The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 28 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 564
They were followed later by the Megarics, the Dialecticians, the Sophists, the New-Academy, and the Sceptics; these drew attention to the illusion, that is to say, to the deception of the senses, or rather of the understanding which transforms the data of the senses into perception, and which often causes us to see things to which the reason unhesitatingly denies reality; for example, a stick broken in water, and such like.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1798
Therefore by the union of these two very different but correct views of music we may arrive at a conception of the possibility of a philosophy of number, such as that of Pythagoras and of the Chinese in Y-King, and then interpret in this sense the saying of the Pythagoreans which Sextus Empiricus quotes (adv. Math., L. vii.): τῳ αριθμῳ δε τα παντ᾽ επεοικεν (_numero cuncta assimilantur_).
The World as Will and Idea, passage 298
The subject must exist along with the object, and the object along with the subject, so that it is impossible that subject and object can stand to each other in a relation of reason and consequent. But Fichte did not take up the smallest fragment of all this. All that interested him about the matter was that the system started from the subject.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2039
He will, therefore, envy many men on account of a position and circumstances which are yet only suitable to their characters and not to his, and in which he would feel unhappy, if indeed he found them endurable at all. For as a fish is only at home in water, a bird in the air, a mole in the earth, so every man is only at home in the atmosphere suitable to him. For example, not all men can breathe the air of court life.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2360
He sees not the thing-in-itself but the phenomenon in time and space, the _principium individuationis_, and in the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason. And in this form of his limited knowledge he sees not the inner nature of things, which is one, but its phenomena as separated, disunited, innumerable, very different, and indeed opposed.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1393
The vastness of the world which disquieted us before, rests now in us; our dependence upon it is annulled by its dependence upon us. All this, however, does not come at once into reflection, but shows itself merely as the felt consciousness that in some sense or other (which philosophy alone can explain) we are one with the world, and therefore not oppressed, but exalted by its immensity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2158
But however much great and small trials may fill human life, they are not able to conceal its insufficiency to satisfy the spirit; they cannot hide the emptiness and superficiality of existence, nor exclude ennui, which is always ready to fill up every pause that care may allow.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1616
If there is absolutely no connection between the representation and the conception signified by it, founded on subsumption under the concept, or association of Ideas; but the signs and the things signified are combined in a purely conventional manner, by positive, accidentally introduced laws; then I call this degenerate kind of allegory _Symbolism_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1232
As soon as knowledge, the world as idea, is abolished, there remains nothing but mere will, blind effort. That it should receive objectivity, become idea, supposes at once both subject and object; but that this should be pure, complete, and adequate objectivity of the will, supposes the object as Platonic Idea, free from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and the subject as the pure subject of knowledge, free from individuality and subjection to the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1252
This almost endless task is lightened by the aid of concepts, which comprehend what is general in order that we may deduce what is particular from it. Lastly, mathematics treats of the mere forms, time and space, in which the Ideas, broken up into multiplicity, appear for the knowledge of the subject as individual.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1420
Therefore, if, for example, I contemplate a tree æsthetically, _i.e._, with artistic eyes, and thus recognise, not it, but its Idea, it becomes at once of no consequence whether it is this tree or its predecessor which flourished a thousand years ago, and whether the observer is this individual or any other that lived anywhere and at any time; the particular thing and the knowing individual are abolished with the principle of sufficient reason, and there remains nothing but the Idea and the pure subject of knowing, which together constitute the adequate objectivity of will at this grade.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 116
In this first book, then, we consider the world only from this side, only so far as it is idea. The inward reluctance with which any one accepts the world as merely his idea, warns him that this view of it, however true it may be, is nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some arbitrary abstraction. And yet it is a conception from which he can never free himself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1884
Indeed this is carried so far that we may say that no one has really a lively conviction of the certainty of his death, otherwise there would be no great difference between his frame of mind and that of a condemned criminal. Every one recognises that certainty in the abstract and theoretically, but lays it aside like other theoretical truths which are not applicable to practice, without really receiving it into his living consciousness.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 275
For he had to show how the first atom departed from the original direction of its motion. Indeed this contradiction, which develops entirely of itself and can neither be escaped nor solved, might quite properly be set up as a chemical _antinomy_. Thus an antinomy appears in the one extreme of natural science, and a corresponding one will appear in the other.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2648
A very noble character we always imagine with a certain trace of quiet sadness, which is anything but a constant fretfulness at daily annoyances (this would be an ignoble trait, and lead us to fear a bad disposition), but is a consciousness derived from knowledge of the vanity of all possessions, of the suffering of all life, not merely of his own.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2101
Thus between desiring and attaining all human life flows on throughout. The wish is, in its nature, pain; the attainment soon begets satiety: the end was only apparent; possession takes away the charm; the wish, the need, presents itself under a new form; when it does not, then follows desolateness, emptiness, ennui, against which the conflict is just as painful as against want.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1278
Therefore the expression of genius in a face consists in this, that in it a decided predominance of knowledge over will is visible, and consequently there also shows itself in it a knowledge that is entirely devoid of relation to will, _i.e._, _pure knowing_. On the contrary, in ordinary countenances there is a predominant expression of will; and we see that knowledge only comes into activity under the impulse of will, and thus is directed merely by motives.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 555
It is only insight into the ground of being that secures satisfaction and thorough knowledge. The mere ground of knowledge must always remain superficial; it can afford us indeed rational knowledge _that_ a thing is as it is, but it cannot tell _why_ it is so. Euclid chose the latter way to the obvious detriment of the science.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1060
If we abstract from all chemical differences in matter, or go so far back in the chain of causes and effects that as yet there is no chemical difference, there remains mere matter,—the world rounded to a globe, whose life, _i.e._, objectification of will, is now constituted by the conflict between attractive and repulsive forces, the former as gravitation pressing from all sides towards the centre, the latter as impenetrability always opposing the former either as rigidity or elasticity; and this constant pressure and resistance may be regarded as the objectivity of will in its very lowest grade, and even there it expresses its character.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 136
Lastly, the ancient wisdom of the Indian philosophers declares, “It is Mâyâ, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals, and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand which the traveller takes from afar for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes for a snake.” (These similes are repeated in innumerable passages of the Vedas and the Puranas.) But what all these mean, and that of which they all speak, is nothing more than what we have just considered—the world as idea subject to the principle of sufficient reason.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1443
§ 43. Matter as such cannot be the expression of an Idea. For, as we found in the first book, it is throughout nothing but causality: its being consists in its casual action. But causality is a form of the principle of sufficient reason; knowledge of the Idea, on the other hand, absolutely excludes the content of that principle.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 711
Mineralogy also, especially where it becomes geology, inclines towards etiology, though it principally belongs to morphology. Etiology proper comprehends all those branches of natural science in which the chief concern is the knowledge of cause and effect.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2364
Just as a sailor sits in a boat trusting to his frail barque in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with the howling mountainous waves; so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual man sits quietly, supported by and trusting to the _principium individuationis_, or the way in which the individual knows things as phenomena.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2547
Asceticism then shows itself further in voluntary and intentional poverty, which not only arises _per accidens_, because the possessions are given away to mitigate the sufferings of others, but is here an end in itself, is meant to serve as a constant mortification of will, so that the satisfaction of the wishes, the sweet of life, shall not again arouse the will, against which self-knowledge has conceived a horror.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 763
For in it a man regards and treats himself alone as a person, and all other persons as mere phantoms. Theoretical egoism can never be demonstrably refuted, yet in philosophy it has never been used otherwise than as a sceptical sophism, _i.e._, a pretence. As a serious conviction, on the other hand, it could only be found in a madhouse, and as such it stands in need of a cure rather than a refutation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 640
The principle of sufficient reason explains the connections of phenomena, but not the phenomena themselves; therefore philosophy cannot proceed upon these principles to seek a _causa efficiens_ or a _causa finalis_ of the whole world. My philosophy, at least, does not by any means seek to know _whence_ or _wherefore_ the world exists, but merely _what_ the world is.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 668
Virtuous conduct appears in it as it were merely by accident, as the means, not as the end. Therefore the ethical theory of Stoicism is in its whole nature and point of view fundamentally different from the ethical systems which lay stress directly upon virtue, such as the doctrines of the Vedas, of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 801
Consequently there could be no word to denote the concept of this genus. I therefore name the genus after its most important species, the direct knowledge of which lies nearer to us and guides us to the indirect knowledge of all other species. But whoever is incapable of carrying out the required extension of the concept will remain involved in a permanent misunderstanding.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 810
If, therefore, we refer the concept of _force_ to that of _will_, we have in fact referred the less known to what is infinitely better known; indeed, to the one thing that is really immediately and fully known to us, and have very greatly extended our knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 606
Only when several of the senses, or it may be all the five, receive impressions which point to the same cause, the possibility of illusion is reduced to a minimum; but yet it still exists, for there are cases, for example, the case of counterfeit money, in which all the senses are deceived. All empirical knowledge, and consequently the whole of natural science, is in the same position, except only the pure, or as Kant calls it, metaphysical part of it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2725
It also agrees quite as accurately with the doctrines and ethical teachings of the sacred books of India, which in their turn are presented in quite different forms.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1619
Such are the beasts of the Evangelist, the owl of Minerva, the apple of Paris, the Anchor of Hope, &c. For the most part, however, we understand by emblems those simple allegorical representations explained by a motto, which are meant to express a moral truth, and of which large collections have been made by J. Camerarius, Alciatus, and others. They form the transition to poetical allegory, of which we shall have more to say later.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 679
All pain rests on the passing away of such an illusion; thus both arise from defective knowledge; the wise man therefore holds himself equally aloof from joy and sorrow, and no event disturbs his αταραξια.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1596
For he is indeed educated and cultured by his predecessors and their works; but he is really fructified only by life and the world directly, through the impression of what he perceives; therefore the highest culture never interferes with his originality. All imitators, all mannerists, apprehend in concepts the nature of representative works of art; but concepts can never impart inner life to a work.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1874
The will, as thing-in-itself, is just as little subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason as the subject of knowledge, which, finally, in a certain regard is the will itself or its expression. And as life, its own phenomenon, is assured to the will, so is the present, the single form of real life.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1775
According to all this, we may regard the phenomenal world, or nature, and music as two different expressions of the same thing, which is therefore itself the only medium of their analogy, so that a knowledge of it is demanded in order to understand that analogy. Music, therefore, if regarded as an expression of the world, is in the highest degree a universal language, which is related indeed to the universality of concepts, much as they are related to the particular things.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2037
Accordingly, the mere will and the mere ability are not sufficient, but a man must also _know_ what he wills, and _know_ what he can do; only then will he show character, and only then can he accomplish something right. Until he attains to that, notwithstanding the natural consistency of the empirical character, he is without character.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2164
But the chapter would have no end, and would carry us far from the standpoint of the universal, which is essential to philosophy; and, moreover, such a description might easily be taken for a mere declamation on human misery, such as has often been given, and, as such, might be charged with one-sidedness, because it started from particular facts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2224
Now we see its terrible side in the lives of great tyrants and miscreants, and in world-desolating wars; now its absurd side, in which it is the theme of comedy, and very specially appears as self-conceit and vanity. Rochefoucault understood this better than any one else, and presented it in the abstract. We see it both in the history of the world and in our own experience.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2216
We have called time and space the _principium individuationis_, because only through them and in them is multiplicity of the homogeneous possible. They are the essential forms of natural knowledge, _i.e._, knowledge springing from the will. Therefore the will everywhere manifests itself in the multiplicity of individuals. But this multiplicity does not concern the will as thing-in-itself, but only its phenomena.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 265
Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction).
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1825
The given point of view, and the method of treatment announced, are themselves sufficient to indicate that in this ethical book no precepts, no doctrine of duty must be looked for; still less will a general moral principle be given, an universal receipt, as it were, for the production of all the virtues. Neither shall we talk of an “_absolute ought_,” for this contains a contradiction, as is explained in the Appendix; nor yet of a “_law of freedom_,” which is in the same position.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 319
And for the consolation of those who in any way and at any time may have devoted strength and life to the noble and hard battle against error, I cannot refrain from adding that, so long as truth is absent, error will have free play, as owls and bats in the night; but sooner would we expect to see the owls and the bats drive back the sun in the eastern heavens, than that any truth which has once been known and distinctly and fully expressed, can ever again be so utterly vanquished and overcome that the old error shall once more reign undisturbed over its wide kingdom.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1385
Yet, so long as the personal pressure does not gain the upper hand, but we continue in æsthetic contemplation, the pure subject of knowing gazes unshaken and unconcerned through that strife of nature, through that picture of the broken will, and quietly comprehends the Ideas even of those objects which are threatening and terrible to the will. In this contrast lies the sense of the sublime.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 300
Thus he repeated the fallacy with regard to the subject, which all the previous dogmatism had perpetrated with regard to the object, and which had been the occasion of Kant’s “Critique”. Fichte then made no material change, and the fundamental fallacy, the assumption of a relation of reason and consequent between object and subject, remained after him as it was before him.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1973
The former, however, the possible modification of knowledge, and through knowledge of conduct, extends so far that the will seeks to attain its unalterable end, for example, Mohammed’s paradise, at one time in the real world, at another time in a world of imagination, adapting the means to each, and thus in the first case applying prudence, might, and fraud, and in the second case, abstinence, justice, alms, and pilgrimages to Mecca.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1584
The _Idea_ on the contrary, although defined as the adequate representative of the concept, is always object of perception, and although representing an infinite number of particular things, is yet thoroughly determined. It is never known by the individual as such, but only by him who has raised himself above all willing and all individuality to the pure subject of knowing.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1802
Thus also the one will outside of time finds its full objectification only in the complete union of all the steps which reveal its nature in the innumerable ascending grades of distinctness. The following analogy is also very remarkable.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 476
On account of the source of this phenomenon, we cannot avoid giving the explanation of it here, though it again interrupts the course of our work to do so. The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 610
For as the logarithm, or the squaring of the circle, approaches infinitely near to correctness through infinite fractions, so, through manifold experience, the induction, _i.e._, the knowledge of the cause from the effects, approaches, not infinitely indeed, but yet so near mathematical evidence, _i.e._, knowledge of the effects from the cause, that the possibility of mistake is small enough to be neglected, but yet the possibility exists; for example, a conclusion from an indefinite number of cases to all cases, _i.e._, to the unknown ground on which all depend, is an induction.