Chapter 31 Part Three Revisiting the World as Appearance§ 31

Before talking about this, first of all, there is the following main thing to pay attention to.I hope that I have succeeded in the previous article in establishing the conviction that what Kant calls the thing-in-itself is in his philosophy as such an important yet warmly paradoxical doctrine emerged.Especially because of the way in which Kant introduced this concept, that is, because of the way in which the ground is deduced from what is determined by the ground, this thing-in-itself is considered a stumbling block to his philosophy, a defect in him.Now I say that the thing-in-itself is nothing but will if one arrives at the thing-in-itself by an entirely different path that we have gone through, in that the circle of meaning has been enlarged and fixed by the concept in the above-mentioned way. in the will.Furthermore, I hope that, having what has been stated above, one will have little scruple [to] see Plato's so-called eternal Idea or immutable form at a certain level of objectification of the will which constitutes the world itself. .This eternal idea [theory] has been considered for centuries to be the chief among Plato's teachings, and yet at the same time the most obscure and contradictory doctrine, which is pondered, debated, ridiculed and adored by so many minds in different moods. object.

Since the will appears to us as a thing-in-itself, and the Idea is the direct objectivity of that will in a certain degree; then we find Kant's thing-in-itself and Plato's Idea—for him the Idea is the only "true" The existence of "--the two obscure intellectual knots of the two greatest philosophers of the West are not identical, but are very close, and can be distinguished only by a single stipulation.These two knots of thought, which, on the one hand, have an inner coherence and kinship, and on the other hand are very different from each other because of the very different personalities of the initiators of the two, are the best explanations for each other, because the two are equal to each other. Two completely different paths leading to a single goal.This can be stated without much effort.That is to say, what Kant said is essentially the following: "Time, space, and causality are not determinations of the thing-in-itself, but only phenomena of the thing-in-itself, because these are nothing else but It is the form of our 'knowledge'. And since all multiplicity and all arising and ceasing are only possible due to time, space and causality, then the multiples and all arising and ceasing are only phenomena, not in-itself. and because our cognition is determined by those forms, all our experience is only the cognition of phenomena rather than things in themselves. Therefore, the laws of experience cannot be valid for things in themselves. Even if For our own self, what is said here is still valid, and we know the self only as a phenomenon, not according to what the self itself is." From the point of view here, this is the purpose and purpose of Kant's theory. intrinsic.But Plato said, "The things in the world which are perceived by our senses have no real existence at all. They are always changing, never existing. They have only a relative existence, only in relation to each other. Therefore, one can call their total [inter]dependence as 'non-existence'. Therefore, they are not a real object of knowledge, because only for that which is in itself, for itself and eternally unchanged Only things can have real knowledge. They are, on the contrary, only objects of assumption brought about by sensation. Since we are limited to our awareness of them, we are like people in a dark cave, sitting there firmly bound , could not even turn his head, and could see nothing; only by the light of the fire burning behind him, could he see on the opposite wall some shadows of real things that appeared between the light of the fire and these people. Even these people What each sees each other, and each sees himself, is nothing but shadows on the wall. And the wisdom of these people is [to] predict the succession of those shadows which they know from experience in series. On the contrary , which can be called the only true existence because it exists forever but is neither born nor destroyed, and that is the true original image of those shadow images, which is the eternal idea, which is the original image of all things. The multiplicity cannot reach the original image, For each primordial image itself, its copy or shadow, is its eponymous, individual, impermanent analogue. Birth and fire also cannot reach the original primordial image, because they exist in true and extinguished existence, and are by no means similar to it. Like a copy that is about to disappear, there is no growth and decay. (These two negative provisions must include such a premise that time, space and causality have no meaning and effect on the original image, and the original image does not exist in these [forms] ].) Therefore, only with respect to these original images can there be a real knowledge, because the object of this knowledge can only be permanent and in every respect (that is, in itself). That which, according to its point of view, both exists and does not exist."—This is the doctrine of Plato.It is obvious that there is no need to prove that the inner purpose of the two theories of Kant and Plato is exactly the same thing.Both regard the visible [auditory] world as a phenomenon, which itself is nothing, and which exists only because of what expresses itself in the phenomenon (on the one hand a thing-in-itself, on the other an Idea). Meaning and borrowed reality.But according to both doctrines, all forms of that appearance, even the most general and elementary, are decidedly independent of that which manifests itself, which really exists.In order to deny the [reality] of these forms, Kant has summed up these forms themselves directly into abstract names, and declared that time, space and causality, as forms of appearance, are not things in themselves. of.Plato, on the other hand, does not go so far as to say it completely, by denying to his Ideas what is only possible through these forms, viz. the multiplicity of [individuals] of the same kind, and their birth and death, And indirectly strip these forms from his ideas. [Here] though much has been said, I shall use a metaphor to visualize the noteworthy, important, and mutual agreement of [the two theories]: Suppose an animal is in full vitality before us. In this case, then Plato would say: "This animal has no real existence, it has only an apparent existence, only constant change, only relative dependence. This dependence can be called both a being and an existence. A 'non-existence', and what really exists is only the idea that reproduces itself in the animal or the animal itself. This animal itself has no dependence on anything, but is in itself and for itself; it is not What is born is not something that disappears from time to time, but it exists forever. If we are concerned with the idea that we know it in this animal, then whether it is this animal or the animal that is in front of us Its ancestors who lived thousands of years ago, whether it is here or in a distant foreign land, whether it appears in this way, this gesture, this action or that way, that gesture, that action, In the end it doesn't matter whether it's this one or any other one of its kind, it's all the same and irrelevant, [for] it's all nothing but appearances. Only the idea of ​​the animal There are real beings but real objects of 'knowing'." - This is Plato.Kant would probably say this: "This animal is a phenomenon in time, space, and causality; and time, space, and causality are all within our cognitive ability, a priori conditions for the possibility of experience, not things in themselves. Therefore, this animal, we, at this given time, at this known place, as in the relation of experience.—that is, in the chain of cause and effect—necessarily happens, and likewise An animal that is perceived as an individual that is bound to perish is not a thing-in-itself, but a phenomenon only as far as our cognition is concerned. If we want to know this animal in its own right, it is to put aside time, space and To know it without all the determinations in causality would require a different way of knowing than that which is only possible for us, through the senses and the understanding."

To bring Kant's statement closer to Plato's, one could also say: Time, space, and causality are devices of our mind by which the only real thing of any kind is Itself appears to us as a multiplicity of like things, eternally reborn and perishing again and again to infinity.The understanding of things which is by means of and in accordance with the above-mentioned devices of the mind is the inner understanding; on the contrary, the other understanding of things, which is aware of the circumstances in which things exist, is the transcendental understanding.This understanding is obtained in the abstract from the critique of pure reason, but in exceptional cases it can also be obtained from intuition.This last point is what I added.This is exactly what I shall endeavor to show in this second part.

If people have really understood and understood Kant's teachings, if people have really understood and understood Plato since Kant, if people have faithfully and seriously considered the inner meaning and meaning of the teachings of these two masters, instead of abusing this If one master's terminology is used to show off his profound knowledge, but also to imitate the style of another master for self-pleasure; then people will not delay in discovering the degree of agreement between the two great philosophers and the basic meaning and goal of the two theories. Exactly the same.Then one would not always compare Plato and Leibniz—the spirit of the latter was not at all based on the former—but even with a well-known figure still alive—as if one were It is as if deliberately mocking the ghosts of the great thinkers of the past—and it will be farther forward than it is now, or rather, people will not be as shamefully backward as they have been in the past forty years. up.One will not be led one day by this kind of nonsense and tomorrow by another kind of nonsense, and will not have to perform a farce on Kant's tomb (as the ancients sometimes performed when they saved their dead). The ninth century—the [century] that heralds so much in Germany begins—.The conduct of this farce was justly ridiculed by other nations, since it did not at all befit the serious, even prudish Germans.True philosophers, however, have so few loyal followers that centuries have brought them a few posterity who understand them. ——"There are many people who hold the carved staff of Bagus, but few people are really believers in this Dionysus." "Philosophy is despised because people do not treat philosophy according to its dignity and it should not be the counterfeit philosophers, but the real philosophers who govern philosophy.” (Plato)

People used to speculate only literally, with terms like: 'transcendental representations', 'forms of intuition and thought which are 'conscious' independently of experience', 'primary concepts of the pure understanding', etc. Wait—then I asked: Since Plato's ideas are also original concepts, and since they are said to be obtained from recalling the intuition of real things that existed before his death, are ideas the same as Kant's so-called transcendental existence in us? Is the form of intuition in consciousness roughly the same as the form of thinking?These two completely different doctrines—Kant's about forms, which confine the individual's "knowledge" to phenomena; [two] theories on the contrary, [only] because there are some similarities in their statements, people carefully compare and discuss whether they are the same or not. Two debated; then found out that the two were not the same thing, and finally concluded that Plato's theory of ideas and Kant's critique of reason had nothing in common.But enough has been said about this.