On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason

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The World as Representation

Schopenhauer’s central proposition is the main idea of his entire philosophy, he states simply as “The world is my representation.”

The rest of his work is an elaborate analysis and unpacking of this sentence, which begins with his Kantian epistemology, but finds thorough elaboration within his version of the principle of sufficient reason. This is responsible for providing adequate explanations for any ‘thing,’ or object that occurs in relation to a subject of knowing; of any representation possible there is always a possible question of 'why?' that one can address to it. It amounts to what Schopenhauer has done, in his view, to extend and complete what Kant began with his Critique of Pure Reason.

The Four Classes
Four classes of explanation fall under the principle’s rubric. Hence, four classes of objects occur always and already only in relation to a knowing subject, according to a correlative capacity within the subject. These classes are summarized as follows:

• Becoming: Only with the combination of time and space does perceptual actuality become possible for a subject, allowing for ideas of perception, and this provides the ground of becoming to judgments. This is the law of causality, which is, when considered subjectively, intellectual and a priori understanding. All possible judgments that are inferences of a cause from an effect—a physical state a subject infers as caused by another physical state or vice versa—take this as the ground of the possibility of such judgments. The natural sciences operate within this aspect of the principle.

• Knowing: This class of objects subsumes all judgments, or abstract concepts, which a subject knows through conceptual, discursive reason rooted in the ground of knowing. The other three classes of objects are immediate representations, while this class is always and already composed of representations of representations. Therefore, the truth-value of concepts abstracted from any of the other three classes of objects is grounded in referring to something outside the concept. Concepts are abstract judgments grounded in intuitions of time or space, ideas of perception (causality apparent in the outer world), or acts of will (causality experienced from within). This class makes language (in the form of abstract judgments that are then communicable) possible, and as a consequence, all the sciences become possible within the umbrella of rhetoric.

• Being: Time and space comprise separate grounds of being. These a priori (prior to experience) forms respectively allow for an “inner,” temporal sense and an “outer,” spatial sense for the subject; subjectively, these are the forms of pure sensibility—they make sensations possible for a subject. The first makes arithmetic possible, and is presupposed for all other forms of the principle of sufficient reason; the other makes geometry possible. Time is one dimensional and purely successive; each moment determines the following moment; in space, any position is determined only in its relations to all other positions in a finite, hence, closed system. Thus, intuitions of time and space provide the grounds of being that make arithmetical and geometrical judgments possible, which are also valid for experience.

• Willing: It is possible for a subject of knowing to know himself directly as ‘will.’ A subject knows his acts of will only after the fact, in time. Action then, finds its root in the law of motivation, the ground of acting, which is causality, but seen from the inside. In other words, not only does a subject know his body as an object of outer sense, in space, but also in an inner sense, in time alone; a subject has self-consciousness in addition to knowing his body as an idea of perception. Why does a subject act the way he does? Where a sufficient motive appears in the form either of an intuition, perception, or abstract conception, the subject will act according to his character, or ‘will.’ E.g., despite all plans to the contrary, when the actual moment comes to act, we do so within the constituents of the rhetorical situation (the various representations present in a subject’s experience) and are often surprised by what we actually say and do. The human sciences find their ground in this aspect of the principle.

 Conclusion

Different rules govern the possible explanations for representations of the four classes and “every explanation given in accordance with this guiding line is merely relative.

It [the principle of sufficient reason] explains things in reference to one another, but it always leaves unexplained something that it presupposes,” and the two things that are absolutely inexplicable are the principle itself and the “thing in itself”,^[5] which Schopenhauer connects with the will to live. The principle, in another point of view, provides the general form of any given perspective, presupposing both subject and object. The thing in itself, consequently, remains forever unknowable from any standpoint, for any qualities attributed to it are merely perceived, i.e., constructed in the mind from sensations given in time and space. Furthermore, because the concepts we form from our perceptions cannot in any way refer with any validity to anything beyond these limits to experience, all proofs for the existence of God or anything beyond the possibility of experience fall away under the razor of Kant’s critique.

Kant termed this critical or transcendental idealism. Important to note here is that “Transcendental” does not refer to knowing the unknowable, but rather it refers to the a priori intellectual conditions for experience.

This intuition of the a priori understanding is a modern elucidation of the postmodern expression "always already" : time and space always and already determine the possibilities of experience.

Additionally, Schopenhauer distinguishes from this something he calls a "spurious a priori": cultural perspectives (ideologies) one is born into that determine one's relationship to experience, in addition to the forms of space and time.^[6] He considers these false because it is possible to investigate and uncover their grounds, leading to a reorientation that regards the phenomena of experience as source material of new knowledge, rather than one's always already prejudices about phenomena.