What does Schopenhauer mean in his criticism of Spinoza?
June 23, 2015 8:07 AM Subscribe
How is Schopenhauer using the terms "conception" and "predicate", "reason" and "consequence" in the Spinoza section of On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason? (Chapter 2)
In On the Fourfold Root Of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Schopenhauer criticizes Spinoza for deriving his Pantheism from a confusion of reason with causation. I get that part well enough, but what throws me is his statement about the relationship between a conception and its predicates. This is the passage I'm struggling with:
"A conception contains implicate all its essential predicates, so that they may be developed out of it explicite by means of mere analytical judgments: the sum total of them being its definition. This definition therefore differs from the conception itself merely in form and not in content ; for it consists of judgments which are all contained within that conception, and therefore have their reason in it, in as far as they show its essence. We may accordingly look upon these judgments as the consequences of that conception, considered as their reason."
This seems to me precisely the opposite of the case. If we take the concept "life", we can say two of its essential predicates are self-replication and metabolism. It doesn't seem right to say that life is the reason and self-replication and metabolism are the consequences; self-replication and metabolism are the reasons for life. No?
I feel like I'm missing something about the nature of "reason" and "consequence" or "concept" and "predicate" as Schopenhauer uses these terms. Anyone out there want to provide a gloss for me?
Thanks!
Joshua
In On the Fourfold Root Of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Schopenhauer criticizes Spinoza for deriving his Pantheism from a confusion of reason with causation. I get that part well enough, but what throws me is his statement about the relationship between a conception and its predicates. This is the passage I'm struggling with:
"A conception contains implicate all its essential predicates, so that they may be developed out of it explicite by means of mere analytical judgments: the sum total of them being its definition. This definition therefore differs from the conception itself merely in form and not in content ; for it consists of judgments which are all contained within that conception, and therefore have their reason in it, in as far as they show its essence. We may accordingly look upon these judgments as the consequences of that conception, considered as their reason."
This seems to me precisely the opposite of the case. If we take the concept "life", we can say two of its essential predicates are self-replication and metabolism. It doesn't seem right to say that life is the reason and self-replication and metabolism are the consequences; self-replication and metabolism are the reasons for life. No?
I feel like I'm missing something about the nature of "reason" and "consequence" or "concept" and "predicate" as Schopenhauer uses these terms. Anyone out there want to provide a gloss for me?
Thanks!
Joshua
Best answer: So it's been a couple years since I read Spinoza, but I'm technically a Kant scholar (here goes!)
The conception of your example, life, requires that there be some concept "Life", which we should, for this purpose, be considering as distinct from the empirical manifestation of same. "Life"-ness is necessary for the predicates "self-replication" and "metabolism" to be meaningfully connected in some manifestation--for those concepts to be a synthetic judgement. Schopenhauer, as a sorta-kinda metaphysical monist, wants to demonstrate that analytic judgments are where synthetic judgments come from, so he have to lean heavily on a Kantian conception of a priori concepts. The example of "Life" or "table" or "x thing" cannot be causally recognized, because that would mean they don't exist as pure concepts, but are instead empirical stuff.
Hmm, I'll do a line by line gloss too.
"A conception contains implicit all its essential predicates" (the thing in itself exists in whole, rather than being merely a sum of disparate things)
"so that they may be developed out of it by means of mere analytic judgements" (essentially, that you can analyze some synthetic concept and come to recognize the analytic 'pieces'; a conception is an a priori judgment)
the sum total of them being its definition (so thus, analytic judgment stacked creates a conception of a synthetic judgment...this is pure Kant)
The definition therefore differs from the conception merely in form and not in content (because when you 'define' Life, you're just explicating the a priori analytic stuff that goes into you knowing what x is. "Life" contains, intrinsically, the idea of x and y property....but not necessarily as an empirical property, but a property of Understanding. Basically, the way we have to use language changes what it looks like we mean, but giving you a list of a priori properties is just telling you what I throw in the bucket when I think about Life (not life as manifested necessarily, but the concept itself)
That started to sound too Wittgensteinian, so I'll derail my train here.
So, we define things because we already know what they are--we link together properties x and y only because we have the conception of z first. Any a posteriori concept that we've formed only because of other properties (so, I suppose, something like gender or nationality) require that you think of them as either an unveiling due to analytic judgement, not empirical manifestation (I am not an American because of all these other synthetic judgements, but because there is some prior understanding of what it means to be a citizen, which I'm probably just incorrectly attributing to that series of events leading to the US existing); or, perhaps more bizarrely, that these judgments are actually things-in-themselves independently of the empirical stuff that led you to believe you know what they are, and in reality those judgments about gender etc are intrinsically extant, and you are making a mistake by claiming that they only arise due to definitional factors. In any case, if gender (for example) only exists because of the definition relative to other concepts, Schopenhauer is still making his point--the conception and its definition are indistinguishable, regardless of your metaphysical positions.
posted by zinful at 12:10 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
The conception of your example, life, requires that there be some concept "Life", which we should, for this purpose, be considering as distinct from the empirical manifestation of same. "Life"-ness is necessary for the predicates "self-replication" and "metabolism" to be meaningfully connected in some manifestation--for those concepts to be a synthetic judgement. Schopenhauer, as a sorta-kinda metaphysical monist, wants to demonstrate that analytic judgments are where synthetic judgments come from, so he have to lean heavily on a Kantian conception of a priori concepts. The example of "Life" or "table" or "x thing" cannot be causally recognized, because that would mean they don't exist as pure concepts, but are instead empirical stuff.
Hmm, I'll do a line by line gloss too.
"A conception contains implicit all its essential predicates" (the thing in itself exists in whole, rather than being merely a sum of disparate things)
"so that they may be developed out of it by means of mere analytic judgements" (essentially, that you can analyze some synthetic concept and come to recognize the analytic 'pieces'; a conception is an a priori judgment)
the sum total of them being its definition (so thus, analytic judgment stacked creates a conception of a synthetic judgment...this is pure Kant)
The definition therefore differs from the conception merely in form and not in content (because when you 'define' Life, you're just explicating the a priori analytic stuff that goes into you knowing what x is. "Life" contains, intrinsically, the idea of x and y property....but not necessarily as an empirical property, but a property of Understanding. Basically, the way we have to use language changes what it looks like we mean, but giving you a list of a priori properties is just telling you what I throw in the bucket when I think about Life (not life as manifested necessarily, but the concept itself)
That started to sound too Wittgensteinian, so I'll derail my train here.
So, we define things because we already know what they are--we link together properties x and y only because we have the conception of z first. Any a posteriori concept that we've formed only because of other properties (so, I suppose, something like gender or nationality) require that you think of them as either an unveiling due to analytic judgement, not empirical manifestation (I am not an American because of all these other synthetic judgements, but because there is some prior understanding of what it means to be a citizen, which I'm probably just incorrectly attributing to that series of events leading to the US existing); or, perhaps more bizarrely, that these judgments are actually things-in-themselves independently of the empirical stuff that led you to believe you know what they are, and in reality those judgments about gender etc are intrinsically extant, and you are making a mistake by claiming that they only arise due to definitional factors. In any case, if gender (for example) only exists because of the definition relative to other concepts, Schopenhauer is still making his point--the conception and its definition are indistinguishable, regardless of your metaphysical positions.
posted by zinful at 12:10 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'd just like to point out that Schopenhauer did his writing in German. The paragraph you're quoting is a translation, and it may be a lousy one. Perhaps seeking out a different translation would be helpful.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:24 PM on June 23, 2015
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:24 PM on June 23, 2015
Best answer: Ok, now that I've thought about it a little, there is something kinda sexier going on here than I initially reacted to. Rather than mucking around with Reason and the imagination colluding with empirical impressions to create the Understanding (:our imperfect representations of reality), Schopenhauer seems to be trying to cut all that bullshit out. If our "conceptions" (the things we understand in a Kantian sense/consider to be meaningful judgments) are themselves well-formed representations of analytic judgments, then we don't have to worry about lacking perfect access to Reason. The definable concepts themselves contain all we need to know about what is, rather than having that sinking feeling that there is some thing-in-itself that, as empirical beings, we lack access to. This of course makes sense, given Schopenhauer's structure of the empirical world's essential meaninglessness.
posted by zinful at 12:37 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by zinful at 12:37 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding, and your commentary is super helpful zinful. Thanks. If you're still eyeballing this thread, let me ask you something. Is the relationship between concept and predicate analogous to the relationship between, say, a pair of glasses and what you see through those glasses? I mean, say the glasses render the visible world in a certain particular way; likewise, a conception renders the world knowable in certain particular ways? The glasses are the CAUSE of the manifested shapes and colors in the same way that a conception is the REASON for the arguments of which it is comprised? So, just like it would be foolish to say that the manifested shapes and colors CAUSE the glasses, so it would be absurd to say that the arguments are the REASON for the conception? Am I on the right track here?
I think if I'm understanding this part correctly, then everything else you've explained follows pretty neatly. But I'm not sure if I've got this part of the argument right.
(Also, I'm aware that the glasses are extraneous; i.e., the basic senses would suffice, but glasses made the analogy more explicit to me. )
Another analogy I thought of involves the perception of music. When you conceive a series of sounds as musical, it causes you to interpret the elements of the sounds very differently than you would if it were just a person talking. When you experience the sounds as music, you can then observe and analyze harmony, pitch, rhythm, etc. These elements may exist without the musical context, but within the conception of music, they suddenly become meaningful. They are not separate from music; in a way they are the definition of music. But the concept of music is the reason for their existence as analytic judgments. Is this correct? Am I on the right track?
posted by jwhite1979 at 9:42 AM on June 24, 2015
I think if I'm understanding this part correctly, then everything else you've explained follows pretty neatly. But I'm not sure if I've got this part of the argument right.
(Also, I'm aware that the glasses are extraneous; i.e., the basic senses would suffice, but glasses made the analogy more explicit to me. )
Another analogy I thought of involves the perception of music. When you conceive a series of sounds as musical, it causes you to interpret the elements of the sounds very differently than you would if it were just a person talking. When you experience the sounds as music, you can then observe and analyze harmony, pitch, rhythm, etc. These elements may exist without the musical context, but within the conception of music, they suddenly become meaningful. They are not separate from music; in a way they are the definition of music. But the concept of music is the reason for their existence as analytic judgments. Is this correct? Am I on the right track?
posted by jwhite1979 at 9:42 AM on June 24, 2015
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I feel like there's a profound paradigm shift going on here, and I'm struggling to make the leap. Somehow, perhaps, the way the mind constructs a concept a priori determines the particular collection of predicates we associate with that concept? This is a very Kantian way of seeing things, and I dig it, but aren't there plenty of a posteriori concepts for which the collection of predicates are the reason for the conception? Isn't that the case for the majority of conceptions?
posted by jwhite1979 at 8:33 AM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]