On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in N
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 725 passages
Cite this work
- APAArthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in N. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/on-the-fourfold-root-of-the-principle-of-sufficient-reason-and-on-the-will-in-n
- MLAArthur Schopenhauer. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in N. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/on-the-fourfold-root-of-the-principle-of-sufficient-reason-and-on-the-will-in-n.
- ChicagoArthur Schopenhauer. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in N. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/schopenhauer/on-the-fourfold-root-of-the-principle-of-sufficient-reason-and-on-the-will-in-n.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Schopenhauer's doctoral dissertation, of 1813, which he himself regarded as the obligatory door to understanding him, paired here with his later essay on the will in nature.
Context and history
The dissertation argues that the principle of sufficient reason — everything has a why — is not one thing but four distinct things that philosophy has run together: the cause of a physical event, the ground of a logical conclusion, the why of a mathematical truth, and the motive of an action. Confusing them produces most of the misunderstandings of metaphysics. Schopenhauer always insisted that anyone reading 'The World as Will and Representation' without having read this first would not understand it. 'On the Will in Nature', of 1836, is a much later book on a different subject: there he looks in the sciences of his day for confirmations of his metaphysics. It is worth knowing that these are two separate works, far apart in date.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
them, I have necessarily encountered many and great difficulties. His meaning, though always clearly expressed, is not always easy to seize, even for his countrymen; as a foreigner, therefore, I may often have failed to grasp, let alone adequately to render, that meaning. In this case besides, the responsibility for any want of perspicuity cannot be shifted by the translator on to the Author; since the consummate perfection of Schopenhauer's prose is universally recognised, even by those who reject, or at least who do not share, his views. An eminent German writer of our time has not hesitated to rank him immediately after Lessing and Göthe as the third greatest German prose-writer, and only quite recently a German professor, in a speech delivered with the intent of demolishing Schopenhauer's philosophy, was reluctantly obliged to admit that his works would remain on account of their literary value. Göthe himself expressed admiration for the clearness of exposition in Schopenhauer's chief work and for the beauty of his style. The chief obstacle I have encountered in translating these Essays, did not therefore consist in the obscurity of the Author's style, nor even in the difficulty of finding appropriate terms wherewith to convey his meaning; although at times certainly the want of complete precision in our philosophical terminology made itself keenly felt and the selection was often far from easy: it lay rather in the great difference in the way of thinking and of expressing their thoughts which lies between the two nations. The regions of German and English thought are indeed separated by a gulf, which at first seems impassable, yet which must be bridged over by some means or other, if a right comprehension is to be achieved.…