On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS.
Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, as indeed every hypothetical judgment is ultimately based upon that principle, and here the laws of hypothetical conclusions always hold good: that is to say, it is right to infer the existence of the consequence from the existence of the reason, and the non-existence of the reason from the non-existence of the consequence; but it is wrong to infer the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason, and the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence. Now it is singular that in Geometry we are nevertheless nearly always able to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, and the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason. This proceeds, as I have shown in § 37, from the fact that, as each line determines the position of the rest, it is quite indifferent which we begin at: that is, which we consider as the reason, and which as the consequence. We may easily convince ourselves of this by going through the whole of the geometrical theorems. It is only where we have to do not only with figures, _i.e._, with the positions of lines, but with planes independently of figures, that we find it in most cases impossible to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, or, in other words, to convert the propositions by making the condition the conditioned. The following theorem gives an instance of this: Triangles whose lengths and bases are equal, include equal areas. This cannot be converted as follows: Triangles whose areas are equal, have likewise equal bases and lengths; for the lengths may stand in inverse proportion to the bases.
In § 20 it has already been shown, that the law of causality does not admit of reciprocity, since the effect never can be the cause of its cause; therefore the conception of reciprocity is, in its right sense, inadmissible. Reciprocity, according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason of knowing, would only be possible between equivalent conceptions, since the spheres of these alone cover each other mutually. Apart from these, it only gives rise to a vicious circle. § 49. _Necessity._ The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For _necessity_ has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is _conditioned_: absolute, _i.e._, unconditioned, necessity therefore is a _contradicto in adjecto_. For _to be necessary_ can never mean anything but to result from a given reason. By defining it as "what cannot not be," on the other hand, we give a mere verbal definition, and screen ourselves behind an extremely abstract conception to avoid giving a definition of the thing. But it is not difficult to drive us from this refuge by inquiring how the non-existence of anything can be possible or even conceivable, since all existence is only given empirically. It then comes out, that it is only possible so far as some _reason_ or other is posited or present, from which it follows. To be necessary and to follow from a given reason, are thus convertible conceptions, and may always, as such, be substituted one for the other. The conception of an "ABSOLUTELY _necessary Being_" which finds so much favour with pseudo-philosophers, contains therefore a contradiction: it annuls by the predicate "_absolute_" (_i.e._, "unconditioned by anything else") the only determination which makes the "_necessary_" conceivable. Here again we have an instance of the _improper use of abstract conceptions_ to play off a metaphysical artifice such as those I have already pointed out in the conceptions "_immaterial substance_," "_cause in general_," "_absolute reason_," &c. &c.[159] I can never insist too much upon all abstract conceptions being checked by _perception_.
4^o. _Moral necessity_, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, is _compelled_, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many great thinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others. § 50. _Series of Reasons and Consequences._
According to the law of causality, the condition is itself always conditioned, and, moreover, conditioned in the same way; therefore, there arises a series _in infinitum a parte ante_. It is just the same with the Reason of Being in Space: each relative space is a figure; it has its limits, by which it is connected with another relative space, and which themselves condition the figure of this other, and so on throughout all dimensions _in infinitum_. But when we examine a single figure in itself, the series of reasons of being has an end, because we start from a given relation, just as the series of causes comes to an end if we stop at pleasure at any particular cause. In Time, the series of reasons of being has infinite extension both _a parte ante_, and _a parte post_, since each moment is conditioned by a preceding one, and necessarily gives rise to the following. Time has therefore neither beginning nor end. On the other hand, the series of reasons of knowledge--that is, a series of judgments, each of which gives logical truth to the other--always ends somewhere, _i.e._, either in an empirical, a transcendental, or a metalogical truth.
If the reason of the major to which we have been led is an empirical truth, and we still continue asking _why_, it is no longer a reason of knowledge that is asked for, but a cause--in other words, the series of reasons of knowing passes over into the series of reasons of becoming. But if we do the contrary, that is, if we allow the series of reasons of becoming to pass over into the series of reasons of knowing, in order to bring it to an end, this is never brought about by the nature of the thing, but always by a special purpose: it is therefore a trick, and this is the sophism known by the name of the Ontological Proof. For when a cause, at which it seems desirable to stop short in order to make it the _first_ cause, has been reached by means of the Cosmological Proof, we find out that the law of causality is not so easily brought to a standstill, and still persists in asking _why_: so it is simply set aside and the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, which from a distance resembles it, is substituted in its stead; and thus a reason of knowledge is given in the place of the cause which had been asked for--a reason of knowledge derived from the conception itself which has to be demonstrated, the reality of which is therefore still problematical: and this reason, as after all it is one, now has to figure as a cause.
Of course the conception itself has been previously arranged for this purpose, and reality slightly covered with a few husks just for decency's sake has been placed within it, so as to give the delightful surprise of finding it there--as has been shown in Section 7. On the other hand, if a chain of judgments ultimately rests upon a principle of transcendental or of metalogical truth, and we still continue to ask _why_, we receive no answer at all, because the question has no meaning, _i.e._, it does not know what kind of reason it is asking for. For the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the _principle of all explanation: to explain a thing_ means, to reduce its given existence or connection to some form or other of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, in accordance with which form that existence or connection necessarily is that which it is. The Principle of Sufficient Reason itself, _i.e._, the connection expressed by it in any of its forms, cannot therefore be further explained; because there exists no principle by which to explain the source of all explanation: just as the eye is unable to see itself, though it sees everything else. There are of course series of motives, since the resolve to attain an end becomes the motive for the resolve to use a whole series of means; still this series invariably ends _à parte priori_ in a representation belonging to one of our two first classes, in which lies the motive which originally had the power to set this individual will in motion. The fact that it was able to do this, is a datum for knowing the empirical character here given, but it is impossible to answer the question why that particular motive acts upon that particular character; because the intelligible character lies outside Time and never becomes an Object. Therefore the series of motives, as such, finds its termination in some such final motive and, according to the nature of its last link, passes into the series of causes, or that of reasons of knowledge: that is to say, into the former, when that last link is a real object; into the latter, when it is a mere conception.
If, by the present treatise, I have succeeded in deducing the result just expressed, it seems to me that every speculative philosopher who founds a conclusion upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason or indeed talks of a reason at all, is bound to specify which kind of reason he means. One might suppose that wherever there was any question of a reason, this would be done as a matter of course, and that all confusion would thus be impossible. Only too often, however, do we still find either the terms reason and cause confounded in indiscriminate use; or do we hear basis and what is based, condition and what is conditioned, _principia_ and _principiata_ talked about in quite a _general_ way without any nearer determination, perhaps because there is a secret consciousness that these conceptions are being used in an unauthorized way. Thus even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as the _reason_[161] of the phenomenon, and also of a _ground_ of the _possibility_ of all phenomena,[162] of an _intelligible cause_ of phenomena, of an _unknown ground_ of the possibility of the sensuous series in general, of a _transcendental object_[163] as the _ground_ of all phenomena and of the _reason_ why our sensibility should have this rather than all other supreme conditions, and so on in several places. Now all this does not seem to me to tally with those weighty, profound, nay immortal words of his,[164] "the contingency[165] of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena."
The following is my objection against this promiscuous employment of the word _ground_ (reason) and, with it, of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in general; it is likewise the second result, intimately connected with the first, which the present treatise gives concerning its subject-matter proper. The four laws of our cognitive faculty, of which the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the common expression, by their common character as well as by the fact that all Objects for the Subject are divided amongst them, proclaim themselves to be posited by one and the same primary quality and inner peculiarity of our knowing faculty, which faculty manifests itself as Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. Therefore, even if we imagined it to be possible for a new Fifth Class of Objects to come about, we should in that case likewise have to assume that the Principle of Sufficient Reason would appear in this class also under a different form. Notwithstanding all this, we still have no right to talk of an _absolute reason_ (ground), nor does a _reason in general_, any more than a _triangle in general_, exist otherwise than as a conception derived by means of discursive reflection, nor is this conception, as a representation drawn from other representations, anything more than a means of thinking several things in one.
Now, just as every triangle must be either acute-angled, right-angled, or obtuse-angled, and either equilateral, isosceles or scalene, so also must every reason belong to one or other of the four possible kinds of reasons I have pointed out. Moreover, since we have only four well-distinguished Classes of Objects, every reason must also belong to one or other of these four, and no further Class being possible, Reason itself is forced to rank it within them; for as soon as we employ a reason, we presuppose the Four Classes as well as the faculty of representing (_i.e._ the whole world), and must hold ourselves within these bounds, never transcending them. Should others, however, see this in a different light and opine that a _reason in general_ is anything but a conception, derived from the four kinds of reasons, which expresses what they all have in common, we might revive the controversy of the Realists and Nominalists, and then I should side with the latter. AN ACCOUNT OF THE CORROBORATIONS RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR'S PHILOSOPHY _Translated from the Fourth Edition published by_ JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT. Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου, Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν· Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος. ÆSCH.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.