thing-in-itself

phenomena

Immanuel Kant

Arthur Schopenhauer

G.W.F. Hegel

First of all, he argued that the very concept of a 'thing in itself,' understood as a mind-independent, external 'cause' of sensations, is indefensible on Critical grounds.

is pace kant, something we can in fact gain knowledge of. The relationship between representation and thing-in-itself can be understood in analogy to the relationship between human will and the human body.

He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body. ' (WIKIPEDIA)

is perhaps not straightforwardly, wholly, and unconditionally will.

It also implies that interpretations which portray him as a traditional metaphysician who claims that the thing-in-itself is straightforwardly, wholly and unconditionally Will, also stand in need of qualification.

is perhaps not wholly identical to the world as will, but it nonetheless includes as its manifestations, the world as will and the world as representation.

In light of this, Schopenhauer sometimes expresses the view that the thing-in-itself is multidimensional, and although the thing-in-itself is not wholly identical to the world as Will, it nonetheless includes as its manifestations, the world as Will and the world as representation. This lends a panentheistic structure to Schopenhauer's view (noted earlier in the views of K.C.F. Krause).

is, despite what Kant says, that about which knowledge is not wholly impossible. It may be available to mystical consciousness.

From a scholarly standpoint, it implies that interpretations of Schopenhauer that portray him as a Kantian who believes that knowledge of the thing-in-itself is impossible, do not fit with what Schopenhauer himself believed.

is the enormous error that there is a true reality behind appearances.

is what we wrongly think we are referencing when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers. But these are mere metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.

We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers... and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. Friedrich Nietzsche

is will, but, it must be qualified that it is only 'to us' that it appears as will, and it could have other modes of being that are incomprehensible in ordinary terms, but which might be accessible to mystical consciousness.

Schopenhauer's position on whether the thing-in-itself is Will consequently presents some interpretive difficulties. In On the Will in Nature (1836/1854), he almost always speaks as if the two are identical. In the second volume of The World as Will and Representation (1844), he addresses the above complication, and qualifies his claim that the thing-in-itself is Will. He states in the 1844 work (reciting manuscript notes from 1821 almost verbatim, so this is not an '1844' or 'later' view) that it is only 'to us' that the thing-in-itself appears as Will and that it remains possible that the thing-in-itself has other modes of being that are incomprehensible in ordinary terms, but which might be accessible to mystical consciousness (WWR, II, Chapter XVIII, 'On the Possibility of Knowing the Thing-in-Itself'). He concludes that mystical experience is only a relative nothingness, that is, when it is considered from the standpoint of the daily world, but that it is not an absolute nothingness, as would be the case if the thing-in-itself were Will in an unconditional sense, and not merely Will to us.

thing in itself, n.Definitions

thing in itself