How difficult is this to read? Should i read another stuff first?

>I should have read Kant first
Yes, you should have. You wouldn't have found Schopenhauer's style hard after reading Kant.

>The sentences are horribly convoluted at times
>I should have read Kant first
>mfw

For real though, Schopenhauer is a masterful stylist. He's rarely convoluted. You probably just don't recognize the concepts since they are all from German Idealism, which Schopenhauer is the tail end of.

I'm reading it and I frankly don't understand it. I didn't do any preliminary reading on the 'will' which obviously makes it confusing.

What's hard to understand? The idea of "will" specifically?

Does this mean Kant is even harder?!?

Schopenhauer was the only German Idealist who could actually write, and he writes damn well. His thoughts are extremely clear. Relatively and objectively.

Random sentence: "To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea."

That reads as pretty convoluted to me & it is quite hard to extract the meaning from it. When it's sentence after sentence like this I find it really hard to follow the thread. There was one bit where he says 'The principle of sufficent reason' three times in a single sentence.

You must have read his intro. Follow the instructions!

Nietzsche pulls this same trick - "to understand me, you must have read ALL of my books (available at your local bookstore now)".

It makes sense that this should aid their greater appreciation; but Shirley they should be understandable on a stand alone basis, at least to a reasonable extent.

Genuine question: Does Schopenhauer only become magically comphrensible if you first read all the other German Idealists, then all his preliminary essays?

Can you provide an example of this?

oppose is a verb here. as in to put in place, to establish against.
"When people say thought physically changes the mind, we can just as well respond by saying that the mind physically changes the world, i.e., representation which forms the subject's knowledge."
This makes sense given you know what Kant's ideas of representation are.

That's a shit translation, btw. It translates Vorstellung as "idea" rather than "representation," which gets incredibly confusing when trying to put Schopenhauer in conversation with any of his predecessors and the way they are translated. You should either read Payne or the new Cambridge edition.

>but Shirley they should be understandable on a stand alone basis, at least to a reasonable extent

Well, that is not really working out, now is it? You don't need to read all German idealists, but don't skip Kant. His dissertation is all about the principle of sufficient reason. There's no real need to read the essays first, but his essay on the freedom of the will is worth reading anyway.

Okay, back to Kant I go then. Can I just read Critique of Pure Reason? & which translation is recommended?

>"When people say thought physically changes the mind, we can just as well respond by saying that the mind physically changes the world, i.e., representation which forms the subject's knowledge."
>This makes sense given you know what Kant's ideas of representation are

You either have not grasped the (rather simple) meaning of the sentence or paraphrased it weirdly.

Not easily. The concepts in German Idealism are dazzling enough that any randomly picked section is going to look like gibberish. That doesn't prove anything but that the philosophy as a whole is difficult.

But go ahead and google some excerpts from Hegel and Kant and compare the structure of their sentences to Schopenhauer. Part of why Schopenhauer reads so well in translation even is because he modeled his German after David Hume's English. He lived in England for some time and did not want to write like a German, because of the notorious difficulty of reading people like Kant and Fichte. He wanted to write nicely.

Noted - thanks for the trans recommends.

So when he's saying 'people say', he means 'Kant says'?

>His dissertation
For the sake of clarification: this refers to Schopenhauer.

It seems to be a very clear sentence to me. To you have troubles with its syntactical form or its content?

Your turn then, if it's so simple.

It may even be better to start with critique of practical reason, as it is more or less about the same (since Kant's whole philosophy was made to rationalise his morals) but lighter on autism.

You can read Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Much shorter and easier.

Yeah I did it lazily and reading it out of context. What I take him to be saying is that to arguments that knowledge tangibly alters the mind, the idealist can reply that the mind alters what constitutes intuited knowledge, or representation, because the mind creates the world (to a certain extent).

Both - I can unpack it/decode it, but its meaning is not immediatly clear. It is a long sentence, with a number of commas, & seems to hinge around describing a negative. I don't have a problem with writing like this per se, but paragraph after paragraph like this becomes incomprehensible to me.

Here is the Payne translation:

"To the assertion that knowledge is a modification of matter there is always opposed with equal justice the contrary assertion that all matter is only modification of the subject's knowing, as the subject's representation."

>It is a long sentence, with a number of commas, & seems to hinge around describing a negative.
Oh boy. You haven't seen shit yet.

That is significantly better actually. I got some version off boosee by R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp which now appears to be utter shite.

Why do you guys read this sort of subjective reckonings?

It seems like a waste of time.

>subjective reckonings
Huh? Say more

Making statements about the nature of reality, based on intuition and subjective concepts.

Because they are astounding clockworks of logic with lots of emotional depth? Because they are part of human history and its attempts to explain the world?

What should I be reading? Let me guess, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking?

>Making statements about the nature of reality, based on intuition and subjective concepts.

Thanks for the laugh chap.

>Making statements about the nature of reality, based on intuition and subjective concepts
As opposed to what, science? It doesn't really make statements about the nature of reality. It describes reality based on a methodology which takes roots in certain branches of philosophy. Every time a scientist tries to describe a _nature_ of reality it turns out to be based on intuition and subjective concepts. Source: QM interpretations.

Moreover, Schopenhauer writes mostly about how humans perceive reality.

>astounding clockworks of logic

Kant's proposed example of ‘simultaneous causality’ is an astounding clockwork of idiocy.

I understand the historical aspect; therefore, if that’s your approach then I get it.

It’s just that they were of course largely ignorant of many things, i.e. electromagnetism.

>Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking

If you want to begin to understand the world around you, then sure; but it’s just a start.

Although Hawking typically only does pop-science books and highly technical publications, whereas Dawkins has published a whole range of texts.

You'll need to move past those if you actually want to gain a thorough understanding of science, though.

No problem lad m8.

I can already tell that you do not have a proper understanding of QM.

I also don't think you know what intuition is.

As you have made the claim here, please provide one example of something in science being based in intuition; a QM interpretation for example.

Please exapnd on your claim.

This is actually another aspect I'm struggling with; I'm continuously wondering whether I'm not just reading complicated verbiage, but irrelevant unscientific verbiage. I've found Nietzsche to be very good, as he talks about artistic struggles etc. and has many elements of a more psychological leaning. When he strays into science/reality topics (as with the eternal return), I find him hopelessly unscientific.

I'm primarily interested in Schopenhauer (& Kant) in relation to their influence on Nietzsche. However, so far, the ideas do seem to be more focused on a pseudo-scientific understanding of reality & perception.

>Kant's proposed example of ‘simultaneous causality’ is an astounding clockwork of idiocy
And Euclid's fifth postulate is bullshit. Let's throw him out.

>I understand the historical aspect; therefore, if that’s your approach then I get it.
It's more than an approach. It's an entire field. If you're expecting people to come out and explain the "value" of the humanities for you then you can fuck right off. Nobody expects anyone to explain the necessity of science. Similarly, I feel no need to explain the existence of an entire sphere of human thought.

>It’s just that they were of course largely ignorant of many things, i.e. electromagnetism.
Ah yes, we can burn Plato's works since he had no clue about electromagnetism. And Galileo's since he didn't know how to replace a transmission. And Newton's for knowing nothing of gravity.

>You'll need to move past those if you actually want to gain a thorough understanding of science, though.
I already have a BS, thanks.

>I can already tell that you do not have a proper understanding of QM
I have a Master's degree in theoretical physics, thank you very much.
>please provide one example of something in science being based in intuition
QM interpretations are based on intuition, since they do not conform to the scientific method: there's no experiment so far designed to discriminate between the two. Like, Copenhagen interpretation sounds like bullshit to everyone, Everett interpretation provides us with infinite versions of reality and thus also sounds like bullshit, pilot-wave shits on locality and so on.

Generally, science, as long as it's proper science, is not based on the intuition indeed. But it answers the question "how does the world works", not "what the world is". It's not designed to seek the nature of reality, it's designed to predict the results of experiments. Scientists, on the other hand, often like to talk and write books about what the nature of reality. But I'd rather read Schopenhauer.

>irrelevant unscientific verbiage

You are unready. Return to your Greeks.

>the ideas do seem to be more focused on a pseudo-scientific understanding of reality & perception.

That's precisely what they are.

If you're studying it for historical context/understanding, then I totally get it but don't expect to be enlightened in any way.

Nietzsche is rather brilliant in many ways, that is until he strays into science.

I like to think of Nietzsche as Europe's first teenager; rebels against the illogical and stifling, but equipped with a deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance in relation to certain areas of thought.

how are they pseudo-scientific?

user, I said that if it was for the purpose of understanding the development of human thought/knowledge/intellect, then I completely get it.

You're mounting a strawman attack here, as I never said 'throw them out', I simply said that they were ignorant of many things and therefore one should not read these authors without having a proper understanding of modern science.

The historical context is invaluable.

>a BS

Lol.

Good for you, user.

Unfortunately during your scientific education you failed to learn the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.

QM interpretations are hypothetical in nature, the majority of which cannot currently be tested due to technological limitations.

You also clearly do not understand what the term intuition means; hypothetical QM interpretations are based in logical reasoning:

>Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired

t. particle astrophysicist

>Pseudoscience is often characterized by the following: contradictory, exaggerated or unprovable claims; over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts in the field; and absence of systematic practices when rationally developing theories.

Don't bother reading if you don't have a very advanced level of german. Translations to Spanish, French and English are beyond terrible.

If you can appreciate the historical value and the development of the general conversation of the world around us, then why are you disparaging such knowledge as if it were null and void?

My apologies for only having a Bachelors. I should have lied and said I had a PhD considering the complete disrespect STEM colleagues have for one another.

Honestly, criticizing Schopenhauerians of all people from an empirical high horse. You know less about the discipline than you think you do.

>hypothetical QM interpretations are based in logical reasoning
You seem to think there's an essential difference between "intuition" and "logical reasoning" in context of forming hypotheses, which is not true: they differ by the amount of rationalisation, but are always based on nothing but our subjective ideas about how the world ought to be. Read Feyerabend's "Against Method"; he's rather extreme and I won't agree with him fully but he illustrates my point pretty well.

For example, I may say that pilot-wave interpretation is shit, which would be my intuition. Or I may say that it forsakes locality and thus it's shit, which would be logical reasoning. But in the latter case I would still hold my intuition of locality being something essential for a theory (which I honestly think it is). You cannot have hypothesis based fully on logic and proven points because it won't be a hypothesis anymore; you always need something arbitrary in it, and this is intuition.

What branch, btw? Neutrino astronomy?

This is kind of the case with Wagner and Nietzsche, as well.

Although, I think that Kaufmann did a good job with Nietzsche.

I'm gonna go ahead and bow out.

I've been here many times before and it only ever ends in agreement after a painfully long chain of arguments, but it typically ends in denial and circular reasoning.

Have fun reading lads.

>You seem to think there's an essential difference between "intuition" and "logical reasoning" in context of forming hypotheses, which is not true: they differ by the amount of rationalisation, but are always based on nothing but our subjective ideas about how the world ought to be.

lol moron

>they differ by the amount of rationalisation

Rationalisation:

>the cognitive process of making something seem consistent with or based on reason

Intuition:

>Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired

>without... conscious reasoning

You can kill yourself now, user.

philosotards attempt to redefine words to defend their arguments all the time.

they're the scum of the earth desu.

Very good.

Yes, exactly. You form the hypothesis based on intuition and then rationalise it, thus making it logical reasoning. That's how humans think, scientists even more so.

>You form the hypothesis based on intuition and then rationalise it

No user, you don't.

Provide one example, right now.

That is literally how I solve problems, like of the scientific-competitions-for-students sort of "provide an example of or prove that it's impossible". You first form an intuitive understanding of whether said shit is possible or not and then try to prove it or construct an example, usually utilising and rationalising the intuitive reasoning that led you to the conclusion in the first place. The hypotheses in real science work in exactly the same way, you first think that something is true and then try to prove it. I'm sure that there's enough examples of that in the biographies of famous scientists.

>you first think that something is true and then try to prove it.

That's called deductive logical reasoning.

Which is not intuition.

You have failed.

Try again.

>you first think that something works in certain way and then try to construct a consistent theory based on what you thought
quick-fix

>you first think that something is true
This is exactly intuition. It precedes the reasoning.

>you first think that something is true

This could be the result of inductive or even abductive reasoning.

Also, you don't think that something is true, you simply take it to be true in order to provide a basis for deductive logical inquiry.

The basis doesn't have to be intuition at all.

>The basis doesn't have to be intuition at all.
Technically, yes, but even in the mathematical problem with two possible bases taking one on random usually increases the effort to solve it, on average. And when it comes to science, the space of hypotheses becomes so big you'd want to be somewhat sure of the thing you try to prove. Hence you seek for the hypothesis you believe, based on intuition, to be true.
>This could be the result of inductive or even abductive reasoning.
Yes. But as these types of reasoning are not strict, there's still intuition hidden inside, in one form or another.

Lolled

I have already read The Republic and other Plato stuff.

Now the question should be: do i have to read some other stuff in order to understand Kant?

>even in the mathematical problem

Math is symbolic logical reasoning; math isn't science.

>Hence you seek for the hypothesis you believe, based on intuition, to be true.

You still do not understand what the term 'intuition' means.

Goodbye, idiot.

>Defends 'intuition' with 'ratio'
... yo, malvolio, we can all see it's you, broh.

I have no idea what you understand as intuition, sure. Apparently, some kind of evil lord that opposes the gods of logic and science. Well, whatever.

Essentially: the naive materialist claims: thought is a modification (or: product) of matter (i.e. of the brain). The transcendental idealist (Schop) claims: matter itself merely exists as idea/representation of a subject (i.e. as a mental picture in the consciousness of a subject).

You're just fucking stupid. Idiot.

Kys lmao.

>being this unscientific

Kys.

>I have no idea what you understand as intuition

That user defined the term and then repeated the definition:

I think you might have a learning difficulty.

Actually, science indicates that consciousness is an emergent property of the organic structure of the brain and that conscious perception as experienced by the individual is an internal simulation.

In this case, our perception of matter is a simulation or as you might put it 'a mental picture in the consciousness of the subject'.

Science deals in the nature of perceivable reality, by attempting to make ever more accurate approximations.

>Lemme just read Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
>Lemme just read Kritik der reinen Vernunft

You fuckin' dummies. This is the philosophical equivalent of trying to bench press 200lbs as a fucking hungry skeleton.

Luckily, as has been already mentioned, Plato/Kant are 90% of all the heavy lifting in (important) philosophy. Don't skip Plato, don't skip Kant - take A LOT of time with both.

Do this, delve into metaphysics. Then jump the fuck out again.

Why? You'll find out when you read in this order:

>Plato
>Kant
>Schopenhauer
>Nietzsche

Nietzsche is essentially the end of metaphysics. He makes the indisputable point that the whole of metaphysics rests upon an unjustified mistrust of our senses' testimony - and that, by rights, we should take our senses at their 'word' - because there is no way to determine, externally of our sensory experience, how inaccurate they may be.

No such thing as knowledge independent of experience, in short.

At least read the SEP entrys on Hume Descarte and Spinoza.

All fine and dandy, but you'd have to take a good look around to find a scientist who believes matter to be *merely* representation (or simulation, if you will).

I'm reading a fair bit of Plato, what dialogues are most important for understanding Kant?

I've got the gist of Form theory (at least, I have an interpretation from what I've read so far) and I see how Socrates makes a good midwife. I'm yet to read the Republic and Timeaus tho.

You're replying to one.

What we refer to as the external reality, just means reality outside our basic sensory perceptions and logically viable concepts, which we discern through indirect observation and experimentation.

That external reality is still dependent on our sensory perception, however.

t. the same particle astrophysicist from earlier posts

All right. What does the discrepancy between our perception of the world and that world as it is in itself (i.e. mind-independently) consist in?

To clarify the term 'external reality' is a more of a heuristic term.

The external reality is still internal, in that it exists in our heads.

Does it exist outside of our perception?

Well, we'll never know that and science deals with perceivable reality anyway.

If we can't perceive it, then it might as well not exist.

This might clear up what seems to be a bit of confusion, in relation to my stance.

>he thinks there's a rigorously defined ontology of electromagnetism

Don't make me laugh please

from Schrodinger wiki

In his lecture "Mind and Matter", he said that "The world extended in space and time is but our representation." This is a repetition of the first words of Schopenhauer's main work.

its not that schopenhauer believes matter is 'merely' representation. it is that it is impossible to know if it is anything but representation. that's the whole point of kantian transcendental idealism. if we can only know matter through our subjectivity then we can only talk about it in relation to that subjectivity. it is impossible for us to say that matter exists outisde the a priori categories of space and time. we cannot know the thing in itself. the thing in itself is one that is uknowable but is differentiated into phenomena through our representation of matter, that is what transmits causality as represented to us.

how can we know the true nature of energy or electromagnetism? they just ARE, to put it crudely. this is what schopenahuer would call the basic grades of Will. we cannot say we have found the smallest particle because our reason revolts against the idea of there not being an infinite divisibility of matter

>Sayings of the Buddha (Oxford Classics Edition)
>The Upanishads Volume 1: Introduction (by Swami Nikhilananda)
Not really necessary, oriental philosophy is so simple that a few lines from Wikipedia will suffice. Do read Plato and Kant.

You're both stating the obvious.

Right, that's what Kant thinks, but Schopenhauer resents Kant for not making the next idealist step and proclaiming that the world of representation is ONLY a world of representation. Schopenhauer is not an adherent of Kant. Kant's transcendental idealism was his starting point, nothing more.

Oh look a strawman.

That's clearly unrelated to what that user said.

Think of Lewis' concept of simultaneous causality that he appealed to, in order to support his belief in God; it's similar to Kant's.

His ignorance of electromagnetism is what undermines his concept and his intellectual credibility.

Start reading the Republic, it has a little bit of everything in it. It's the most "Platonic" of all Plato's dialogues, or so it has been said.

>"let's incorrectly apply a fallacy to a legitimate response because I like to sound smart!"

It's very related. Kant's conception of simultaneous causality has to do with how the world is. For electromagnetism to have any bearing on that, the actual field has to exist as an entity, not as a reified abstraction.

Was this basically Nietzsche's conclusion (as previous user suggested)? Does that mean Kant & Schopenhauer are somewhat irrelevant (outside of historical interest/beauty of clockwork logic etc.)?

That user wasn't talking about Kant when he mentioned electromagnetism, although I see that he was being ambiguous.

He was talking about Lewis.

Now as for Kant and others who have attempted to pedal the simultaneous causality meme...

His ball resting on a pillow existing in that state eternally is not an example of simultaneous causality.

The morphology of both the pillow and the ball have been constant for eternity; therefore, the ball couldn't have caused the indentation.

There was no point at which the pillow changed from state A to state B, nor the ball, as they have existed in their current state eternally.

All Kant and others do is create a hypothetical eternal - static - universe, then apply time dependent abductive logic to the origin of it.

It's entirely fallacious.

Universe X is static and eternal, but we know from our universe that causes precede events and that balls placed on pillows cause indents.

It's just cherry picking aspects from alternate universes until the desired picture is created, regardless of its logical viability.

>Does that mean Kant & Schopenhauer are somewhat irrelevant (outside of historical interest/beauty of clockwork logic etc.)?

No and I made that clear earlier.

I just meant that to read them without a decent knowledge of modern science would be foolhardy.

>its not that schopenhauer believes matter is 'merely' representation

False. That is exactly what he believes.