Understanding Arthur Schopenhauer's Metaphysics– The World as Will & Representation

In his masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

“For if anything in the world is desirable, so desirable that even the dull and uneducated herd in its more reflective moments would value it more than silver and gold, it is that a ray of light should fall on the obscurity of our existence, and that we should obtain some information about this enigmatical life of ours, in which nothing is clear except its misery and vanity.”

 Like many philosophers before him, Schopenhauer proclaimed wonder to be the impetus which impels individuals to philosophize. Yet unlike other philosophers, he maintained that this wonder arises because, simply put, the world is such a wretched place:

“Not merely that the world exists, but still more that it is such a miserable and melancholy world, is the tormenting problem of metaphysics.” (The World as Will and Representation)

 Schopenhauer believed the role of philosophy to be to “lay bare the true nature of the world” (The World as Will and Representation), so as to  shed a ray of light on the darkness of this miserable existence, and in doing so provide consolation for the fragile and finite human animal.

All those who preceded him had failed at this project, according to Schopenhauer, and he believed that he alone had uncovered the true nature of the world.

 In doing so, he saw his philosophy as a great gift to mankind, an oasis of peace in the tragic and wretched  desert of life:

 “Subject to the limitation of human knowledge, my philosophy is the real solution of the enigma of the world.” (The World as Will and Representation)

 Schopenhauer did not envision that his philosophy would attract and be exalted by the masses, instead, he realized that for most individuals the world’s existence is not  a mystery at all:

“The lower a man is in an intellectual respect, the less puzzling and mysterious existence is to him; on the contrary, everything, how it is and that it is, seems to him a matter of course.” (The World as Will and Representation).

 A common philosophical position many of these so-called ‘lower men’ often adhere to, is the belief that the physical world, in the  manner they perceive and experience it,  has an independent existence. This view, as Roger Scruton nicely explains,  is problematic:

“…how can I know the world as it is? I can have knowledge of the world as it seems, since that is merely knowledge of my present perceptions, memories, thoughts, and feelings. But can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of how it seems? To put the question in slightly more general form: can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of my own point of view?” (Roger Scruton, Kant: A Brief Insight).

 The possibility of objective knowledge, or knowledge “that is not merely my own view point of view” has been hotly disputed by philosophers throughout history and this dispute influenced Schopenhauer, so we will briefly outline some of the important viewpoints.

 The  German philosopher G.W. Leibniz, a member of the philosophical school known as  rationalism, believed that through the use of one’s reason it was possible to obtain objective knowledge of the world.  David Hume, an 18th century Scottish philosopher and member of the philosophical school known as empiricism, disagreed with Leibniz. Rather he proposed that all knowledge of the world was obtained through experience and therefore, is always subjective and contaminated, so to speak, by the perspective or point of view of the knower. Objective knowledge, according to Hume, is not possible for human beings.

Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German philosopher who was given the nickname the “all-pulveriser” for supposedly destroying the foundations upon which all philosophies before him had been built, was greatly influenced by the ideas of both Leibniz and Hume. In fact, he claimed that he was aroused from his “dogmatic slumbers” by the ideas of Hume. Kant was very concerned with whether or not it was possible to obtain objective knowledge of the world, and was not satisfied with either the rationalism of Leibniz or the empiricism of Hume. This led Kant to formulate his own position known as “transcendental idealism” which was extremely influential in the development of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Because of the impact Kant had on Schopenhauer we will need to briefly discuss Kant’s ideas before proceeding to Schopenhauer; but as a warning Kant is notoriously difficult to understand and there is still no general consensus as to the meaning of many important aspects of his philosophy.

 An integral distinction Kant made which is essential to understanding transcendental idealism, is between the world as we experience it, which is called the world of appearances or phenomenal world, and the world as it exists independent of our experience, which is  composed of by what Kant called ‘things-in-themselves’. According to Kant we cannot obtain any knowledge of “things-in-themselves”: 

“…what things may be in themselves, I know not, and need not know because a thing is never presented to me otherwise than as a phenomena.” (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)

 It is only the world of appearances which we can know and according to Kant this world is organized or structured by fundamental principles; most notably space and time, which Kant described as  forms of intuition, and causality which Kant called a category of the understanding. Space and time, along with the 12 categories Kant identified, of which causality is but one, structure or make possible our experience of the world. Furthermore, according to Kant space, time and causality are not features of things-in-themselves, or as Christopher Janaway explains it:

“Kant thought that the world of appearance must occupy space and time. It is obviously hard to imagine there not being space or time, but Kant went further and argued that without them there could not be a knowable world at all. A similar point applies to cause and effect, and to the principle that things can endure unchanged through time. The rules of the empirical world are that it must contain enduring things, arranged in space and time, and having systematic effects upon one another. Nothing else, Kant argued, could ever count as an empirical world that we could know. However, his most startling claim is that all these rules are not present in the world as it is in itself. They are all rules simply about how the world must be if we are to be able to experience it.” (Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction, Christopher Janaway).

Upon reading Kant, Schopenhauer underwent what he called an “intellectual rebirth”, and proceeded to use Kant’s core ideas as the foundation upon which he built his own philosophical edifice. Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Kant was that space, time, and causality do not exist in the world but are instead features of our mind which it uses to construct our experience. It should be noted that there is still disagreement as to whether Kant actually meant that these principles were features of the mind, however that is how Schopenhauer interpreted him.

 The world as we experience it is structured by objects arranged in space and time which have causal relationships with other things. Now if space, time, and causality are features of the mind, then it follows, according to Schopenhauer, that  the objects of the world depend on the mind for their existence and that world as we know it is a representation created by our mind. Schopenhauer famously expressed this idealist position by proclaiming: “The world is my representation”.

 Schopenhauer’s idealism, or his belief that all objects of experience are dependent for their existence on the brain, or a knowing subject, was influenced by Kant as well as the famous Irish philosopher George Berkeley. He expressed his idealist position in the following quote:

 “…if accordingly we attempt to imagine an objective world without a knowing subject, then we become aware that what we are imagining at that moment is in truth the opposite of what we intended, namely nothing but just the process in the intellect of a knowing being who perceives an objective world, that is to say, precisely that which we had sought to exclude. For this perceptible and real world is obviously a phenomenon of the brain; and so in the assumption that the world as such might exist independently of all brains there lies a contradiction.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation).

 While Schopenhauer agreed with the fundamental tenets of Kant’s ideas, he also believed that there was a major inconsistency which lay at the heart of his philosophy. Although Kant claimed we can never come to know the nature of reality ‘in-itself’, he thought there must be something which exists independently of us that is the cause of our representations, or the world that appears to us.  If such a postulation is not made, Kant reasoned, then one would have to arrive at the absurd conclusion that our representations of the world arise out of nothing.

 Kant proposed the existence of mind-independent, or what he called ‘transcendental’ objects which are the cause of our representations, but which we can never ascertain the nature of. Yet this made no sense to Schopenhauer as according to his interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism space, time, and causality are features of the mind. This means it makes no sense to speak of ‘things-in-themselves’ causing our experience, as causation requires a knowing subject. In a similar manner, since objects can only exist within space and time, and because space and time also require a knowing subject, it also makes no sense to speak of objects which exist in an independent manner.

“…the being of an object in general belongs to the form of appearances, and is conditioned by the being of the subject in general, just as the object’s manner of appearance is conditioned by the subject’s forms of knowledge. Hence, if the thing in itself is to be assumed, it cannot be an object at all.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Schopenhauer, however, did not disagree with Kant that there must be some substratum underlying our experience of the phenomenal world. Yet he did not think that we could arrive at knowledge of such a substratum by gazing outward at the objects of our experience:

“…on the path of objective knowledge, thus starting from the representation, we shall never get beyond the representation, i.e. the phenomenon. We shall therefore remain at the outside of things: we shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature, and investigate what they are in themselves, in other words, what they may be by themselves.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation).

Schopenhauer thought that the philosophical task of laying bare the true inner nature of the world would be impossible were in not for the fact that there is one object in the world which we experience from within – that being,  our own body:

 “Consequently, a way from within stands open to us to that real inner nature of things to which we cannot penetrate from without. It is, so to speak, a subterranean passage, a secret alliance, which, as if by treachery, places us all at once in the fortress that cannot be taken by attack from without.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

When we direct our awareness inward, Schopenhauer claimed we would discover at the core of our being an unconscious instinct or force characterized by a restless striving. This force at the core of our being Schopenhauer called ‘will’. In fact, Schopenhauer thought that our body was a manifestation of will, so that our body and will are really one and the same thing presented to us in two different way: our body is presented to us in the form of representations, and our will is presented via direct inner experience. Since he proposed that we can most clearly intuit the raw desire that is the will within us during the sexual act and when our survival instincts are activated,  he also called it the ‘will-to-live’.

 Although our body is the only object in the world which we have inner access to, Schopenhauer thought that because it is apparent that all life strives fundamentally towards survival,  nourishment, and propagation, it was justified to assert that all life forms are similar to us in that they are also manifestations of the will-to-live, or will:

“Everything presses and strives towards existence…Let any one consider this universal desire for life, let him see the infinite willingness, facility, and exuberance with which the will to live presses impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment…In such phenomena, then, it becomes visible that I am right in declaring that the will to live is that which cannot be further explained, but lies at the foundation of all explanation…” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Schopenhauer didn’t think it was appropriate to claim that only organic life was the manifestation of will but not inorganic nature. Doing so would introduce into the world an unnecessary divide between the organic and inorganic. Instead, Schopenhauer claimed that not only is will the true inner nature of all life forms, but of everything that exists.  It is, as he wrote, “the kernel of reality itself”.

“We must therefore also apply the key for an understanding of the inner nature of things, a key that only the immediate knowledge of our own inner nature could give us, to these phenomena of the inorganic world, which are the most remote of all from us…For this word indicates that which is the being-in-itself of everything in the world, and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Since everything in this world, organic and inorganic alike, is a manifestation of will, at its core everything is one with everything else; the separateness of all things is nothing but an illusion. This conclusion of Schopenhauer’s in many ways parallels that found in the Upanishads, the text which founds the basis of Hinduism: “This thou art”. The perceiver and the perceived are one. While Schopenhauer is known to have studied Eastern philosophy, he arrived at this position independently prior to being acquainted with the Upanishads.

Certain philosophers throughout history, perhaps most notably Spinoza, have ascribed to pantheism and claimed that this world is the manifestation of a divine and benevolent God. As an atheist, Schopenhauer thought the pantheist position to be ludicrous, for he proclaimed that if the pantheist opened his eyes to the misery of the world he would “have to admit that a God who should presume to transform himself into such a world would certainly have been inevitably troubled and tormented by the devil.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Instead of being a manifestation of God, Schopenhauer thought the world is a manifestation of will, which is a blind impulse or force which is not divine or benevolent,  but ‘demonic’. As manifestations of will, all life blindly strives towards nourishment and propagation. However,  since organisms must feed on other organisms to nourish themselves, and all organisms are manifestations of will, Schopenhauer concluded that “the will must live on itself, for there exists nothing beside it, and it is a hungry will.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

In order to convey the pain and horror which arises when the manifestations of will feed on each other, Schopenhauer conveys a striking image by rendering in his own words an account given by a European explorer.

Schopenhauer describes how the explorer saw “an immense field entirely covered with skeletons, and took it to be a battlefield. However they were nothing but skeletons of large turtles, five feet long, three feet broad, and of equal height. These turtles come this way from the sea, in order to lay their eggs, and are then seized by wild dogs; with their united strength, these dogs lay them on their backs, tear open their lower armor, the small scales of the belly, and devour them alive. But then a tiger often pounces on the dogs. Now all this misery is repeated thousands and thousands of times, year in, year out. For this then, are these turtles born. For what offence must they suffer this agony? What is the point of the whole scene of horror? The only answer is that the will to live thus objectifies itself.” (Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

 ----------Academy of Ideas

What is a dogmatic slumber?

I find it amusing and at the same time odd that when you introduce the subject of metaphysics to people, a lot of them say that their approach to life is scientific, as distinct from metaphysical, and that metaphysics is nonsense anyway. But they fail to realize that everybody, by virtue of being a human being, is a metaphysician. That is to say, everybody starts from certain fundamental assumptions such as to what is the good life, what are his her personal principles for living, what are his views about the social landscape in which he exists and so on.

Scientists in particular, generally tend to be blind to these fundamental assumptions. They tend to feel that they are scientists, and having the status of being "scientific" is fashionable in our age. But, you know, it’s so amusing. Let’s take psychoanalysis for example – as pointed out to many philosophers (like Nietzsche) that their philosophical ideas are capable of being shown to have a psychoanalytic reference. For example, John Wisdom wrote a book about the philosophy of George Berkeley, in which he attributed a great deal of his point of view to his experiences at toilet training as a child. The philosopher is very grateful to the psychoanalyst for revealing to him his unconscious and its emotional contents, but the psychoanalyst must in turn await a revelation from the philosopher as to his philosophical unconscious and the unexamined assumptions which lie in it. However, to me it seems many scientists are not willing to open up to such an exchange of ideas.

Such an attitude towards metaphysics in this scientific age has generally resulted in what has been labelled "a dogmatic slumber". A dogmatic slumber is that easy and comfortable state of resting on one's unexamined assumptions. But who can blame someone who lives by a dogmatic slumber? After-all a dogmatic slumber has been shown in multiple studies to be greatly desirable for promoting health of mind and body. Moreover, most people have little trouble achieving this dogmatic state, and indeed many are seldom roused from it. If, however, you are one of those miserable unfortunates who suffer from dogmatic insomnia, or a perpetual restless examination of what most people take for granted, welcome to the club - you are not alone. Every generation has its unfortunates.

The works of David Hume are frequently blamed in cases of dogmatic insomnia, but unjustly so. The problem is not in the works themselves, but in our employment of them. In particular Hume's Treatise on human nature, a weighty tome in every sense, is often misused. The mistake sufferers have made is to open the book and read it, exposing themselves to the disturbing ideas in the text. If, however, when you retire for the evening, you instruct one of your friends to smack you forcefully on the head with the book, you will be virtually assured of a good eight hours of dogmatic slumber.

x

Explicating the adoption of Aristotelianism Reason into Christian Faith by St Thomas Aquinas

They may have died so long ago but the entire history of human intellect or human thought has been and still pays reference to these two Greeks thinkers; Plato (347 BCE) and his student Aristotle (322 BCE). In essence, no generation has been able to successfully escape their form of thought or it's effects since then. All philosophers afterwards are either in agreement with or in opposition to Aristotelian or Platonic methods. Aristotelianism and Platonism gave birth to and provided a conceptual framework for all the main philosophical worldviews. 

Plato is of course the more influential of the two because Aristotle was a student of Plato and it is fair to say that though most elements of Aristotle’s metaphysics differ from Plato’s, his premises are still very much Platonic. However, it is Aristotelian metaphysics that I find myself personally more inclined to. As such, I was happy to realise that after he was overlooked and rejected by earlier philosophers including the Jewish and early Christian thinkers like St Augustine in favor of Neo-Platonism, St. Thomas Aquinas picked him up. The shape of human thought has never been the same since then. He (Aquinas) learned of Aristotle from Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Maimonides had learned about him from the Muslim philosopher Averroes. The works of Aristotle had been translated by the Muslim philosopher Al-ma’mum (thanks to him). Surprisingly, the Islamic religion leaders were quick to discard Aristotle because they thought mixing religion and reason was retarded.

After having read Aristotle, St Aquinas immediately fell in love with Aristotle's metaphysics. He was however not satisfied with the Aristotelian God who was an unmoved mover thinking on his own thoughts. Being the genius that he was, he refused either to lose his faith or mindlessly believe. He realized that while reason and revelation (faith) are two distinct means of arriving at the truth, the two are not opposed but are complementary to each other. He therefore developed a new understanding of the place of reason in Christian human life, building from Aristotelian metaphysics or premises but arriving at a Christian God conclusion. Brilliant work Aquinas! The way I understand it is that Aquinas developed his own metaphysics mainly from Aristotelian metaphysics and then adopted some bit of Platonism from St Augustine for his ethics. Plausible. 

However, piecing up and explicating his argument from his legendary book “Principles of human nature” takes a lot of effort for an ordinary reader because of his "middle-age" writing style. Here I have tried to pin down his argument and reconstructed it to make it well-defended and easy to follow. I am fortunate to have gotten to Aquinas via Aristotle, because if not, I would still be in the woods. Footnote: since there are two kinds of truths; epistemological truths and ontological truths, don't be confused, the argument was on the basis of ontological truths. Let us get started!

Aim: To prove that there is no two-fold truth; reason and faith are complementary and not in opposition to each other.

1. Natural reason is limited in regards to the knowledge of God.

Reason without the added benefit of revelation is limited in varying degrees because there is a gradation of intellectual abilities between species and amongst humans owing to the hierarchy of being and becoming of the mind. There is a gradation of intellect amongst humans in such a way that some human are more rational than others. There is a potential for knowing about God by natural means, potential but with limitations. One of the limitations is that much of our knowledge of God is by way of analogy as seen from Aristotle epistemology of abstraction. We tend to think of God by analogy to other persons. So that we predicate the goodness of God by analogy to goodness of created things. 

Our limitations are intensified by our sinfulness. He continues to make a distinction between the "image" of God and the "likeness" to God in which Adam was created. For Aquinas, we are the image of God in that we are rational beings. However, markedly lesser degree of rationality than God. But it is in that regard that we image God. The likeness to God is the moral likeness, which was lost when Adam fell. The fall of likeness leaves our rationality partly operative, it does not directly damage human rationality. Yet it does affect it indirectly. How? Because a person may be likely prejudiced against certain conclusions, and the mind at times is distracted by "earthly" loves and desires. So the moral condition of the human soul is likely to affect indirectly the knowledge of God. So then natural reason has its limits regarding the knowledge of God.

2. Revelation declares what reason can demonstrate.

Yes plainly. Aquinas thinks that reason can demonstrate the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. But these are things that also revelation declares. Why? The reasons are pretty obvious. By virtue of the degrees of rationality, some people are not equipped for such rational work. It may be possible to demonstrate it, but because of ability or maybe because of time, some people may not be able to do it. Secondly, those who could engage in abstraction might find that it takes excessive time and effort because of the profundity of the topic and because of the weaknesses of their will, affecting the operation of the intellect. 

3. Revelation declares things reason cannot attain by itself.

Reason cannot attain understanding of things like the doctrine of the trinity or incarnation. Reason can come so far, and revelation should pick it up.

4. Faith assents to the truths of revelation. 

The truths of revelation may then be confirmed by reasoning. That is to say then that by evidence and arguments that makes plain that such beliefs are at least reasonable, even though you may not be able to demonstrate them conclusively. Reason can confirm the truths not necessarily prove them, by showing that the conclusion is reasonable granted the metaphysical framework. Thereby showing the reasonableness of certain truths of faith, for example to say that there is no logical objection to them, or nothing is self contradictory in them. This should be the role of philosophical theology. 

5. Reason gains an (imperfect) understanding of those truths of faith (as demonstrated above). 

6. Conclusion: Therefore, faith and reason are not opposed to each other because truth is ultimately one. 

This is the summary of the argument:

Aim: To prove that there is no two-fold truth, that is, reason and faith are complementary not in opposition to each other.

1. Natural reason is limited in regards to the knowledge of God.

2. Revelation declares what reason can demonstrate

3. Revelation declares things reason cannot attain by itself alone.

4. Faith assents to the truths of revelation (without reason)

5. Reason gains an (imperfect) understanding of those truths of faith (as demonstrated in 1). 

6. Therefore, faith and reason are not opposed to each other because truth is ultimately one.

Enjoy the dance

I am glad I was able to steal some time to drive back and pay a visit to some of the important 5th and 6th century BCE philosophers now widely known as the "Pre-socratics". These pioneers are the ones who introduced a new way of inquiring into the world and the place of human beings in it. In fact, they are the ones who set the agenda for the inquiry we all find ourselves undertaking today. Though not explicitly expressed by the text, but one could deduce that they gave birth to the branches of philosophy we have today: Metaphysics, Ethics, and Epistemology. I think it is also fair to say that they also gave birth to the scientific enquiry. The significance of their contribution makes pre-Socratic reading a good starting point for anyone interested. What became even more interesting as I read was to note that these philosophers are not only "pre-scientific" as widely accepted and later noted by Plato and Aristotle, but they are pre-theological as well. 

At any rate, let me focus on what I want to discuss today. Having had a grasp of the Pre-socratics, I then happened to leisurely listen to a lecture by mid-20th century British philosopher, Alan Watts. Watts, as some might already know, is well known for his interpretation and articulation of Eastern philosophy, perhaps the first or most notable western philosopher to do so. The lecture he was giving was basically an introduction to metaphysics for a group of psychology students. Watts thinks there are really four questions that philosophers have asked about existence from the beginning of recorded time. First is: Who started it? The second is: Is it real? Third: Are we going to make it? And the fourth is: Where are we going to put it? When you think these questions over, Watts says you end up with a fifth question: Is it serious? And that’s the one our generation has to try to address. It's the one I want to discuss today; Is existence serious? 

Now, a man is allowed to unapologetically change his mind at any point in time, but it is my personal basic metaphysical opinion that existence and the physical universe is not serious, and there is no specific point in time at which you ought to arrive. Existence is basically playful. It's playful nature can be best understood by analogy with music, particularly jazz music. Because music, as an art form is essentially playful; that is why we say you "play" the guitar, you don’t "work" the guitar.

Music differs, say, from travel. When you travel you are trying to get somewhere. And of course, we, being a very compulsive and industrious species are obsessed with getting everywhere faster and faster, until we eliminate the distance between places. For example, with some of the latest modern jets you can arrive almost instantaneously. What happens as a result of that is that the two ends of your journey become the same place in time. So you eliminate the distance and you eliminate the journey because the point of travel is to move from point A to point B.

In music though (with close reference to choral music),  one doesn’t make the end of a composition the point of the composition. If that were so, then the best conductors would be those who played fastest. And there would be composers who wrote only finales. People would go to concerts just to hear one crashing chord, because that’s the end! Likewise, when dancing, you don’t aim at a particular spot in the room and say that’s where you should arrive. The whole point of the dancing is the dance.

Surprisingly, we don’t see that as something brought by our education system into our everyday conduct. We’ve got a system of schooling which gives a completely different impression. It’s all graded. And what we do is we put the child into the corridor of this grade system with a kind of "come on cutie now you go to pre-school", and that’s a great thing because when you finish that you get into first grade. And then first grade leads to second grade, and so on, and then you get out of primary school and you go to high school. Then you’re going to go to university, and when you’re through with tertiary you go out to join the world. If you are lucky enough, soon you get a job - and just like that you’re probably selling insurance! At work you’ve got meetings, your output (work performance) quota and deadlines to meet. From childhood you were taught that you ought to be a "successful" adult. So you have to stay focused and fix your eyes on that goal because you cannot afford to make mistakes.

Whilst under employment, you wake up one day, about 40 years old, you say, My God, I’ve arrived! I’m there! But you don’t feel very different from what you always felt. And there’s a slight let-down because you feel there was a hoax. And of course there was a hoax. A dreadful hoax! They made you miss an important part of your dance. Look at the people who put their savings away and only live to retire. When they’re 65, they don’t have any energy left, they’re more or less impotent, and in the developed world, some go and rot in an old people’s community. Because you have simply cheated yourself the whole way down the line. You thought of life by analogy with a journey, which had a serious purpose at the end and the goal was to get to that end, success. But you missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.

As per my basic metaphysical assumption, I have said that existence is musical in nature. That is to say that it is not serious, it is a play of all kinds of patterns. And when you think a bit about what people really want to do with their time; what do they do when they’re not being pushed around and somebody’s telling them what to do? They like to make rhythms. They listen to music, they dance, or they sing, or they do something of a rhythmic nature; playing cards, or bowling, or raising their elbows. Everybody wants to spend their time swinging. You see, were it not for the fact that I also have a will to live and as such I have to get a job to earn a living, I’d probably be dancing myself into art, religion and philosophy. Oh wait, I also think I'd make a good party planner. Okay, maybe I am not the best party planner because for over five years now, I have been trying without success to improve the plan that my Ethiopian brother Zera Yacob dismally failed to develop in order to host a successful universally acceptable party, which will at the same time be in line with the will of God. I have been tempted many times to theme the party according to Hegelian's dialectics, but if that's the case, I might have to modify the dialectics and make them more like the Socratic method. Anyways, that would be a story for another day.

Kant on Metaphysical Knowledge

What kind of knowledge is metaphysical knowledge?

Synthetic apriori! The most important discovery Kant ever made and the rest of his philosophy depends on it. As much as it is Kant’s most important discovery, it is the most important and most exciting work of epistemology I've ever read. Kant was such a wordy guy, so let’s unpack and see how he got to this conclusion. Kant scholars will correct me where I may be wrong with this. The idea of synthetic apriori knowledge is based on two pairs of distinctions; a distinction between apriori knowledge and empirical knowledge, and a distinction between analytic judgments and synthetic judgments.

1. Apriori knowledge and empirical knowledge

Let's first look at the distinction between apriori and empirical knowledge.

Empirical knowledge

Empirical knowledge is any knowledge that comes from or is justified by appeal to the senses. All kinds of everyday knowledge are examples of empirical knowledge. For example, you know how the weather is like today because you looked out of the window and observed. Your knowledge of the weather depends on the senses. Also, all kinds of scientific knowledge are empirical. So for example, if you are close to the surface of the earth, gravity accelerates objects in free fall at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. That’s something we only know because it is backed up by a lot of experimental evidence and the experiments all rely on our senses through observation. 

Apriori knowledge

The opposite of empirical knowledge is apriori knowledge. This is knowledge that isn’t justified by appeal to the senses. For example; think of the truth that all roses are roses. That’s a pretty boring truth because it doesn’t tell us much, but it is true and you know it is true without having to rely on your senses at all because it is true by definition. Math is also apriori because you don’t have to perform any experiment to confirm that 7+5 =12.

Kant further says apriori knowledge has two distinct characteristics: first it is necessary. That is, we don’t think that 7+5 contingently turns out to equal 12. And it is not an accident that 7+5 equals 12. We think it is not possible for 7+5 to equal anything other than 12. In that sense 7+5 necessarily equals 12. Secondly, apriori knowledge is universal. Apriori truths like 7+5 =12 are true without exception. There is no time or place where 7+5 doesn’t equal 12. There is no region of space on the other side where 7+5 =11. These characteristics of apriori knowledge are important because they give us a kind of test or reference to figure out if knowledge is apriori or empirical.

2. Analytic judgments and Synthetic judgments

Now let’s think about the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. 

Analytical judgments

An analytic judgement is one in which the concept of the judgment’s predicate is contained in the concept of the judgment’s subject. This means the judgement is true by definition. So for example, consider the judgement “a bachelor is unmarried”. This is analytic because concept “unmarried” is implicitly contained in the concept of “bachelor”. The concept bachelor is made up of the concepts “unmarried” and “man”. The definition of a bachelor is "unmarried man". In the case of the analytic judgement “a bachelor is unmarried”, all the judgement is doing is taking one of the concepts that is already implicitly contained in the concept of "bachelor" and making it explicit. 

Synthetic judgments

Synthetic judgments are the opposite of analytic judgments. Judgments are synthetic when they take the concept of the subject and they connect a new concept to it that wasn’t already implicitly contained in it. They are not true by definition. Take the proposition “a bachelor is miserable”. The concept “miserable” isn’t contained in the concept “bachelor”, it’s not part of the definition “bachelor”. These judgments are ampliative because they actually connect up new information to the judgement’s subject concept that wasn’t already contained in it. In that sense, they actually extend our knowledge beyond what was already contained in the definition of the subject.

Based on the above distinctions, it is really not difficult to come to the conclusion that all analytic judgments are apriori. Because if they are analytic, they are true by definition. Or as Kant relates, “they are true just in virtue of how a judgement’s subject concepts and the predicative concept relate to each other”. But if the judgments are just conceptual or definitional truths, their truthfulness doesn’t depend on experience or the senses, so they are apriori. Consequently, all empirical knowledge is synthetic. Because if it is empirical, the knowledge does depend on experience and the senses. But then the knowledge depends on more than just the definitions of the concepts it involves. So empirical knowledge can’t be analytic and has to be synthetic.

The distinctions overlap each other perfectly, so that really you have one distinction; with analytic judgments and apriori knowledge on one side, and empirical and synthetic judgments on the other side. In this view, analytic judgments make up all the apriori knowledge there is. And empirical knowledge makes up all the synthetic judgments there are. To be more precise, all and only analytic judgments can be apriori and all and only synthetic judgments can be empirical. If that seems right to you, you’re in good company, that’s what most philosophers before Kant thought. David Hume was one who laid out that view especially clearly in his Treatise of human nature. But Kant thinks that Hume is wrong. Kant thinks Hume missed something, that is, synthetic apriori knowledge – which Hume thought was impossible for us to have.

So what’s an example of synthetic apriori knowledge? Kant thought a classic example is math. So for example take a piece of this mathematical knowledge that the interior angles of a triangle sum up to 180 degrees. We can’t justify geometrical truths like this one by conducting experiments or relying on our senses. What’s even more is that truths like this one seem necessary and universal. The interior angles if a triangle add up to 180 degrees without any exceptions. It doesn’t make sense to think there could be a triangle on the other side of the galaxy whose interior angles didn’t sum up to 180 degrees. On the other hand, mathematical truths like this one are synthetic too, Kant thought. The concept of the interior angles of a triangle doesn’t seem to implicitly contain the concept of exactly 180 degrees. At least not in the same simple sense of the concept of a triangle being made up of three sides. The definition of a triangle is a three sided figure enclosed on a plane. But the fact that the triangle’s interior angles sum up to 180 degrees seems to go beyond its definition. It genuinely adds new information not contained in the concept of a triangle. So the truth that the interior angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees is ampliative, hence synthetic. Kant thought if we do not have the concept of apriori knowledge, there is no way for us to understand the kind of knowledge that math is.

Therefore, metaphysics has to discover truths that are necessary and universal, that is, apriori knowledge, Kant thought. At the same time metaphysics isn’t supposed to be a bunch of empty definitional truths. It should genuinely extend our knowledge beyond definitional truths. Metaphysics is supposed to be ampliative and so has to be synthetic too. Kant thinks this should tell us what kind of knowledge metaphysical knowledge should be.

Why should we concern ourselves with synthetic apriori knowledge?

We know from Descartes meditations that empiric knowledge is knowledge we cannot claim to possess with absolute certainty. On the other hand, a bunch of definitional apriori truths do not get us anywhere because they do not expand our knowledge and understanding of our objective reality, if there is. So, if philosophers are ever going to establish any metaphysical knowledge, it has to be synthetic apriori.

Will to Power?

Are we living in a lie? I imagine myself looking out of the window and see 2 orange trees; one concept, two entities. In reality, they are not the same. One has 203 leaves and the other has 174. One has roots that run 6.7 metres deep, and the other 4.3 metres. One has many branches, and the other has a few. Yet we simply call them trees. We simplify the world into useful concepts and fictions. We live in a world of illusions that allow us to survive and thrive. Our family, friends and loved ones are illusions as well. Everyone I know is deeply complex. I say that person X is kind and intelligent. But person X is mostly kind; he’s unkind when he hadn’t eaten for a long time. He’s very skilled at mathematics, but a terrible writer. Yet I simplify him into the concept of kind and intelligent because that’s useful for me. To know person X better, I’d need way more concepts, but even then, it’s unlikely that I’d ever fully exhaust who he is.

The mind uses concepts to create a certain order. But such an order is just a useful fantasy, it’s a pretty lie. Whether we use science, philosophy, or art. The fantasies we construct help us create and interact with the world. In other words, they give us more power. Let’s go back and meditate on the orange trees. Let’s start thinking and experience them as the separate entities that they really are. Let’s notice how one smells better than the other, how the bulk of one is smoother, and how the fruits of one are larger. Reality seems more complex than our illusions. But even if we updated our illusions by for example increasing the words and concepts we could use to describe the tree, it still wouldn't help. But does being aware of the details matter? If you are a farmer, maybe. I think that’s what 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wanted us to think about when he said “suppose we want truth: why not rather untruth and uncertainty? Even ignorance?” (from Beyond Good and Evil). Sometimes ignorance is preferable to the detailed truth. But maybe we only care about truth in so far as it empowers us. Knowing and thinking about all of the details of every orange tree would just be a psychological burden for the most of us. Clearly, everyone would take illusions over the reality. 

But I can’t help but ask, is it possible that the mind is actually accessing a deeper kind of truth? Maybe the mind is separating the signal from the noise. But what constitutes the signal and what constitutes the noise? I do not necessarily agree but Nietzsche thinks its our values. A farmer that values knowing all the details of an orange tree will view it differently than a regular person. But where do our values come from? Here is Nietzsche’s view from Beyond Good and Evil: “behind all logic and it’s seeming sovereignty of movement, too, there stand valuations or, more clearly, physiological demands for the preservation of a certain type of life”. For Nietzsche, our values come from our physiological demands. And what does our physiology demands? Power! It wants to survive and thrive. What does it mean to thrive? To imagine the world a certain way, and to be able to make that illusion a reality. Someone could try to contest this idea by saying that they don’t seek power or want to thrive. Hence they won’t eat or drink anything to prove this point. But Nietzsche thinks they would still be seeking a kind of power; they imagine a world in which they prove that idea wrong and they seek to bring that world into fruition, even at their own expense. For Nietzsche, everything we do is an expression of our will to power. 

We construct illusions to empower us - an advanced concept of what I imagined as a will to self-preservation during my late teens, before I even read Nietzsche. We only care about truth in so far as it helps us achieve that goal to the extent that if an idea doesn’t empower us, we should question the degree to which that idea is true. For Nietzsche, something isn’t simply true or false, truth contains multiple degrees and dimensions. Nietzsche is not saying truth doesn’t exist. But only that it’s complicated. We might say that the truth of gravity’s existence remains constant whether we believe it or not. But is that really true? Is there any reason that gravity couldn’t reverse in the next moment? We can predict that it’s unlikely to do so based on our past experience. But what’s really stopping it from happening in the end? And so we are brought back to a similar quote taken from Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in a Non-normal Sense; “truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions”. Our understanding of trees, friends, gravity and the world, like all conscious understanding are illusions that we have created to give us power. And sometimes, they are illusions that hold up for long enough that we forget that they are illusions.