The theory of perception is one of the weakest aspects in the philosophy developed by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). It consolidates in one point all errors in Schopenhauer’s ideas. It’s so poorly reasoned that it may prevent us from appreciating the good parts of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. What is wrong with Schopenhauer’s theory of perception? I raise as main criticism its total disconnection from reality. To the discharge of Schopenhauer, I must point out that he started at a very low point, namely, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). When Schopenhauer was a university student, he enrolled in lessons by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), but never took those seriously. Fichte’s orations about the metaphysical ego of the German people left Schopenhauer unimpressed. He viewed them as pure inventions, not as philosophy. Unfortunately, Schopenhauer took Kant seriously, forgetting that Fichte had attended Kant’s lectures and expressed a total devotion to Kant’s ideas. In his book “Theory of Science” (1785), Fichte claimed to have rendered Kant more scientific, by placing the ego as basic reality (consciousness) and the non-ego (external world) as the field for human action. Schopenhauer rejected Fichte’s theory and returned to pure Kantian terminology. He reused the Kantian concept “things in themselves” with the same meaning. He also used the Kantian concepts “phenomenon” and “noumenon,” but with a different meaning. Kant had theorized that knowledge is shaped by the mind’s inherent capabilities or categories (such as cause and effect). The categories list compiled by Kant is quite short. He decided to overlook the fact that people are inventing new things all the time without being bothered by their limited categories. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/critique-of-schopenhauers-philosophy-of-perception/

Ver todos los episodios