On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition) — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)
Schopenhauer · en
Lastly, a judgment may be founded on the formal conditions of all
thinking, which are contained in the Reason; and in this case its truth
is of a kind which seems to me best defined as _metalogical truth_.
This expression has nothing at all to do with the "Metalogicus" written
by Johannes Sarisberriensis in the twelfth century, for he declares in
his prologue, "_quia Logicæ suscepi patrocinium, Metalogicus inscriptus
est liber_," and never makes use of the word again. There are only four
metalogically true judgments of this sort, which were discovered long
ago by induction, and called the laws of all thinking; although entire
uniformity of opinion as to their expression and even as to their
number has not yet been arrived at, whereas all agree perfectly as to
what they are on the whole meant to indicate. They are the following:--
1. A subject is equal to the sum total of its predicates, or a = a.
2. No predicate can be attributed and denied to a subject at the same
time, or a =-a = o.
3. One of two opposite, contradictory predicates must belong to every
subject.
4. Truth is the reference of a judgment to something outside of it, as
its sufficient reason.
It is by means of a kind of reflection which I am inclined to call
Reason's self-examination, that we know that these judgments express
the conditions of all thinking, and therefore have these conditions
for their reason. For, by the fruitlessness of its endeavours to think
in opposition to these laws, our Reason acknowledges them to be the
conditions of all possible thinking: we then find out, that it is just
as impossible to think in opposition to them, as it is to move the
members of our body in a contrary direction to their joints. If it were
possible for the subject to know itself, these laws would be known to
us _immediately_, and we should not need to try experiments with them
on objects, _i.e._ representations. In this respect it is just the
same with the reasons of judgments which have transcendental truth;
for they do not either come into our consciousness immediately, but
only in _concreto_, by means of objects, _i.e._ of representations. In
endeavouring, for instance, to conceive a change without a preceding
cause, or a passing into or out of being of Matter, we become aware
that it is impossible; moreover we recognise this impossibility to be
an objective one, although its root lies in our intellect: for we could
not otherwise bring it to consciousness in a subjective way. There is,
on the whole, a strong likeness and connection between transcendental
and metalogical truths, which shows that they spring from a common
root. In this chapter we see the Principle of Sufficient Reason chiefly
as metalogical truth, whereas in the last it appeared as transcendental
truth and in the next one it will again be seen as transcendental truth
under another form. In the present treatise I am taking special pains,
precisely on this account, to establish the Principle of Sufficient