Chapter 2 Part I The World as Representation § 2

That which knows all and is known by nothing is the subject.Therefore, the subject is the pillar of this world, the consistent and always presupposed condition of all phenomena and all objects; it turns out that whatever exists is only the existence of the subject.Everyone can find himself such a subject, but only when he knows it, and not when he is an object of knowledge.Moreover, since the human body is already an object, from this point of view, we have to call it representation.Although the body is an immediate object, it is always an object among many objects and obeys the laws of objects.Like all objects of intuition, the body is in those forms common to all cognition, in time and space; and it is through these forms that the multiplicity comes.But the subject, as knowing and never being known, is not in these forms, but these forms always presuppose it.For it, therefore, there can be neither multiplicity nor the opposite of multiplicity: unity.We can never know it, and it is always that which knows, as long as there is "being known".

Therefore, the world as representation, the world we consider here only in this respect, has two halves that are essential, necessary, and inseparable.One half is the object, and its forms are space and time, through which the multiplicity comes.The other half is the subject, which is not in space and time, for the subject is whole and undivided in any representing being.So every single one of these beings, together with objects, constitutes the world as representations as fully as the billions of existing beings and objects; The world is gone.The two halves are therefore inseparable; this is true even of thought, since any one can only have meaning and exist because of and to the other half: to be there is to be together, and to be dead is to be both.The two sides also limit each other, the beginning of the object is the end of the subject.This limit is common to both parties, and is also expressed in the fact that the essential and therefore universal forms of all objects, namely time, space, and causality, do not require knowledge of the object itself, nor from the subject alone. What can be discovered, can be fully known; in Kant's words, these forms are a priori in our consciousness.Kant's discovery of this is his main and great achievement.I now further assert that the law of sufficient reason is the common expression of all the forms of objects that we are conscious of a priori, and that therefore everything we know purely a priori is nothing but the content of this law.It follows from this that all our a priori definite "knowledge" is practically exhausted in this law.I have pointed out in detail in the paper "The Law of Sequence" that any possible object is subject to this law, that is, it is in a necessary relationship with other objects, and it is determined on the one hand and determines on the other. Functional.The range of this mutual determination is so extensive that the whole existence of all objects, so long as they are objects, are representations and nothing else, the whole is reduced to their necessary relationship to each other. exists in a relationship and is therefore entirely relative.More on these later.I have also pointed out that since objects are divided into different categories according to their possibilities, the necessary relations generally expressed by the principle of sufficient reason also appear in different forms correspondingly, which in turn guarantees the correct division of those categories.I have always assumed here that everything I have said in that treatise is already familiar to the reader and is still in his memory; for if there is anything not said there, it will be given here. necessary status.