Bart Vandenabeele, " Schopenhauer on Empirical and Aesthetic Perception ...

Arthur Schopenhauer was a cosmopolitan philosopher who incorporated Hindu and Buddhist writings into his philosophical system. He saw the world as a blind, purposeless, and irrational will dominating the world, including humans. Schopenhauer's philosophy is often attributed to his analysis of the self and the world as the product of an irrational, unconscious, and purposeless drive called "will." He argued that life is purposeless, with no ultimate goal or meaning, and that the only way to escape from these torments is by "seeing the world aright," acknowledging the pointlessness and insignificance of our own willing existence. Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition moved him away from German idealism and towards British empiricists like Berkeley, Hume, Locke, Reid, and Kant. He used this view of the "intellectual" nature of perception to argue for the ideality of the perceived world. Schopenhauer's basic idea of the world as representation had serious consequences for the reception of his thinking, especially in Anglo-American philosophy in the early twentieth century.

Friedrich Schopenhauer, a philosopher, argued that the world is an object in relation to a subject, as the subject is the supporter of the world and the universal condition of all that appears. He distinguished his position from skepticism, realism, and idealism, which he accused of making the object the effect of the subject. Schopenhauer argued that subject and object necessarily presuppose one another, and the law of causality applies only within the world of representations and objects. He argued that all causality is only in the understanding and for the understanding. Schopenhauer was inspired by Plato, Calderón de la Barca, and Shakespeare, who describe life and dreams as pages from the same book. He agreed with Kant that experience is dependent on the nature of the cognitive faculties and that the world cannot exist independently of the cognizing subject. Schopenhauer's arguments are not very convincing, as he is right to hold that the representation of a world free from a subject presupposes a subject but not that the existence of a world independent of a subject also does. He also criticizes Kant's "Transcendental Aesthetic" and his transcendental idealism.

In "Transcendental Logic," Karl Kant discusses the role of understanding in our intuitive perceptions. He argues that our knowledge comes from two sources: receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of concepts. Schopenhauer criticizes Kant's vague use of terms like Anschauung, Perzeption, and Wahrnehmung, and uses the concepts "perception" and "intuition" interchangeably.

Kant divides objective perception into intuition (immediate) and concept (mediate). Schopenhauer characterizes the understanding's activity as phenomenologically "immediate" instead of inferential or discursive. In visual perception, the understanding connects subjective sensations with an external cause, creating a world of objects through the application of time and space and the category of causality.

However, Schopenhauer's account of perception and the role of the understanding is called for. He unjustly identifies subjective sensations with physiological elements and fails to make clear how the manifold of light's affections on the retina can provide anything like an "image." Paul Guyer argues that Kant's transcendental method has been replaced by a phenomenological approach, suggesting that sense impressions do not correspond with the objective intuition of a world of physical objects.

Schopenhauer's hierarchy of the senses is remarkably close to Kant's, focusing on the senses that Schopenhauer considers the "most noble" of all: hearing and sight. He believes that the less noise one can bear, the more intellectually gifted one is, and that the amount of noise we can bear is inversely proportionate with intelligence. Hearing, along with sight, is the sense of language and reason, the faculty of abstract reasoning, and distracts great minds easily from their noble art of thinking.

Schopenhauer's theory of knowledge, aesthetics, and ethics emphasizes the importance of sight and intuition in our experiences. He argues that sight is the most important sense because it is not directly connected to the will, making it the aesthetic organ par excellence. Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition explores the concept of pure knowledge, which is experienced through the senses. He argues that visual perception is the easiest way to experience purely aesthetic pleasure, as it has no direct connection with the will.

Schopenhauer's view of sight as the only truly objective senses is controversial, as it threatens to disturb Schopenhauer's hierarchy of the senses and seems to underestimate the sense of hearing. Additionally, there is an unprecedented privilege attached to the transcendental form of space.

In Fourfold Root, Schopenhauer states that perceptions of sight ultimately refer to touch, and sight can be regarded as an imperfect touch extending to a distance and using rays of light as long feelers. This raises questions about the nature of pure knowledge and the role of the senses in our experiences.

Schopenhauer posits that visual perception occurs unconsciously and is accompanied by two systematic forms of "deceit": the illusion of immediacy (time) and the illusion of the sensation itself giving us the objects directly. The illusion of immediacy is strongest in visual perception and is also the most deceitful.

Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition raises questions about the nature of pure knowledge and the role of the senses in our experiences. While he acknowledges the potential benefits of seeing and touch, he also acknowledges the challenges and paradoxes associated with these concepts.

Schopenhauer's theory of perception and cognition posits that the intellect, a physiologically linked to the brain, is an instrument of the will. He believes that empirical cognition is driven by human needs, interests, and affects, and that the intellect can be disturbed by the will. In aesthetic consciousness, the "real self" appears to have vanished and is replaced by a "better" or "higher" consciousness, which turns away from the will and considers things as non-related to it. Schopenhauer distances himself from the Western tradition's belief that intellect and reason are the most perfect hallmark of humanity. Instead, he believes that cognition that is not in service of the will remains possible, known as aesthetic cognition. This state of awareness occurs when we perceive external objects and become empirically aware of the world. Schopenhauer's aesthetic experience is characterized by a state of extraordinary tranquility, where individual striving, suffering, desiring, and worrying no longer occur. This heightened, "objective" state of consciousness discards the embodied, willing self and frees us from the pressures and torments of will.

Aesthetic perception, according to Schopenhauer, is a state of awareness that transcends personal desires and offers freedom from the constant striving and suffering. It is not just a heightened state of awareness but also a superior form of cognition, as ordinary empirical cognition is guided by personal needs, affects, and interests. Schopenhauer believes that aesthetic perception is a sign of "the gift of genius" to attain and maintain a pure state of dispassionate, "pure perception" and cognition.

Aesthetic, will-less perception, which Schopenhauer identifies with Spinoza's notion of knowledge "sub aeternitatis specie," offers insight into the timeless kernel of things, the universal essences of the perceived objects, beyond mere appearance. These eternal essences are called the (Platonic) Ideas, the "eternal forms" behind the mere appearances of common empirical cognition.

Schopenhauer's aesthetics theory differs from Kant's view that aesthetic judgment cannot be based on certain concepts. He argues that the forms of space and time, and the understanding or intellect, ground and construct the world as representation, characterized by plurality. However, his metaphysical view of the thing-in-self is enmeshed in his claims, and his semi-Platonic account of the Ideas is more Platonic than Kantian.

Schopenhauer's accounts of ordinary and aesthetic perception offer a critical supplement to empiricist and Kantian theories of cognition and perception. He suggests that the intellect is driven by human willing, and that aesthetic perception allows the cerebral system to operate detached from the will. This will-less aesthetic cognition is pleasurable, offering relief from suffering and generating deeper insight into the timeless universals behind the mere appearances of things.