A Question Concerning Schopenhauer’s Conception of the Principium Individuationis

“Basically, Schopenhauer holds that the multiplicity that we see is something constructed by our cognition. My question is this: Fair enough—multiplicity as we experience it is a product of our cognition. But how can we rule out that in the “Thing-in-itself” there’s some non-cognitive process that individuates things?”

This is an interesting question. I’ll try to clarify Schopenhauer’s (sometimes inconsistent) views on the issue and provide what I think would be his answer to your question.

For Schopenhauer, all “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” are features made possible by the principium individuations; and this, Schopenhauer maintained, was Space-Time. Thus, the categories or determinations of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” all, in some way or another, invoke Space-Time. Now, Space-Time, as Schopenhauer points out, has its being (i.e., “realizes” or “manifests” itself) in and through its “operations” as spatio-temporal relations (or spatio-temporal “relatings”) holding good of, and within, Substance (i.e., “matter” and its affections—or “causality”). Thus, the principium individuationis has its being only through Substance. Indeed, this principle has no being apart from its manifestation, and this manifestation just is the differentiating of Substance.

  

Schopenhauer held to an idiosyncratic form of an empiricist criterion of meaning—which explains why he believed that the predicates of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” could only be sensibly ascribed to Substance (i.e., “matter”).

 

Now, Schopenhauer maintained that Substance (i.e., “matter”) is a function (or correlate) of the Understanding—just as much as the Understanding is a function (or correlate) of Substance. This correlativity entails that Space-Time (i.e., the principium individuationis) is inextricably tied to the Understanding: the two stand and fall together, and the predicates of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” cannot be sensibly ascribed to anything that was not itself a mode or modification of matter—the sensible correlative of the Understanding (i.e., cognition). 

Furthermore, since Schopenhauer reserves the features of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity,” for Substance (which itself has no being apart from Space-Time), he would reject the notion that “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” is a “One” or a “Unity.” Indeed, Schopenhauer mentions (in some place, I can’t remember where exactly) that “oneness” or “unity” cannot be predicated of “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” in any but a metaphorical sense. “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” is the ground of “oneness” and “manyness,” “unity” and “multiplicity.” If anything, “The Will” or “Thing-in-itself” ought to be grasped as a “one-in-many” and as a “unity-in-multiplicity” (expressions which Schopenhauer would likely find objectionable because of its “Hegelian” tones).

My Reading Notes

I have decided to start publishing my reading notes to the site. Since I am accustomed to annotating the pages of books and articles, rather than recording my thoughts in a separate document or notebook, the majority of my published reading notes (the entirety of which spans nearly 6,000 pages) will consist of quotations that I transcribed while reading—having considered them to be thought-provoking and worthy of further exploration (While many quotes contain fragments that I sympathize with, one will encounter passages which are radically disparate from my own beliefs and ways of thinking). I hope this archive sparks your interest. Enjoy.

Reading Notes

Fragmentary Notes §42—§45

§42

We frequently speak of “loving” and “cherishing” photographs. But what do we mean by this? What are we really expressing our “love” for? What is the genuine object of our “cherishment”? As soon as we begin to reflect upon the nature of photographs, we uncover webs of subtle and unconscious knots—confusions resulting not only from the haziness of common expressions and causal parlance, but also from the enigmatic relationship between what a thing “is” and what it is “of”—a relation of identity-in-difference.

§43

A photograph both is, and is not, itself. Indeed, a photograph is a photograph only insofar as it vanishes into what is “other” than itself—a hilly landscape, a blooming flower, a colorful bowl of fruit, etc. The visual medium “discloses” a message; and in disclosing the message, it must, in some respect, be in contact with it through a point of shared identity. The identity of every photograph is dependent upon its own self-abasement and self-denial as a stand-alone, self-dependent, and self-contained being. Mere “likeness” or “similarity” fails to capture the essence of the relationship between a photograph and its subject matter. And understanding this relationship is essential for grasping what we really mean when we speak of “loving” and “cherishing” photographs.

§44 

A photograph’s meaning, subject-matter, and value is determined by the person who comes into contact with it (physically or digitally). A photograph–by itself–is rarely the object of sentimental attachment. We treasure a photograph because of an object, event, or scene that lies outside or beyond the photograph—the photograph being a digital or chemical “representation” of said object, event, or scene. We “cherish” a photograph only insofar as we “love” what is “represented” by means of it or what is “disclosed” through it. We “treasure” and protect a photograph because it puts us into contact with an object of love and concern–and in most cases, this object has long since vanished.

§45

Unlike a photographic print, a digital photograph is, almost always, something “transparent”—like a glass window. If I am inside my house, I may see an object or event that is occurring outside “by means of” a glass window, or “through” a glass window. The glass window facilitates my view of the object or event without itself becoming the object of my attention or concern. 

Common-Sense and the Perceptible World

Whenever we perceive a part of the perceptible world, we perceive it as “having” or “consisting of” qualities. Furthermore, the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are the “what” (i.e., the “content” or characteristica) that we appeal to whenever we say that “this” part of the perceptible world is different from “that” part of the perceptible world. Indeed, without this qualitative “whatness,” every part of the perceptible world we perceive would be indistinguishable from any other. Puzzles regarding the peculiar relationship between a perceived part of the perceptible world and the qualities we perceive that part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” often leads Common-Sense to maintain that all the qualities we perceive any part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are dependent upon and relative to the structure of our sense organs—a view which, when taken to its logical conclusions, leads to contradictions. 

Now, our sense organs—on which the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are said to depend—are themselves parts of the perceptible world, and, as such, the qualities we perceive our sense organs (e.g., Our eyes) as “having” or “consisting of” are likewise dependent upon and relative to our sense organs (e.g., Our hands). However, these “second-order” sense organs (e.g., Our hands)—on which the qualities we perceive the “first-order” sense organs (e.g., Our eyes) as “having” or “consisting of” depend—are, in turn, themselves parts of the perceptible world, and so the qualities we perceive the “second-order” sense organs (e.g., Our hands) as “having” or “consisting of” depend upon a “third-order” of sense organs (e.g., Our nose and tongue), or—Heaven forbid—upon the “first-order” sense organs again (e.g., Our eyes). There is no end to the mutual dependence. However, if, as Common-Sense holds, the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are themselves actual features of that part of the perceptible world we perceive them as inhering in, then we are either sent off into a vicious regress or entrapped within a vicious circle. In the former case, we are led into an inconsistency: all parts of the perceptible world (including our sense organs) dissolve into “states” of “states” of “states” of an unknown X—a “something-we-know-not-what” never to be found. In the latter case, we are led to an absurd contradiction: our sense organs would have given rise to the whole perceptible world of which our sense organs are proper parts—“into the man’s head the whole world goes, including the head itself.”

The above argument is a refinement of a similar argument from A.E. Taylor’s 1903 work, Elements of Metaphysics, page 198-199.