The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 12 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 547
If this perception were always as much within our reach as a deduction through syllogisms, then it would be in every respect preferable. For every deduction from concepts is exposed to great danger of error, on account of the fact we have considered above, that so many spheres lie partly within each other, and that their content is often vague or uncertain. This is illustrated by a multitude of demonstrations of false doctrines and sophisms of every kind.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 788
Thus, although every particular action, under the presupposition of the definite character, necessarily follows from the given motive, and although growth, the process of nourishment, and all the changes of the animal body take place according to necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole series of actions, and consequently every individual act, and also its condition, the whole body itself which accomplishes it, and therefore also the process through which and in which it exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the becoming visible, _the objectification of the will_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 800
Knowledge of the identical in different phenomena, and of difference in similar phenomena, is, as Plato so often remarks, a _sine qua non_ of philosophy. But hitherto it was not recognised that every kind of active and operating force in nature is essentially identical with will, and therefore the multifarious kinds of phenomena were not seen to be merely different species of the same genus, but were treated as heterogeneous.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2579
The teaching of this kind which lies nearest to hand is Christianity, the ethics of which are entirely in the spirit indicated, and lead not only to the highest degrees of human love, but also to renunciation. The germ of this last side of it is certainly distinctly present in the writings of the Apostles, but it was only fully developed and expressed later.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1228
When the Platonic Idea appears, in it subject and object are no longer to be distinguished, for the Platonic Idea, the adequate objectivity of will, the true world as idea, arises only when the subject and object reciprocally fill and penetrate each other completely; and in the same way the knowing and the known individuals, as things in themselves, are not to be distinguished. For if we look entirely away from the true _world as idea_, there remains nothing but the _world as will_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 821
The fact is, however, overlooked that the individual, the person, is not will as a thing-in-itself, but is a _phenomenon_ of will, is already determined as such, and has come under the form of the phenomenal, the principle of sufficient reason. Hence arises the strange fact that every one believes himself _a priori_ to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life, which just means that he can become another person.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1356
The very absence of light makes us sad; its return cheers us. Colours excite directly a keen delight, which reaches its highest degree when they are transparent. All this depends entirely upon the fact that light is the correlative and condition of the most perfect kind of knowledge of perception, the only knowledge which does not in any way affect the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 953
It might astonish us that nature never once forgets her laws; that if, for example, it has once been according to a law of nature that where certain materials are brought together under given conditions, a chemical combination will take place, or gas will be evolved, or they will go on fire; if these conditions are fulfilled, whether by our interposition or entirely by chance (and in this case the accuracy is the more astonishing because unexpected), to-day just as well as a thousand years ago, the determined phenomenon will take place at once and without delay.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 549
Or, in other words, the minor term and also the middle can always be subordinated to different concepts, from which we may choose at will the major and the middle, and the nature of the conclusion depends on this choice. Consequently immediate evidence is always much to be preferred to reasoned truth, and the latter is only to be accepted when the former is too remote, and not when it is as near or indeed nearer than the latter.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1091
This _teleology_ is of a twofold description; sometimes an _inner teleology_, that is, an agreement of all the parts of a particular organism, so ordered that the sustenance of the individual and the species results from it, and therefore presents itself as the end of that disposition or arrangement. Sometimes, however, there is an _outward teleology_, a relation of unorganised to organised nature in general, or of particular parts of organised nature to each other, which makes the maintenance of the whole of organised nature, or of the particular animal species, possible, and therefore presents itself to our judgment as the means to this end.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2606
It will be remembered from the Third Book that the æsthetic pleasure in the beautiful consists in great measure in the fact that in entering the state of pure contemplation we are lifted for the moment above all willing, _i.e._, all wishes and cares; we become, as it were, freed from ourselves.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 553
This must seem to us like the action of a man who cuts off his legs in order to go on crutches, or like that of the prince in the “_Triumph der Empfindsamkeit_” who flees from the beautiful reality of nature, to delight in a stage scene that imitates it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2786
75 The further exposition of the philosophy of law here laid down will be found in my prize-essay, “Ueber das Fundament der Moral,” § 17, pp. 221-230 of 1st ed., pp. 216-226 of 2d ed.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2461
Therefore, for example, it is all one, as regards his ethical worth, whether he gives large gifts to the poor, firmly persuaded that he will receive everything tenfold in a future life, or expends the same sum on the improvement of an estate which will yield interest, certainly late, but all the more surely and largely.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 648
Yet to make the first judgment possible, they must all be present, and thus implied as prior to it in the knowledge of the world in the concrete, especially as all direct proof is more certain than indirect proof; their harmony with each other by virtue of which they come together into the unity of _one_ thought, and which arises from the harmony and unity of the world of perception itself, which is their common ground of knowledge, is not therefore to be made use of to establish them, as that which is prior to them, but is only added as a confirmation of their truth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 15
Therefore, as we have said, the first perusal demands patience, founded on confidence that on a second perusal much, or all, will appear in an entirely different light. Further, the earnest endeavour to be more completely and even more easily comprehended in the case of a very difficult subject, must justify occasional repetition. Indeed the structure of the whole, which is organic, not a mere chain, makes it necessary sometimes to touch on the same point twice.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 349
Only in single cases do we pass from the conception to the perception, do we construct images as _representatives of concepts_ in perception, to which, however, they are never adequate. These cases are fully discussed in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 28, and therefore I shall not repeat my explanation here. It may be compared, however, with what is said by Hume in the twelfth of his “Philosophical Essays,” p. 244, and by Herder in the “Metacritik,” pt. i. p.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 352
The principle of sufficient reason has here also a special form. Now we have seen that the form under which the principle of sufficient reason appears in a class of ideas always constitutes and exhausts the whole nature of the class, so far as it consists of ideas, so that time is throughout succession, and nothing more; space is throughout position, and nothing more; matter is throughout causation, and nothing more.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1988
When the will reveals its Ideas in space alone, _i.e._, through mere form, the matter in which other Ideas—in this case natural forces—already reign, resists the will, and seldom allows the form that is striving after visibility to appear in perfect purity and distinctness, _i.e._, in perfect beauty.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2702
The possibility of the freedom which thus expresses itself is the greatest prerogative of man, which is for ever wanting to the brute, because the condition of it is the deliberation of reason, which enables him to survey the whole of life independent of the impression of the present.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1024
They specially called attention to the fact that _polarity_, that is, the sundering of a force into two qualitatively different and opposed activities striving after reunion, which also shows itself for the most part in space as a dispersion in opposite directions, is a fundamental type of almost all the phenomena of nature, from the magnet and the crystal to man himself. Yet this knowledge has been current in China from the earliest times, in the doctrine of opposition of Yin and Yang.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2192
The maintenance of the body through its own powers is so small a degree of the assertion of will, that if it voluntarily remains at this degree, we might assume that, with the death of this body, the will also which appeared in it would be extinguished. But even the satisfaction of the sexual passions goes beyond the assertion of one’s own existence, which fills so short a time, and asserts life for an indefinite time after the death of the individual.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 343
It would, therefore, be absurd to demand that they should be verified in experience, if by experience is meant the real external world, which consists of ideas of perception, or that they should be brought before the eyes or the imagination like objects of perception. They can only be thought, not perceived, and only the effects which men accomplish through them are properly objects of experience.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2385
This is the aim of all systems of religion, for as a whole they are the mythical clothing of the truth which is unattainable to the uncultured human intellect. In this sense this myth might, in Kant’s language, be called a postulate of the practical reason; but regarded as such, it has the great advantage that it contains absolutely no elements but such as lie before our eyes in the course of actual experience, and can therefore support all its conceptions with perceptions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1075
Now if with mere knowledge of perception there arose the possibility of illusion and deception, by which the previous infallibility of the blind striving of will was done away with, so that mechanical and other instincts, as expressions of unconscious will, had to lend their help in the midst of those that were conscious, with the entrance of reason that certainty and infallibility of the expressions of will (which at the other extreme in unorganised nature appeared as strict conformity to law) is almost entirely lost; instinct disappears altogether; deliberation, which is supposed to take the place of everything else, begets (as was shown in the First Book) irresolution and uncertainty; then error becomes possible, and in many cases obstructs the adequate objectification of the will in action.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 678
For as often as a man loses self-command, or is struck down by a misfortune, or grows angry, or becomes faint-hearted, he shows that he finds things different from what he expected, consequently that he was caught in error, and did not know the world and life, did not know that the will of the individual is crossed at every step by the chance of inanimate nature and the antagonism of aims and the wickedness of other individuals: he has therefore either not made use of his reason in order to arrive at a general knowledge of this characteristic of life, or he lacks judgment, in that he does not recognise in the particular what he knows in general, and is therefore surprised by it and loses his self-command.(25) Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction; and, moreover, every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2218
To this is added, in the case of such beings as have knowledge, that the individual is the supporter of the knowing subject, and the knowing subject is the supporter of the world, _i.e._, that the whole of Nature outside the knowing subject, and thus also all other individuals, exist only in its idea; it is only conscious of them as its idea, thus merely indirectly as something which is dependent on its own nature and existence; for with its consciousness the world necessarily disappears for it, _i.e._, its being and non-being become synonymous and indistinguishable.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 528
But even such a truth as this cannot essentially and solely rest upon abstract principles, and the space-relations which lie at its foundation also must be capable of being so presented _a priori_ in pure intuition or perception that the truth of their abstract expression is directly established. But of mathematical demonstration we shall speak more fully shortly.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2278
In accordance with what has been said, wrong and right are merely moral determinations, _i.e._, such as are valid with regard to the consideration of human action as such, and in relation _to the inner significance of this action in itself_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1066
It appears represented by the brain or a large ganglion, just as every other effort or determination of the will which objectifies itself is represented by an organ, that is to say, manifests itself for the idea as an organ.(36) But with this means of assistance, this μηχανη, the _world as idea_ comes into existence at a stroke, with all its forms, object and subject, time, space, multiplicity, and causality. The world now shows its second side.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1285
Here certainly, where it was not a question of calculation and measurement upon hypothetical data, but of direct knowledge by the understanding of causes and effects, this reproach was so utterly absurd and inappropriate, that by making it they have exposed their entire want of judgment, just as much as by the rest of their ridiculous arguments.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2707
For what it calls the _natural man_, to which it denies all capacity for good, is just the will to live, which must be denied if deliverance from an existence such as ours is to be attained. Behind our existence lies something else, which is only accessible to us if we have shaken off this world.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1893
For just as, so long as his knowledge was directed to life as such, he was obliged to recognise immortality in it, so when death is brought before his eyes, he is obliged to recognise it as that which it is, the temporal end of the particular temporal phenomenon.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1198
The Platonic Idea, on the other hand, is necessarily object, something known, an idea, and in that respect is different from the thing-in-itself, but in that respect only. It has merely laid aside the subordinate forms of the phenomenon, all of which we include in the principle of sufficient reason, or rather it has not yet assumed them; but it has retained the first and most universal form, that of the idea in general, the form of being object for a subject.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1381
For, because it affords no object, either favourable or unfavourable, for the will which is constantly in need of striving and attaining, there only remains the state of pure contemplation, and whoever is incapable of this, is ignominiously abandoned to the vacancy of unoccupied will, and the misery of ennui. So far it is a test of our intellectual worth, of which, generally speaking, the degree of our power of enduring solitude, or our love of it, is a good criterion.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2144
It conducts its heroes through a thousand difficulties and dangers to the goal; as soon as this is reached, it hastens to let the curtain fall; for now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show that the glittering goal in which the hero expected to find happiness had only disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was no better off than before. Because a genuine enduring happiness is not possible, it cannot be the subject of art.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2554
And what I have here described with feeble tongue and only in general terms, is no philosophical fable, invented by myself, and only of to-day; no, it was the enviable life of so many saints and beautiful souls among Christians, and still more among Hindus and Buddhists, and also among the believers of other religions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2790
This goes so far that among monotheistic nations atheism or godlessness has become synonymous with the absence of all morality.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1541
This phenomenon, which necessarily accompanies shrieking, derives motive and justification only from the sound produced by means of it; then it is permissible and indeed necessary, as characteristic of the action, even though it interferes with beauty.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2314
Therefore it was already said by Aristotle (De. Rep. iii.): Τελος μεν ουν πολεως το ευ ζην; τουτο δε εστιν το ζῃν ευδαιμονως και καλως (_Finis civitatis est bene vivere, hoc autem est beate et pulchre vivere_). Hobbes also has accurately and excellently expounded this origin and end of the state; and that old first principle of all state policy, _salus publica prima lex esto_, indicates the same thing.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 382
It is surer, because a mistake may more easily occur in such abstract knowledge, or in its application, than that a process of reason should take place which would run contrary to its essence and nature.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1255
It repeats or reproduces the eternal Ideas grasped through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world; and according to what the material is in which it reproduces, it is sculpture or painting, poetry or music. Its one source is the knowledge of Ideas; its one aim the communication of this knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 652
At the commencement of our treatment of reason we remarked, in general terms, how much the action and behaviour of men differs from that of brutes, and that this difference is to be regarded as entirely due to the presence of abstract concepts in consciousness.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2002
Therefore all particular privation for the moment is for us comparatively light, but all renunciation is terribly hard; for the former only concerns the fleeting present, but the latter concerns the future, and includes in itself innumerable privations, of which it is the equivalent. The causes of our pain, as of our pleasure, lie for the most part, not in the real present, but merely in abstract thoughts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2295
From this reason recognised that both in order to diminish the suffering which is everywhere disseminated, and as far as possible to divide it equally, the best and only means was to spare all the pain of suffering wrong by renouncing all the pleasure to be obtained by inflicting it. This means is the _contract of the state_ or _law_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1839
From such knowledge as this proceeds philosophy, like art, and also, as we shall see in this book, that disposition of mind which alone leads to true holiness and to deliverance from the world.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1542
But in plastic art, to which the representation of shrieking is quite foreign and impossible, it would be actual folly to represent the medium of violent shrieking, the distorted mouth, which would disturb all the features and the remainder of the expression; for thus at the sacrifice of many other things the means would be represented, while its end, the shrieking itself, and its effect upon our feelings, would be left out.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1446
On the other hand, _every phenomenon_ of an Idea, because as such it has entered the form of the principle of sufficient reason, or the _principium individuationis_, must exhibit itself in matter, as one of its qualities. So far then matter is, as we have said, the connecting link between the Idea and the _principium individuationis_, which is the form of knowledge of the individual, or the principle of sufficient reason.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 794
Whoever has now gained from all these expositions a knowledge _in abstracto_, and therefore clear and certain, of what every one knows directly _in concreto_, _i.e._, as feeling, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal being, which manifests itself to him as idea, both in his actions and in their permanent substratum, his body, and that his will is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, though it has not as such completely passed into the form of idea in which object and subject stand over against each other, but makes itself known to him in a direct manner, in which he does not quite clearly distinguish subject and object, yet is not known as a whole to the individual himself, but only in its particular acts,—whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction will find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the inmost being of the whole of nature; for he now transfers it to all those phenomena which are not given to him, like his own phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge, but only in the latter, thus merely one-sidedly as _idea_ alone.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1197
For the thing-in-itself must, even according to Kant, be free from all the forms connected with knowing as such; and it is merely an error on his part (as is shown in the Appendix) that he did not count among these forms, before all others, that of being object for a subject, for it is the first and most universal form of all phenomena, _i.e._, of all idea; he should therefore have distinctly denied objective existence to his thing-in-itself, which would have saved him from a great inconsistency that was soon discovered.