Ideas are grades of objectivity of the will

>Ideas are grades of objectivity of the will
What did he mean by that?

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plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer-aesthetics/
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were his eyes erally that color?

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I think they were

Yes

Schopenhauer was pure aryan master race

Yes. A patrician Wolverine.

The mother of originality is a guy named Will.

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Read WWR or check plato.stanford, you dummy

You didn't do the background reading that Schopenhauer demanded, did you?

i dunno user, what did he mean by this?

11 replies and none of you imbeciles could give the OP an answer.
Sorry, OP, I don't know what he meant.

While we can't will what we will, our ideas can approach objectivity?

The will is defined as something 'outside of science', which to my mind sounds fantastic.

Of course you don't know what he meant - you're a fucking moron. OP can easily get his answer if he stops being bloody lazy; if he can't, I doubt he'd understand what Schop meant anyway

Or maybe I simply haven't read Schoppenhauer yet.
Really makes you think.

Can someone give a full list of what one have to read before Schopenhauer?

we want concepts to be as potent and certain as maths is but words and ideas are just place holders serving merely as the unique partial emulation of a concept.

Why does he always look like hes holding back tears?
I mean, look at that picture. His veins are bulging from the pressure and his eyes look wet

>trying to hold a fart when you sitting next to ur crush

A long winded way of saying that ideas are subjective

Sounds like something Joyce would write about.

This is all absolute nonsense. Where does the urge come from to answer questions you're clearly not qualified to answer?

The ideas are the intermediate state between will and representation.

The Greeks (especially Plato) and Kant

no captcha bitches!

Almost forgot the Upanishads, though it wouldn't hurt to check out the Vedas beforehand, and the Mahabarata as well as the Ramayana afterwards

OP here.

You guys are useless.

I figured it out anyway.

In a suggestive metaphor, Schopenhauer likens the Ideas to “steps on the ladder of the objectivation of that one will, of the true thing in itself” (WWR I, 198); if one understands the “ladder”—the ensemble of Ideas—as part of the world as representation, then each Idea—each “step” on the ladder—is a universal perceived in various particular spatiotemporal objects. The Ideas then are the essential features of objects or states of affairs that human beings may perceive when their attention is focussed squarely on the ‘what’ rather than on the ‘why’ or ‘wherefore’ of phenomena. It should be noted, however, that the Ideas are not abstracted by the subject as are concepts on Schopenhauer's view, but are, rather, perceived directly in them. In sum, the Ideas seem to make the most sense within his system as “abstract objects”—objects that are not spatiotemporal, which do not stand in causal relationship with anything, and which have not been abstracted like a concept, but rather, are the real, objective, essential aspects of the world as representation as perceived by a will-less subject (WWR I, 234, 236). The crucial role that they play in Schopenhauer's system is that they are the objects of all aesthetic experience—both of the artist and spectator—and their perception constitutes insight into the essential nature of the phenomenal world.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer-aesthetics/

Shit. Too late

He means Fichte was wrong.

You probably misunderstood.

May as well be a different language. Doesn't make sense to me.


t. pleb

Schopenhauer says:

The will-in-itself is the fundamental being; it is intrinsically without awareness, without self-awareness, without differentiation. To the degree that we can understand or conceive it, philosophy leads us to judge it to be an unconscious urgency independent of time and space - a simple power of striving without any goal, without any objective that stimulates its willing. Its blind willing is inherent, autonomous, essential.

This basic urge manifests as the physical world - the universe of galaxies, planets, rocks, trees, animals, distributed across time and space. This physical world doesn't exist independently of being known by conscious minds; if planets and trees and animals exist, then their existence presupposes a knowing subject that is conscious of their existence - and if a knowing subject exists, then it presupposes objects (planets, trees, animals) to be known. Consciousness requires a subject and an object, a knower and a known, equally and reciprocally; it's absurd to imagine a conscious subject that isn't conscious of any object, just as it's absurd to imagine some object apart from how it's imagined by some conscious subject. Subject and object are both part of the world-as-representation - the world that spatiotemporally manifests the will-in-itself. The will-in-itself does not *cause* the world-as-representation to exist, nor does it *ground* the world-as-representation, as if the latter is something whose existence is separate from the former; rather, the physical universe *is* the will-in-itself, appearing as knower with known, as subjective-spatiotemporal-perceiver with objective-spatiotemporal perception. The will-in-itself and the world-as-representation are two sides of the same Being.

This Being manifests as a multiplicity of phenomena - as a system of innumerable individuals distributed across space and time (to be an individual thing is to be in this *particular place* at this *particular time*, as opposed to that other individual over there and/or in that other time). That is, normal consciousness takes the form of an individual knower who is aware of a universe of multiple individual things; these individual things can be grouped into classes, into species, according to the similar functions that they display (despite their individual differences, all lions show a common essence, all iguanas show a common essence, all sunflowers show a common essence, all quartz crystals show a common essence, all cases of gravitational attraction show a common essence). These common essences - these regular forces, these behaviors that are universally found across the otherwise dissimilar members of their respective classes - display the Ideas.

Ideas are the levels of force in which the will-in-itself manifests as the world-as-representation; that is, one side of Being is the will-in-itself, and the other side of Being is the world-as-representation; the world-as-representation is divided into the various grades of Ideas, and these Ideas are divided (individuated) into the particular objects that occupy individual quadrants of space and moments of time. There is one Idea of Horse, but there are innumerable individual horses that exist across space and time; there is one Idea of Sunflower, but there are innumerable sunflowers that have existed and that will exist; there is one Idea of Gravity, but there are innumerable instances of matter being attracted to other clusters of matter in accordance with the law of gravitation. Ideas cannot be held, sliced, or in any other way measured; rather, Ideas are the basic, indivisible, original metaphysical powers that are broken up by space and time *into* individual objects that can be held, sliced, and in any other way physically measured. The way we recognize Ideas isn't by ordinary seeing, touching, or sensing in any way - but by contemplating natural species, either through perception in art or through conception in philosophy.

When we recognize an Idea, our consciousness is no longer the individual person who desires, plans, enjoys, or flees; rather, to become conscious of an Idea is to be not an individual, bit the universal subject of knowledge, temporarily liberated from the impulses of desire, and apprehending the world-as-representation as objectively, as truthfully, as would any consciousness living at any other time in the world's history. All individual differences of time and place are forgotten when the knowing subject has an Idea as its object - and in this way, art and philosophy can reveal more of the world's truth than can ordinary, or even scientific, knowledge. Knowledge of the Ideas is knowledge of the basic powers that constitute the physical world - but knowledge of these powers, these forces of willing, in their archetypal simplicity, rather than in their ordinary, spatiotemporal multiplicity.

A representation must be a representation-for-a-representer; the representer is the knowing subject, and the representation is the known object, and both are equally elements of the world-as-representation. What, apart from this representation appearance, is representing and represented, is the will-in-itself - undifferentiated in-itself but appearing as representing subject and represented object. When the will-in-itself appears as objectivity-for-subjectivity, it manifests its striving as the graded levels of Ideas - and when these non-spatiotemporal Ideas are refracted into individual physical objects by the spatiotemporal forms of individual subjectivity, the result is the physical universe in its inexhaustible multiplicity.

Quality posts, thanks user.

Why does he uses the word grade (Stufe)? How can Ideas be put on a scale?

He says that more complex Ideas (like the Idea of Man) is more objectified than a basic Idea (like the Idea of Gravity), but how can we put on a scale the Ideas of two different animals? One will not necessarily be more complex or evoluted in all regards; one may be more intelligent and the other more agile.

Putting Ideas on a one-dimensional scale seems too simplistic to me. Why does Schopenhauer do this?

topkek

it means that philosophy is pretentious garbage for sad lonely clowns who look way too deep into completely meaningless things out of a lack of reason for anything productive

hiya Dr. Tyson

>The will is uncontrollable
>Therefore it created the world.

That has to be biggest logical jump between a first and second paragraph that has ever existed.

Schopenhauer himself presents this with more details and rigor, but there still is a certain jump.

I think you've misread them. There isn't meant to be an inference from the essence of the will-in-itself to the existence of the physical universe, as if understanding what the will-in-itself is allows us to understand why it appears as the spatiotemporal world; Schopenhauer doesn't think we can answer the question "why does the will-in-itself manifest in the forms of subject/object, space, time, and causality?" At best, we can maximally decipher the physical world by acknowledging *that* it's all the phenomenon of the noumenal will-in-itself, without our minds being able to understand *how* or *why* this is the case.

Strictly speaking, "how?" and "why?" questions only make sense within the domain of the physical world, connecting one object to another in accordance with the principle of all explanation (the principle of sufficient reason) - a principle that does not extend beyond the domain of objects, as if to link the world of phenomena with anything that is not phenomena. This is why Schopenhauer says

>The will-in-itself does not *cause* the world-as-representation to exist, nor does it *ground* the world-as-representation, as if the latter is something whose existence is separate from the former

because the relations of physical cause/effect and logical ground/consequence are both examples of the principle of sufficient reason. So it's a misinterpretation to say that, for Schopenhauer, the will-in-itself

> created the world

because to create is to be a cause or ground for what is created.

> rather, the physical universe *is* the will-in-itself, appearing as knower with known, as subjective-spatiotemporal-perceiver with objective-spatiotemporal perception. The will-in-itself and the world-as-representation are two sides of the same Being.

Plato and Kant. Upanishads aren't necessary at all.

Gadamn, I need to get around to reading this guy soon. First book by him?

On Colour, then The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Reverse these.

And take him seriously when he tells you to know Plato in advance - and extra seriously when he tells you to know Kant.

>When we recognize an Idea, our consciousness is no longer the individual person who desires, plans, enjoys, or flees; rather, to become conscious of an Idea is to be not an individual, bit the universal subject of knowledge, temporarily liberated from the impulses of desire, and apprehending the world-as-representation as objectively, as truthfully, as would any consciousness living at any other time in the world's history. All individual differences of time and place are forgotten when the knowing subject has an Idea as its object - and in this way, art and philosophy can reveal more of the world's truth than can ordinary, or even scientific, knowledge. Knowledge of the Ideas is knowledge of the basic powers that constitute the physical world - but knowledge of these powers, these forces of willing, in their archetypal simplicity, rather than in their ordinary, spatiotemporal multiplicity.
swoon

"anything productive"
There's a meme in society of some kind of entrepreneurial post-capitalist industrial-scientific "productivity" thing, and they are expressing the meme because they are demi-conscious memebuoys floating on a slurry sea of currents you can only see if you zoom out
It's exhausting even trying to give an answer to this question. You need to like phenomenologically bracket every single word and write a book explaining that they aren't even people. They aren't even conscious. They aren't even having "opinions". STEM people are like robots with human skin stretched over them. To say "they are dismissive of the humanities" is implicitly to admit I think there's a "they". STEM people don't even fucking exist. They are a statistical gaseous nebula of random particles wafting across continents and periodically expressing junk they picked up along the way. Why would you even talk to them?
Talking to a STEMfag is literally like being some kind of Buddha, ascending reality, then coming back down and talking to bees who were dudes in past lives. I'm sure these bee niggas can be saved or whatever, but let's just wait until they're back in human form. Don't walk around going "BEES, STOP BUZZING, PUT DOWN THAT POLLEN, LISTEN TO ME ABOUT HOW EVERY CONCEPTUAL CATEGORY YOU HAVE FOR EVEN THINKING OF THINGS WAS SHAPED FOR YOU BY AN UNCONSCIOUS SLUDGE OF MEMETIC POLYALLOY THAT FLOWS IN PREDICTABLE CURRENTS FROM YEAR TO YEAR THROUGH THE HIVE IN WHICH YOU WERE CONCEIVED"

you didn't write that you butthole

Swan Song

You are an idiot. STEM may not be measurably better than liberal arts, but at least it's measurable.

hiya Dr. Tyson

no u, bad judgement. (You as a person are okay, though.)

If you feel so strongly about your relativism why don't you try walking off a cliff like Pyrrho.

I'm sure we'd all learn a lot from that.

>Believing true objectivity exists in our concept of reality
Well hello there brainlet stemfag :^)

>making Schopenhauer a platonic pantheist

who said anything about relativism?

See
If you believe what you say so strongly, then why don't you show us that you're willing to stand by your belief by reenacting this situation that should be totally acceptable to you?

I'm positive we would. Stay not walking off it. Keep on keeping on.

If you don't have an abject form of relativism, then you risk identifying some "point" to anything, even one thing, toward which one can work to be "productive". I highly doubt you can come up with extenuating circumstances, since I'm about 98% certain in the limited time I have pondered my argument that this is a proof by definition, but I will give you the opportunity to state such extenuating circumstances as they appear to you.

Then your philosophy isn't very "pure". It's more of an ad hoc philosophy. If you can't totally accept walking off the cliff, you can't claim you totally accept relativism, at least as a philosopher.

By the way, I think it's totally fair to ask someone to express their personal philosophy by living by it, and if they claim to be a philosopher, to go at great lengths to show they live by it, and not other competing philosophies. Epictetus, a Stoic, lived as a slave. Diogenes lived in the gutter. More modernly, Richard Stallman is still using his confounded Yeeloong Lemote.

anyone ever tell you that you write like an obnoxious faggot

Thanks! I just hope you guys don't, more subtly of course, "walk yourself off a cliff", so to speak.

>ur crush
MODS

What specifically was incorrect about my description?

This is Schopenhauer's own order.

On Colour could possibly be skipped though. It's an easy essay, but not really needed to read the rest of Schopenhauer's work.

Plato and Kant are indeed required.

Not ""pure"" enough for you. This is dirty philosophy. Enjoy next week.

>stallman
>philosopher

no. Kant tried to define the "Thing in itself" as something outside of phenomena / perception; meanwhile, Schopenhauer identifies the thing-in-itself as striving/desire/intending, or will, being the bridge between mind and body, phenomena and the world at large.

0/10 you stupid fucking summer high schooler who probably didn't even read book 1.

Plato, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant. Bonus points if you read any commentary on Hegelian metaphysics, Liebniz's philosophy, Hobbes, Spinoza, or Nietzsche. A lot of Nietzsche's writing is a response to Schopenhauer's, addressing the meaning of Will.

But that's wrong.

>addressing the meaning of Will

if by this you mean completely fucking redefining "will," then yes.

why can't the Will be the thing-in-itself? even in our own minds, it's our subconscious and unconscious drives that shape our lives and thoughts and feelings. And it's when we're doing things, willing, that we escape the Cartesian dualist problem... seriously bro, have you even read schop?

Well, Nietzsche said the Will to Power was a stronger impulse than the Will to Life. But Nietzsche is more cosmologically in line with Schopenhauer than Hegel, no? Nietzsche also is also on the pessimistic side and hated Nationalism and Christianity, like Schop. Being Romantics, they're concerned with sincerity and liberation as well.

>Well, Nietzsche said the Will to Power was a stronger impulse than the Will to Life

yes

>But Nietzsche is more cosmologically in line with Schopenhauer than Hegel, no?

Hegel and Schop were both monists, Fred said that they were both wrong and there was nothing but the flux: becoming, but no being. process, but no substance.

>Nietzsche also is also on the pessimistic side and hated Nationalism and Christianity, like Schop

fine

>Being Romantics, they're concerned with sincerity and liberation as well

?????

hang on, srry homie. not fine, 2/3 fine: like half of Fred's work is about escaping pessimism and criticising the psychological conditions that give rise to it. can't give you this one either.

my head hurts

My pleasure!

According to Schopenhauer, an Idea occupies a lower or higher level of objectivity according to how fully it manifests the restless self-conflict of the will-in-itself. The Idea of Humanity is highest because humans display maximal destruction of their own members, especially in the forms of warfare and exploitive control of labor; all organisms are suited to find food and mates by their body parts or instincts or other special abilities, but these abilities are all below the (self-)destructive capacities of human intellects.

Personally, I agree about this being simplistic; I think his retaining the ancient/medieval concept of a Great Chain of Being is one of the things that makes his system antiquated, especially since evolutionary theory has blurred the lines between organic kinds (Schopenhauer's own evolutionary hypothesis was less gradualistic than Darwin's). But he does it out of his Platonic influence and affection, and because his aesthetic claims about the objective truth and the disinterested pleasure of artistic contemplation require it.

Schopenhauer recommended reading On Vision and Colors before reading Fourfold Root? That would be unexpected. Where?

>Schopenhauer identifies the thing-in-itself as striving/desire/intending, or will

"Intending" seems like a misleading term, since an intention is some conscious goal (no?), whereas consciousness is additional to willing; will per se doesn't intend to do or be anything.

> being the bridge between mind and body, phenomena and the world at large.

Not totally clear on what this part means - but it doesn't entail that Schopenhauer thought the thing-in-itself was *within* phenomena/perception (in case you were even claiming otherwise). Kant and Schopenhauer agreed that the thing-in-itself could not be known, could not be adequately accessed, by perception of the outer world or by introspection of the self.

Schopenhauer's writing style is usually easy to follow compared to his famous contemporaries - but the underlying nests of concepts are often extremely difficult.

Why we are supposed to listen to this resentful woman-hater, I don't know.

>Schopenhauer recommended reading On Vision and Colors before reading Fourfold Root? That would be unexpected. Where?
Actually, you're right, he doesn't. However, it doesn't matter much for these two essays, as he is constantly repeating himself. I've read it in the reverse order and understood fine (although Fourfold Root of course added much depth to the beginning of On Vision.)

...

Ethics isn't a philosophy?

"It will be very important as we proceed to keep in mind this distinction between the logic we are studying (the object logic) and our use of logic in studying it (the observer's logic). To any student who is not ready to do so, we suggest that he close the book now, and pick some other subject instead, such as acrostics or beekeeping."
-Stephen Kleene

Ethics is philosophy but not everyone talking about ethics is a philosopher.

Ethics is the McDonalds of Philosophy.

What the McFuck are you talking about.

I'm guessing they mean it is plebian or shallow. Stallman is a contributor to discussion in technology but isn't someone I would bring up with the likes of Schopenhauer.

CAN'T ROPE THE SCHOPE
youtube.com/watch?v=kwLPn7CM92w

Why can't philosophers just get normal haircuts?

His awesomeness is a sufficient reason for getting a special haircut, this is known a priori.

bump for later
(yes I know there's the archive. a waaah scientism or waaah women thread will die for this)