_, partly as proceeding, not from a
mere connection of thoughts, but from an excitation of feeling in our
sensitive organism, as their origin, to which they constantly refer
for evidence as to their reality: partly also because they are linked
together, according to the united laws of Space, Time and Causality,
in that complex without beginning or end which forms our _Empirical
Reality_. As, nevertheless, according to the result of Kant's teaching,
this _Empirical Reality_ does not annul their _Transcendental
Ideality_, we shall consider them here, where we have only to do with
the formal elements of knowledge, merely as representations.
§ 18. _Outline of a Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality._
The forms of these representations are those of the inner and outer
sense; namely, _Time_ and _Space_. But these are only _perceptible_
when _filled_. Their _perceptibility_ is _Matter_, to which I shall
return further on, and again in § 21. _If Time were the only form_
of these representations, there could be no _coexistence_, therefore
nothing _permanent_ and no _duration_. For _Time_ is only perceived
when filled, and its course is only perceived by the _changes_ which
take place in that which fills it. The _permanence_ of an object
is therefore only recognized by contrast with the _changes_ going
on in other objects _coexistent_ with it. But the representation
of _coexistence_ is impossible in Time alone; it depends, for its
completion, upon the representation of _Space_; because, in mere Time,
all things _follow one another_, and in mere Space all things are _side
by side_; it is accordingly only by the combination of Time and Space
that the representation of coexistence arises.
_On the other hand, were Space the sole form_ of this class of
representations, there would be no _change_; for change or alteration
is _succession_ of states, and _succession_ is only possible in _Time_.
We may therefore define Time as the possibility of opposite states in
one and the same thing.
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