The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3)Schopenhauer, Arthur
Philosophy
The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3)
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Idea (Philosophy); Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy; Will
absolutely no reason at all; for the immediate perceptions, intuitions,
apprehensions, presentiments of the reason now discovered were as utterly
unknown to them as the sixth sense of the bat is to us. And as far as I am
concerned, I must confess that I also, in my weakness, cannot comprehend
or imagine that reason which directly perceives or apprehends, or has an
intellectual intuition of the super-sensible, the absolute, together with
long yarns that accompany it, in any other way than as the sixth sense of
the bat. This, however, must be said in favour of the invention or
discovery of such a reason, which at once directly perceives whatever you
choose, that it is an incomparable expedient for withdrawing oneself from
the affair in the easiest manner in the world, along with one’s favourite
ideas, in spite of all Kants, with their Critiques of Reason. The
invention and the reception it has met with do honour to the age.
Thus, although what is essential in reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις,
_ratio_, _raison_, Vernunft) was, on the whole and in general, rightly
understood by all philosophers of all ages, though not sharply enough
defined nor reduced to one point, yet it was not so clear to them what the
understanding (νους, διανοια, _intellectus_, _esprit_, Verstand) is.
Therefore they often confuse it with reason, and just on this account they
did not attain to a thoroughly complete, pure, and simple explanation of
the nature of the latter. With the Christian philosophers the conception
of reason received an entirely extraneous, subsidiary meaning through the
opposition of it to revelation. Starting, then, from this, many are justly
of opinion that the knowledge of the duty of virtue is possible from mere
reason, _i.e._, without revelation. Indeed this aspect of the matter
certainly had influence upon Kant’s exposition and language. But this
opposition is properly of positive, historical significance, and is
therefore for philosophy a foreign element, from which it must keep itself
free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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