Schopenhauer’s Contraction of Reason: Clarifying Kant and Undoing German Idealism

Schopenhauer’s claim that the essence of the world consists in Wille encounters well known difficulties. Of particular importance is the conflict of this metaphysical claim with his restrictive account of conceptuality. This paper attempts to make sense of Schopenhauer’s position by restoring him to the context of post-Kantian debate, with special attention to the early notebooks and Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. On the reconstruction suggested here, Schopenhauer’s philosophical project should be understood in light of his rejection of post-Kantian metaphilosophy and his opposition to German Idealism. 1. The Puzzle of Schopenhauer’s Kantianism When situating his philosophy in relation to his predecessors, Schopenhauer presents it above all in relation to—as inspired by and correcting—Kant. The World as Will and Representation carries forward, Schopenhauer claims, the deepest insights of the first Critique while resolving problems that Kant left unsolved and rectifying errors concerning the role of reason and other matters, into which Kant was led by the historical accident of his proximity to Leibnizian-Wolffian scholasticism; at the same time, it works into the Kantian system insights from sources in ancient and Eastern philosophy to