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
Aristotle also denies reciprocity in the strict sense; for he remarks that
two things may certainly be reciprocal causes of each other, but only if
this is understood in a different sense of each of them; for example, that
one acts upon the other as the motive, but the latter acts upon the former
as the cause of its movement. We find in two passages the same words:
Physic., lib. ii. c. 3, and Metaph., lib. v. c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και
αλληλων αιτια; οἱον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αὑτη του πονειν;
αλλ᾽ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ὡς τελος, το δε ὡς αρχη κινησεως.
(_Sunt præterea quæ sibi sunt mutuo causæ, ut exercitium bonæ habitudinis,
et hæc exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed hæc ut finis, aliud ut principium
motus._) If, besides this, he had accepted a reciprocity proper, he would
have introduced it here, for in both passages he is concerned with
enumerating all the possible kinds of causes. In the _Analyt. post._, lib.
ii. c. 11, he speaks of a circle of causes and effects, but not of
reciprocity.
4. The categories of _Modality_ have this advantage over all others, that
what is expressed through each of them really corresponds to the form of
judgment from which it is derived; which with the other categories is
scarcely ever the case, because for the most part they are deduced from
the forms of judgment with the most capricious violence.
Thus that it is the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the
necessary which occasion the problematic, assertatory, and apodictic forms
of judgment, is perfectly true; but that those conceptions are special,
original forms of knowledge of the understanding which cannot be further
deduced is not true. On the contrary, they spring from the single original
form of all knowledge, which is, therefore, known to us _a priori_, the
principle of sufficient reason; and indeed out of this the knowledge of
_necessity_ springs directly. On the other hand, it is only because
reflection is applied to this that the conceptions of contingency,
possibility, impossibility, and actuality arise. Therefore all these do
not by any means spring from _one_ faculty of the mind, the understanding,
but arise through the conflict of abstract and intuitive knowledge, as
will be seen directly.
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