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
Now whether Kant himself was aware or not that his critical solution of
the problem is really a decision in favour of the antithesis, I am unable
to decide. For it depends upon whether what Schelling has somewhere very
happily called Kant’s system of accommodation extended so far; or whether
Kant’s mind was here already involved in an unconscious accommodation to
the influence of his time and surroundings.
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The solution of the third antinomy, the subject of which was the Idea of
freedom, deserves a special consideration, because it is for us very well
worth notice that it is just here in connection with _the Idea of freedom_
that Kant is obliged to speak more fully of the _thing in itself_, which
was hitherto only seen in the background. This is very explicable to us
since we have recognised the thing in itself as the _will_. Speaking
generally, this is the point at which the Kantian philosophy leads to
mine, or at which mine springs out of his as its parent stem. One will be
convinced of this if one reads with attention pp. 536 and 537; V. 564 and
565, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and, further, compares these
passages with the introduction to the “Critique of Judgment,” pp. xviii.
and xix. of the third edition, or p. 13 of Rosenkranz’s edition, where
indeed it is said: “The conception of freedom can in its object (that is
then the will) present to the mind a thing in itself, but not in
perception; the conception of nature, on the other hand, can present its
object to the mind in perception, but not as a thing in itself.” But
specially let any one read concerning the solution of the antinomies the
fifty-third paragraph of the Prolegomena, and then honestly answer the
question whether all that is said there does not sound like a riddle to
which my doctrine is the answer. Kant never completed his thought; I have
merely carried out his work. Accordingly, what Kant says only of the human
phenomenon I have extended to all phenomena in general, as differing from
the human phenomenon only in degree, that their true being is something
absolutely free, _i.e._, a will. It appears from my work how fruitful this
insight is in connection with Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space,
time, and causality.
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