The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
remain at the conceptions, but go back to their source, thus to perception ; only with the true and important addition that what holds good of the perception also extends to its subjective conditions, thus to the forms which lie predisposed in the perceiving and thinking brain as its natural functions ; although these at least virtualiter precede the actual sense-perception, i.e., are a priori, and therefore do not depend upon sense-perception, but it upon them.
For these forms themselves have indeed no other end, nor service, than to produce the empirical perception on the nerves of sense being excited, as other forms are determined afterwards to construct thoughts in the abstract from the material of perception.
The "Critique of Pure Eeason" is therefore related to the Lockeian philosophy as the analysis of the infinite to elementary geometry, but is yet throughout to be regarded as the continuation of the Lockeian philosophy.
The given material of every philosophy is accordingly nothing else than the empirical consciousness, which divides itself into the consciousness of one's own self (self-consciousness) and the consciousness of other things (external perception). For this alone is what is immediately and actually given.
Every philosophy which, instead of starting from this, takes for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen abstract conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute substance, God, infinity, finitude, absolute identity, being, essence, &c, &c, moves in the air without support, and can therefore never lead to a real result.
Yet in all ages philosophers have attempted it with such materials ; and hence even Kant sometimes, according to the common usage, and more from custom than consistency, defines philosophy as a science of mere conceptions.
But such a science would really undertake to extract from the partial ideas (for that is what the abstractions are) what is not to be found in the complete ideas (the perceptions), :rom which the former were drawn by abstraction. The possibility of the syllogism leads to this mistake, because here the combination of the judgments gives a new result, although more apparent than real, for the syllogism only brings out what already lay in the given judgments ; for it is true the conclusion cannot contain more than the premisses. Conceptions are certainly the material of philosophy, but only as marble is the material of the sculptor.
It is not to work out of them but in them ; that is to say, it is to deposit its results in them, but not to start from them as what is given. Whoever wishes to see a glaring example of such a false procedure from mere conceptions may look at the " Institutio Theologica " of Proclus in order to convince himself of the vanity of that whole method.
There abstractions such as " kv, fr\r)8o<;, ayadov, irapayov kcli irapwyofievov, avrap/ces, aircov, KpeLrrov,Kivr]Tov, aKiv7]rov,Kivovfievov" (unum, mvlta, bonum, producens et productum, sibi suffveiens, causa, melius, mobile, immobile, motum), &c, are indiscriminately collected, but the perceptions to which alone they owe their origin and content ignored and contemptuously disregarded.
A theology is then constructed from these conceptions, but its goal, the 0eo?, is kept concealed ; thus the whole procedure is apparently unprejudiced, as if the reader did not know at the first page, just as well as the author, what it is all to end in. I have already quoted a fragment of this above.
This production of Proclus is really quite peculiarly adapted to make clear how utterly useless and illusory such combinations of abstract conceptions are, for we can make of them whatever we will, especially if we further take advantage of the ambiguity of many words, such, for example, as Kpeirrov.
If such an architect of conceptions were present in person we would only have to ask naively where all the things are of which he has so much to tell us, and whence he knows the laws from which he draws his conclusions concerning them. He would then soon be obliged to turn to empirical perception, in which alone the real world exhibits itself, from which those conceptions are drawn. Then we would onl)
have to ask further why he did not honestly start from the given perception of such a world, so that at every step his assertions could be proved by it, instead of operating with conceptions, which are yet drawn from perception alone, and therefore can have no further validity than that which it imparts to them. But of course this is just his trick.
Through such conceptions, in which, by virtue of abstraction, what is inseparable is thought as separate, and what cannot be united as united, he goes far beyond the perception which was their source, and thus beyond the limits of their applicability, to an entirely different world from that which supplied the material for building, but just on this account to a world of chimeras.
I have here referred to Proclus because in him this procedure becomes specially clear through the frank audacity with which he carries it out. But in Plato also we find some examples of this kind, though not so glaring; and in general the philosophical literature of all ages affords a multitude of instances of the same thing. That of our own time is rich in them.
Consider, for example, the writings of the school of Schelling, and observe the constructions that are built up out of abstractions like finite and infinite — being, non-being, other being — activity, hindrance, product — determining, being determined, determinateness — limit, limiting, being limited — unity, plurality, multiplicity — identity, diversity, indifference — thinking, being, essence, &c.
Not only does all that has been said above hold good of constructions out of such materials, but because an infinite amount can be thought through such wide abstractions, only veiy little indeed can be thought in them ; they are empty husks. But thus the matter of the whole philosophising becomes astonishingly trifling and paltry, and hence arises that unutterable and sxcruciating tediousness which is characteristic of all such writings.
If indeed I now chose to call to mind the way n which Hegel and his companions have abused such vide and empty abstractions, I should have to fear that
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