The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3). Артур Шопенгауэр
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idea, which would then only come afterwards; but all its series must be infinite, i. e., inexhaustible by any idea.
On p. 506; V. 534, Kant tries to prove from the falseness of both sides the transcendental ideality of the phenomenon, and begins, “If the world is a whole existing by itself, it is either finite or infinite.” But this is false; a whole existing of itself cannot possibly be infinite. That ideality may rather be concluded from the infinity of the series in the world in the following manner: – If the series of reasons and consequents in the world are absolutely without end, the world cannot be a given whole independent of the idea; for such a world always presupposes definite limits, just as on the contrary infinite series presuppose an infinite regressus. Therefore, the presupposed infinity of the series must be determined through the form of reason and consequent, and this again through the form of knowledge of the subject; thus the world as it is known must exist only in the idea of the subject.
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.
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.
Kant has nowhere made the thing in itself the subject of a special exposition or distinct deduction; but, whenever he wants it, he introduces it at once by means of the conclusion that the phenomenon, thus the visible world, must have a reason, an intelligible cause, which is not a phenomenon, and therefore belongs to no possible experience. He does this after having assiduously insisted that the categories, and thus causality also, had a use which was absolutely confined to possible experience; that they were merely forms of the understanding, which served to spell out the phenomena of the world of sense, beyond which, on the other hand, they had no significance, &c., &c. Therefore, he denies in the most uncompromising manner their application to things beyond experience, and rightly explains and at once rejects all earlier dogmatism as based upon the neglect of this law. The incredible inconsistency which Kant here fell into was soon noticed, and used by his first opponents to make attacks on his philosophy to which it could offer no resistance. For certainly we apply the law of causality entirely a priori and before all experience to the changes felt in our organs of sense. But, on this very account, this law is just as much of subjective origin as these sensations themselves, and thus does not lead to a thing in itself. The truth is, that upon the path of the idea one can never get beyond the idea; it is a rounded-off whole, and has in its own resources no clue leading to the nature of the thing in itself, which is toto genere different from it. If we were merely perceiving beings, the way to the thing in itself would be absolutely cut off from us. Only the other side of our own being can disclose to us the other side of the inner being of things. This path I have followed. But Kant's inference to the thing in itself, contrary as it is to his own teaching, obtains some excuse from the following circumstance. He does not say, as truth required, simply and absolutely that the object is conditioned by the subject, and conversely; but only that the manner of the appearance of the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject, which, therefore, also come a priori to consciousness. But that now which in opposition to this is only known a posteriori is for him the immediate effect of the thing in itself, which becomes phenomenon only in its passage through these forms which are given a priori. From this point of view it is to some extent explicable how it could escape him that objectivity in general belongs to the form of the phenomenon, and is just as much conditioned by subjectivity in general as the mode of appearing of the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject; that thus if a thing in itself must be assumed, it absolutely cannot be an object, which however he always assumes it to be, but such a thing in itself must necessarily lie in a sphere toto genere different from the idea (from knowing and being known), and therefore could least of all be arrived at through the laws of the combination of objects among themselves.
With the proof of the thing in itself it has happened to Kant precisely as with that of the a priori nature of the law of causality. Both doctrines are true, but their proof is false. They thus belong to the class of true conclusions from false premises. I have retained them both, but have proved them in an entirely different way, and with certainty.
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