“ The nature of things before or beyond the world, and consequently beyond the will, is open to no investigation; because knowledge in general is itself only a phenomenon, and therefore exists only in the world as the world exists only in it. ”
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819). copy citation
| Author | Arthur Schopenhauer |
|---|---|
| Source | The World as Will and Representation |
| Topic | investigation world |
| Date | 1819 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html |
Context
“But if we leave the world in order to answer the questions indicated above, we have also left the whole sphere in which, not only connection according to reason and consequent, but even knowledge itself is possible; then all is instabilis tellus, innabilis unda. The nature of things before or beyond the world, and consequently beyond the will, is open to no investigation; because knowledge in general is itself only a phenomenon, and therefore exists only in the world as the world exists only in it. The inner being in itself of things is nothing that knows, no intellect, but an unconscious; knowledge is [pg 471] only added as an accident, a means of assistance to the phenomenon of that inner being, and can therefore apprehend that being itself only in proportion to its own nature, which is designed with reference to quite different ends”
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