Chapter 33 Part Three Revisiting the World as Appearance §33

Since we as individuals have no other knowledge than that which is subject to the law of sufficient reason, and the form [law of sufficient reason] excludes [man's knowledge of] ideas, if it were possible for us to learn from individual things If the knowledge of the idea rises to the knowledge of the Idea, it must be possible only in this way, that is, a change must take place in the subject, and this change corresponds to a great change [in knowing] that replaces a whole class of objects. is corresponding.The subject at this moment ceases to be an individual in so far as it recognizes the Idea.

We still remember from the previous article that cognition [function] itself belongs to the objectification of will at a higher level, and sensibility, nerves, and brain are just like other parts of organic beings, all of which are the objectification of will in its objectivity. Expression at this level; and thus the appearances produced through them are precisely destined to serve the will, as means [mechanical tools] to its now complicated ends, as preservation of a need biological means.Therefore cognition is from the very beginning, and in its very nature, entirely at the service of the will.Just as the immediate object—which, through the application of the law of causality, becomes the point of departure for cognition—is only the objectified will, so all knowledge according to the principle of sufficient reason always has a nearer or distant relation to the will.This is because the individual finds his body as one of the objects, and the body has complex relations and connections with these objects according to the basis, so the way to examine these objects [can be] far or wide However, it has to return to the body of this individual, that is, to return to its will.Since it is the principle of sufficient reason which places these objects in their relation to the body, and through the body to the will, knowledge in the service of the will consists only in the effort to obtain from these objects the relations established by the principle of sufficient reason, That is, to tease out their complex relationships in space, time, and causality.It turns out that only through these relations do objects become interesting to the individual, i.e. they are related to the will.Therefore "knowledge" in the service of the will recognizes from objects only their relations, and knows these objects only in so far as they are here and now, in these circumstances, from their causes, and from their effects; One sentence: It is [knowledge] as individual things. If all these relationships are cancelled, these objects will disappear for cognition, just because "knowledge" recognizes other things in the object. There would have been nothing else. ——We must not deny that the things that various sciences investigate in things are also nothing else in essence, but all the relationships of things, the relationships in time and space, the causes of natural changes, and the comparison of forms. .Motives for things to happen, etc., that is, many, many relationships.Science differs from common sense only in that it takes the form of a coherent system, the simplification and consequent completeness of knowledge obtained by generalizing all the particulars to the general by means of a hierarchical arrangement of concepts. sex.Any relationship itself has only a relative actual existence; for example, all existence in time is also a non-existence, because time is just that thing, and because of the opposite determination of this thing, it can belong to one thing at the same time; In time and out of time.This is because it happens to be only time that separates the beginning and the end of phenomena, and time is essentially something like the dead, insubstantial, relative, and here [people call it] continuation.Time, however, is the most general form of all objects of knowledge in the service of the will, and is the primitive type of the other forms of these objects.

As a rule, cognition is always submissive to the service of the will, and cognition is born for this service; cognition grows for the will as the head grows for the trunk.In animals, the awareness of serving the will [the routine] cannot be done away with at all.The cessation of cognition in the service of the will also occurs only as an exception in man, which we shall shortly examine.This difference between man and beast is expressed in the appearance [of the body] by the difference in the relation between the head and the body.In the lower animals, the head and body are still completely joined together without a trace of joint.All these animals have their heads down to the ground, [for] the objects of the will are on the ground.Even in the higher animals, the head and the body are indistinguishable from each other in comparison with man; but in man the head seems to rest freely on the body, but is carried by it instead of serving it. .The statue of Apollo unearthed in Belvedere shows the superiority of human beings to the maximum: the head of this god of literature and art stands so freely and unimpeded on the shoulders, as if the head has been completely Get rid of the body, no longer seem to be enslaved by the heart.