The World as Will and Idea — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
The World as Will and Idea
Schopenhauer · German
philosophical interest as the special knowledge of the organisation and
action of reason. It is rightly regarded as a definite, self-subsisting,
self-contained, complete, and thoroughly safe discipline; to be treated
scientifically for itself alone and independently of everything else, and
therefore to be studied at the universities. But it has its real value, in
relation to philosophy as a whole, in the inquiry into the nature of
knowledge, and indeed of rational and abstract knowledge. Therefore the
exposition of logic should not have so much the form of a practical
science, should not contain merely naked arbitrary rules for the correct
formation of the judgment, the syllogism, &c., but should rather be
directed to the knowledge of the nature of reason and the concept, and to
the detailed investigation of the principle of sufficient reason of
knowing. For logic is only a paraphrase of this principle, and, more
exactly, only of that exemplification of it in which the ground that gives
truth to the judgment is neither empirical nor metaphysical, but logical
or metalogical. Besides the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, it
is necessary to take account of the three remaining fundamental laws of
thought, or judgments of metalogical truth, so nearly related to it; and
out of these the whole science of reason grows. The nature of thought
proper, that is to say, of the judgment and the syllogism, must be
exhibited in the combination of the spheres of concepts, according to the
analogy of the special schema, in the way shown above; and from all this
the rules of the judgment and the syllogism are to be deduced by
construction. The only practical use we can make of logic is in a debate,
when we can convict our antagonist of his intentional fallacies, rather
than of his actual mistakes, by giving them their technical names. By thus
throwing into the background the practical aim of logic, and bringing out
its connection with the whole scheme of philosophy as one of its chapters,
we do not think that we shall make the study of it less prevalent than it
is just now. For at the present day every one who does not wish to remain
uncultured, and to be numbered with the ignorant and incompetent
multitude, must study speculative philosophy. For the nineteenth century
is a philosophical age, though by this we do not mean either that it has
philosophy, or that philosophy governs it, but rather that it is ripe for
philosophy, and, therefore, stands in need of it. This is a sign of a high
degree of civilisation, and indeed, is a definite stage in the culture of
the ages.(14)