The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

The principal objection to the inevitable and essentiai ideality of all objects, the objection which, distinctly or indistinctly, arises in every one, is certainly this : My own person also is an object for some one else, is thus his idea, and yet I know certainly that I would continue to exist even if he no longer perceived me.

But all other objects also stand in the same relation to his intellect as I do ; consequently they also would continue to exist without being perceived by him. The answer to this is: That other being as whose object I now regard my person is not absolutely the subject, but primarily is a knowing individual.

Therefore, if he no longer existed, nay, even if there existed no other conscious being except myself, yet the subject, in whose idea alone all objects exist, ould by no means be on that account abolished. For I yself indeed am this subject, as every conscious being Consequently, in the case assumed, my person would certainly continue to exist, but still as idea, in my own knowledge.

For even by me myself it is always known only indirectly, never immediately ; because all existence as idea is indirect. As object, i.e., as extended, occupying space and acting, I know my body only in the perception of my brain.

This takes place by means of the senses, upon data supplied by which the percipient understanding performs its function of passing from effect to cause, and thereby, in that the eye sees the body or the hands touch it, it constructs that extended figure which presents itself in space as my body.

By no means, however, is there directly given me, either in some general feeling of bodily existence or in inner self-consciousness, any extension, form, or activity, which would then coincide with my nature itself, which accordingly, in order so to exist, would require no

p. 168

other being in whose knowledge it might exhibit itself. On the contrary, that general feeling of bodily existence, and also self -consciousness, exists directly only in relation to the will, that is, as agreeable or disagreeable, and as active in the acts of will, which for external perception exhibit themselves as actions of the body. From this it follows that the existence of my person or body as something extended and acting always presupposes a knowing being distinct from it ; because it is essentially an existence in apprehension, in the idea, thus an existence for another. In fact, it is a phenomenon of brain, just as much whether the brain in which it exhibits itself is my own or belongs to another person. In the first case one's own person divides itself into the knowing and the known, into object and subject, which here as everywhere stand opposed to each other, inseparable and irreconcilable. If, then, my own person, in order to exist as such, always requires a knowing subject, this will at least as much hold good of the other objects for which it was the aim of the above objection to vindicate an existence independent of knowledge and its subject.

However, it is evident that the existence which is conditioned through a knowing subject is only the existence in space, and therefore that of an extended and active being. This alone is always something known, and consequently an existence for another. On the other hand, every being that exists in this way may yet have an existence for itself, for which it requires no subject. Yet this existence for itself cannot be extension and activity (together space-occupation), but is necessarily a being of another kind, that of a thing in itself, which, as such, can never be an object. This, then, would be the answer to the leading objection set forth above, which accordingly does not overthrow the fundamental truth that the objectively given world can only exist in the idea, thus only for a subject.

We have further to remark here that Kant also, so long at least as he remained consistent, can have thought nop. 169 objects among his things in themselves. For this follows from the fact that he proves that space, and also time, are mere forms of our perception, which consequently do not belong to things in themselves. What is neither in space nor in time can be no object ; thus the being of things in themselves cannot be objective, but of quite a different kind, a metaphysical being. Consequently that Kantian principle already involves this principle also, that the objective world exists only as idea.