Schopenhauer’s Criticism of Kant William Caldwell Mind, Vol. 16, No. 63 (Jul., 1891), 355-374. Stable URL: http flinksjstor.orgsici?sici=0026-4423%28 189 107929 1%BA 16% BAO %ICISSESASCOK V3E20.CORIBI-V Mind is currently published by Oxtord University Press, Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at flip: feworwjtor org/aboutterms.htmal. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in par, that unless you fave obtained pcior permission, you may not dowaload an cnt isus of @ journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial uss. Please contact the publisher cegarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at baupsferwer,jstor.orp/jounals/oup.htal. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transtnission. ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding ISTOR, please contact support @jstor.org- hup:tterwwjstor.orgy ‘Thu Oct 20.06:33:44 2005TIL—SCHOPENHAUER'S CRITICISM OF KANT, By Winoras Carpwenn. Waa I wish fg attempt in this paper iso if out anyng ihat may soem to be valuable in Schopenhauer’ seriticism of the Kantian philsaphy. Tt is matter of common agreeraent, that the place of a post-Kantian philosopher ia the bistory ‘of philosophy may be more or less determined by his attitade towards Kant, hut my object here is less to explain Schopen- hauer cbrough his opinions on Kant than Rentiams through Schopenheacr, alihough it is diffealé in seeking to do even this zaueh la forget that Schopenhauer claimed to be Kant’s only true eucsessor in philosophy. Tk is important to ‘remember thst Schoperhanes's fist ilosophical essay appeared (1813) only seven years aiter Fregel's Piyacnemenolgrs des Geistes, and bie chief swork Die Walt ais Wille, de., 1819} one year after Hogel had begun his infential Jectuves at Bevin. Schopenhaner, in fet, wag ‘born just & little too late to have actually felt the fever of ‘he philosophical agitation which fell between 1795, the year of the appearance of Fichte's Wissenschaftstshre, and 1804, Sehen Hegel diverged fram Fichte and Schelling into # Kne of thought of is own, ending in the publicstion of his Phaenomeologie, His’ first instructor in philosophy was G. EB, Schulze, the scoptical critic of Kant, from whom, jerhaps, be may have partly imbibed that somewhat super: Reial view of the Kantian philosophy prevalent among ita eatlies! critics and wpholders a3 mainly new species of ‘Tesliam with an inconsequent Dogmatism in the theory of the Thing-in-itself; end his first formal introduction to the speculative movement of the first decade of this century was through the lectures of Fichte, which he heard when he was twenty-three years of age at Berlin in 1811—the Wis- sinachafisithre appearing to him, as he wickedly put it, “ ‘Wiseenschaftaleere," and Hegel's philosophy ‘a monstrous application of the ontological proof: This ig more than enaugh to creete in many minds a profound initial prejudice against Schopenhauer; Irat when for some years there has eon an interest in the other of the two nineteerth-contury philosophers who atand out in a sense from the wide stream of thought whose flood was Hepel's system—I mean Herbart956 WW. CALDWELL: —it is not unnatural to seek to tim up the theoreti side of the roots of Schopenhaner’s philosophy. 1. Schopenhauer was half made hy Kant; the wab of bis philosophy is through and through Kantism, and agein and in throughout his writings do we find such distinctively Kantian topics as the Thingin-itself, Knowledge a priors, Idealism, Noumenai, Freedom, &0,, discussed in artonso ad integral parts of his ‘own system, “He has written, farther, fan explicit “Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy,” as at ones an appendix and necessary introduction to his chie! work: and in the Parerga and Paralipomena we find a goneise and eminently readable section ealled Noch Etnige Erlauterungen zur Kantischen Philosophie. Wis point of departare in considering Kant’s work is, in a word, the first vart of Kant’s K. d. 7, P the" Aisthetic”"; and he prefers to ge! segese to Kant through the dst edition of the K. a. r. V. ‘where Kant's [dealism is stated more uneeservedly and more at a stroke tau in the second edition. Th is his conviction, he says, to which he was forced after years of repeated study of Kant, that Kant’s only real diseavery was thet Space and Time were known by us a priari; and that, fatified by this, he wished to pursue the same vein of thought further, his love of architectural symmetry affording him ‘the clue. " The only element of value Schopenhauer finds in the“ Analytic" is the prinaiple of Causality, of which he thinks Kant raight have given a much simpler account ; all else is to him mere confasion and suporfluity. ‘The “Dialestio” represented to him the negabve side of the Critical Philosophy, which he accepts 28 a perfectly con elusive pieee of work, although he does not helieve that the entinonies exhibit a natural dialectic of the veason, ar that the three ideas of Kant are at all on the same level ; here 190, also, he thought Kant might ave proved hie ease inuch mote simply. With these views we are not surprised to hear Schopenhauer calling the Prolegcmana the most beauti- ful and comprehensible of all Kant’s writings. In Bthies he believes Kant to have rendered the immortal service of showing, in “quite a. special way.” (that is, by his attribu- tion of nonmenal freedom to man, compensating for his phenomenal necessazy detorminstion), thas the kingdom of virtue is not of this world,” although the K. 2 prake, V. is only an application to Ethics of the principles alread; reached in the phere of the Pure Reason. The K. Urtheilekraft he finds to contain the characteristic detect of Kant's whole Philosophy—the starting from indirect,