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Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 4, Number 2, April 1966,pp. 133-144 (Article)

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Schopenhauer and Platonic Ideas

H I L D E H E I N

SCttOPENttAUER, in the Preface to the first edition of The W o r l d as Wi l l and Represen ta t ion , acknowledges the debt his philosophy owes to the doctrines of Kant and Plato and the Upanishads. Specifically of Plato he says: "But i f . . . the reader has dwelt for a while in the school of the divine Plato, he will be prepared to hear me, and the more susceptible to what I say." 1

Historians and commentators, in defining Schopenhauer's place in the history of philosophy, accept his self-appraisal and take for granted both the accuracy of Schopenhauer's interpretation of his sources and the truth of his contention that they were his primary influences. 2 Only Russell, with characteristic scepticism, refers to the acknowledgement and then goes on to add, "but I do not think he owes as much to Plato as he thinks he does." 3 Russell does not state the reasons for his doubts, but I believe he is right in having them, and it is my intention here to examine Sehopenhauer's treatment of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas and the extent to which he departs from Plato's original conception of it. I shall not make a parallel investigation of Schopenhauer's use of the philosophy of Kant and the Upanishads, although I believe that one would discover that they also undergo considerable transformation when put to the purposes for which Schopen- hauer employs them.

I do not mean to deny that Schopenhauer was deeply moved and profoundly influenced by these philosophies. I t would be folly to contest the truth of a claim which he was in the best position to make. And there is no doubt that he is in agreement with them in the belief whose antiquity and generality he points out, that the ordinary world of common experience has only a relative existence, that the world is known as representation (Bk. I, f~3).4 But beyond this initial simi- larity there are significant discrepancies between Schopenhauer's views and those of his avowed philosophical ancestors, I shall confine my remarks in the present discussion to some of his deviations from "the divine Plato."

Schopenhauer is careful to distinguish between the Kantian use (or misuse) of the term "Idea" ("the abstract productions of scholastic dogmatizing reason"; Bk. II, f~25) and the meaning which Plato gives to it, as referring to the un-

The World as Will and Representation, trans, by E.F.J. Payne (Indian Hills, Colorado : The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958), p. xxiii. A. Schopenhauer, S~immtliche Werke, Band II, herausge- geben Julius Frauenstadt (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1891) p. xiii. All subsequent quotations from Schopenhauer will be taken from the Payne translation.

2 E.g., E.F.J. Payne, The World as Will and Representation, Translator's Preface, pp. xiv, cvi ; B.A.G. Fuller, A History o] Modern Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1938), p. 470; and William Caldwell, Schopenhauer' s System in its Philosophical Significance, pp. 44, 166.

8 Bertrand Russell, A History o] Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 753.

4 Payne, I, 6-7; Werke, II, 7-8.

]-133]

134 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

attained patterns, related to individual things as their eternal forms or proto- types. Schopenhauer clearly allies himself with the Platonic usage: "Therefore with me the word is always to be understood in its genuine and original meaning given it by Plato" (Bk. II, $25).5

Schopenhauer goes on to characterize the Ideas in what appears to be a Platonic fashion. More like the Kantian thing-in-itself than like the Kantian Idea, they are unconditioned by time and space, remaining fixed and subject to no change, forever being and never having become, and foreign to all plurality. As such, the Platonic Ideas play a major role in Schopenhauer's philosophy, particularly in his theory of art. But precisely here we have grounds for suspicion that in fact Schopenhauer used the Ideas in a very un-Platonic sense.

The disagreement between Plato and Schopenhauer regarding art is widely recognized. I t is well known that Plato denied that the artist possesses privileged insight into reality. On the contrary, he maintained that the artist is a falsifier whose product is "three removes from reality," and who merits banishment from the ideal state because his "poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of his hearers." 6 Poetic inspiration, as described in the Ion (533), is a kind of visionary madness. I t is not productive of knowledge; nor is it a consequence of it.

Schopenhauer, on the other hand, declares that it is through art, the work of genius, that one may achieve knowledge of "what continues to exist outside and independently of all relations, but which alone is really essential to the world, the true content of its phenomena. . . " (Bk. III , f/36)Y In other words, the comprehension of the Platonic Ideas is, for Schopenhauer, to be found exclusively in those who possess "the gift of genius." s Where Plato stresses the industry and patience which precede the dialectician's insight into the Ideas, Schopenhauer emphasizes the spontaneity of the genius whose art is "purely the work of the ecstasy of the moment, the inspiration, the free movement of genius, without any admixture of intention and reflection." 9

My aim here is not to review the much discussed philosophies of art of Plato and Schopenhauer, but rather to suggest that their disagreement about artistic vision is indicative of a far more fundamental difference between them concerning the nature of the Ideas and their function in philosophy.

Schopenhauer, as noted above, claims to preserve the Platonic sense of "Idea." Like Plato, he thinks of Ideas as "the original unchanging fo rms . . , of all natural bodies," present as a whole in innumerable individuals and "related to them as the archetype is to its copies" (Bk. III , $30).1~ There are thus relatively few Ideas, corresponding to species rather than to particulars and yet, paradoxically, exhibited as a whole in each instance or exemplification. " ~ P a y n e , I , 129-130; Werke, II, 154.

6 Republic, Bk. X, 599a and passim. Plato, The Collected Dialogues, ed. E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Bollinger Series LXXI, 1963), p. 824; Laws, 817, p. 1387; Ion 533-534, pp. 219-220.

Payne, I, 184; Werl~e, II, 217. 8 Some qualification of this statement is necessary since, as Schopenhauer admits, everyone

who has any capacity for aesthetic enjoyment must have some rudimentary awareness of the Ideas, and with the help of works of genius this awareness may be expanded. This topic will be more fully discussed later.

g A. Schopenhauer, "On the Inner Nature of Art" in The Will to Live, ed. Richard Taylor (New York : Anchor Book, Doubleday, 1962), p. 249.

Payne, I, 169; Werke, II, 199.

SCHOPENHAUER AND PLATONIC IDEAS 135

But the Ideas are not to be found as such in ordinary experience. They are only imperfectly imitated by it. Ideas are outside time and space. They are immutable, eternal, forever one and the same; while phenomena are unstable, impermanent, mutable, and incessantly passing into and out of existence. I t follows that while Ideas are eminently real, phenomena cannot be claimed to exist fully.

If, according to Schopenhauer, Platonic Ideas are remote from Kantian Ideas, they are not far from the Kantian thing-in-itself. Indeed, Schopenhauer believes that the inner meaning of the Platonic and Kantian doctrines is "wholly the same." Both Plato and Kant affirm that the visible world has only borrowed reality, and that only the (Idea or thing-in-itself) which is expressed in this world is truly real. Using the illustration of an animal (Bk. III, $31),11 Schopen- hauer declares that for Plato only the Idea which is depicted in the animal has true being, and as such only it can be the object of real knowledge. The indi- vidual features, as well as the position in space and time of the animal, are of no account. In representing our awareness of the animal in Kantian terms, Schopen- hauer says that as a spatio-temporal creature, it is mere phenomenon, valid only with reference to our knowledge. Awareness of it as it is apart from its determi- nations would require a form of knowledge other than that which is possible to us through sense and understanding.

In making the comparison between the Kantian thing-in-itself and the Platonic Idea, Schopenhauer here mentions but does not take note of an important differ- ence between them. For Plato it follows from the endless flux of the realm of becoming that things within it do not fully exist and cannot truly be known. The true object of knowledge for Plato is the Idea, which is changeless and eternal. But for Kant the reverse is the case. Things in themselves cannot be known, because knowledge presupposes the categories of the understanding and the forms of intuition, and the noumenal realm is unconditioned by these forms. Thus knowledge is possible only of phenomena. Schopenhauer is aware of this differ- ence. He speaks of the Kantian phenomenon as "valid only in reference to our knowledge," but he does not take it seriously, because he believes that despite Kant's protestations to the contrary, there is a direct cognitive route to things-in- themselves, apart from their spatio-temporal conditions. This is intuition, and Schopenhauer's prejudice in favor of this form of insight renders him incapable of appreciating the enormity of the gulf between the Platonic Idea and the Kantian thing-in-itself. Having redefined Kant's thing-in-itself to include the possibility, at least in exceptional cases, of being immediately apprehended, he sees it as differing from Plato's Ideas only to the extent that the temperaments of Kant and Plato dictated dissimilar terminology.

According to Schopenhauer, the Platonic Idea is the Kantian thing-in-itself with the additional property of being knowable. Furthermore, like Kant and unlike Plato, Schopenhauer conceives this Idea to be ontologically one with the phenomena through which it is expressed. But this is a radical departure from Plato's own metaphysical position. Whatever the metaphysical and logical diffi- culties attendant upon Platonic dualism, Plato himself is committed to the view

Payne, I, 172 ; Werke, II, 203.

136 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

that there are two distinct and dissimilar realms, Being and Becoming, and that things in the latter realm are what they are in virtue of their "imitation of" or "participation in" the denizens of the former. Plato's denial of reality to things which are Becoming is not due to their presumed illusoriness or failure to be what they are, but rather because they do not remain anything very long or very consistently and thus cannot be adequately characterized. For this reason they also lack the perfection of the stable. They are unreal in the sense in which a faithless friend is not nonexistent, but false, inferior to the ideal of friendship. The existence of the unreal is frequently deplored by Plato, but it is not denied.

There is no comparable dualism in the Kantian doctrine of things-in-them- selves. The noumenal and phenomenal realms are distinguished only epistemo- logically. Phenomena are noumena conditioned by the categories of the under- standing. Their substance or "material" cause is identical. Schopenhauer, in his concept of the Platonic Idea, adheres to the Kantian monism. For him things in the realm of Becoming are unreal in the sense of being illusory, or, at least, distortions of "the one being of each kind that alone really exists" (Bk. III , $31). TM The categories of space, time and causality are the device which the intellect imposes upon reality, thereby causing i t to appear to us as a "plurality of homogenous beings, always being originated anew and passing away in end- less succession." la

Schopenhauer himself calls attention to one difference between the Kantian thing-in-itself and the Platonic Idea. He does not regard them as absolutely identical. The thing-in-itself is ultimate reality, and for Schopenhauer this is Will, the endless, surging process which cannot itself be an object of knowledge. Knowledge of the Will would entail precisely the dualism which Plato predicates of reality and Schopenhauer denies of it. The Idea for Schopenhauer is Will object i f ied, its "immediate and therefore adequate objectivity." I t is conditioned not by the categories which determine phenomena, but by the one, most general condition, "the first and most universal form" that of being an ob]ect to a subject (a "representation in general"). It thus differs from pure reality, the Will, in the sole respect that it is known. Epistemologically it may be taken to stand between reality, the Will which cannot be known at all, and the phenomena, which are known as conditioned by the Kantian categories, the latter reduced to the princi- ple of sufficient reason. But metaphysically all three are (not without precedent) one and the same.

Schopenhauer takes this departure from Plato to be trivial. I t is a strictly epistemological distinction. There are no ent i t i es called Ideas, which are meta- physically apart from other aspects of reality. There is only the Will as u n k n o w n in its primary state and the Will as k n o w n through its various gradations, the Ideas. The Will itself is one and continuous; the plurality of the Ideas stems from the fact that each represents or objectifies a different level or gradation of the Will.

But this difference is not as insignificant as Schopenhauer thinks it to be, for in denying that Ideas are ultimate reality, he is taking an un-Platonic position.

Payne, I, 173 ; Werke, II, 204. is Ibid.

S C H O P E N H A U E R AND P L A T O N I C I D E A S 137

Plato believed that there were separate realms of reali ty, and tha t nothing was more real or ul t imate than Ideas. They, collectively, are one of the three un- created entities of the Timaeus (28),14 the pa t te rn in whose image the world was made. For Schopenhauer, the Kant ian thing-in-itself, the Will, is more funda- mental than the Ideas and they are a representat ion of it. But in so far as this ult imate is knowable through the mediation of the Ideas, Schopenhauer's posi- t ion is also un-Kantian.

To the extent tha t Schopenhauer's concept of the Platonic Idea may be sum- marized, we may say tha t it is very like the Kant ian thing-in-itself, differing from it by being one remove from reality, tha t move consisting in its being an object of knowledge.

I t is evident then that Schopenhauer did not use the term "Platonic Idea" in precisely the sense in which Plato intended it. T h a t Schopenhauer himself is aware of this is suggested by his charge tha t Plato was inconsistent in his use of the expression. What Schopenhauer offers is a "persuasive redefinition" of the term, one which somewhat impoverishes its connotation. For Schopenhauer ac- cuses Plato of using the term " Idea" loosely, and he himself proposes to use it in a sense which covers only a par t of what he took Plato to mean by it.

Schopenhauer believes tha t there is a fundamental distinction between the Idea and the concept, the latter being a mere object of rat ional thought and science. Plato, he says, failed to make such a differentiation and thus he sometimes characterized as Ideas universal abstractions which are not Platonic Ideas at all. Schopenhauer's own discrimination between the two is not as luminous as one might hope.

The concept is abstract, discursive, undetermined within its own sphere, only determined by its limits, attainable and comprehensible by him who has only reason, communicable by words without any other assistance, entirely exhausted by its definition. The Idea on the contrary, although defined as the adequate representative of the concept, is always the object of percep- tion, and although representing an infinite number of particular things, is yet thoroughly de- termined . . . . It is therefore not absolutely, but only conditionally communicable... (Bk. III,

I t is true tha t Plato 's account of the Ideas is not entirely clear. He does appear sometimes to t rea t Ideas as abstractions from experience. Socrates' concern in the early dialogues with the search for essential definitions which will identify the connotation common to all the entities denoted by a te rm illustrates a purely discursive exercise of reason. Both the Sympos ium (210-211)18 and the Phaedrus (249) 17 make the point tha t experience of man y part iculars is absolutely neces- sary before the Idea of which they are an instance can be grasped.

The length of the training period required of the guardians in the Republic and the Laws also suggests tha t a solid basis of experience is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for the final confrontat ion with the Ideas. However, since this training is largely in mathematics and dialectic, one might argue tha t it is

14 Hamilton and Cairns, pp. 1161-1163. 1~ Payne, I, 234 ; Werke, II, 276. 16 Hamilton and Cairns, pp. 561-563. ~7 Ibid. pp. 495-496.

138 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

not experience per se, but the mas te ry of the sys tem which consumes the philoso- pher 's time. Nonetheless, in so far as this sys tem is purely rat ional, the Idea which is its conclusion would be what Schopenhauer calls a concept.

On the other hand, Pla to also writes as a mystic. He represents the final beholding of the Idea of Absolute Beau ty as a kind of revelat ion which renders the perceiver "the friend of God" and " immor ta l . " The experience is described in the Republic (519) TM as a beatific vision. In this sense it is ineffable, the object of direct apprehension; and it can be nei ther taught nor communicated. I t is concrete, as opposed to general, being an individual enti ty, indescribable in te rms of common characteristics. Bu t it is abstract as being on a plane apa r t f rom the particular, t ha t which is mere ly an instance of a general type. The Idea is not a class designation; it is the p ro to type or paradigm, and as such is absolute ly unique.

Now it appears t ha t i t is this lat ter sense which Sehopenhauer took to be the true meaning of the te rm " Idea . " This is what he believed was the object of the genius' contemplation, and he chose to read Pla to as being inconstant in his adherence to tha t definition. Bu t I believe t ha t Schopenhauer 's in terpre ta t ion of Pla to on this ma t t e r is not necessari ly correct. In any event, it is surely not the only one open to us.

Pla to clearly did believe t ha t knowledge of the Ideas, par t icu lar ly t h a t of the Good or the Beautiful, TM is a t ta ined only af ter a prot rac ted period of discipline and study. While it is not guaranteed to all who seek it in this fashion, i t is to ta l ly inaccessible to those who do not. However , when it does come, it appears in incandescent glory. The final achievement of knowledge t ranscends the pure ly rational. This coalition of the myst ica l and the rat ional makes sense of such passages of the Seventh Epist le as the following:

Acquaintance with it must come rather after a long period of attendance in the subject itself and of close companionship, when suddenly, like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, it is gen- erated in the soul and at once becomes self-sustaining. ~

and again:

... after practicing detailed comparisons of names and definitions.., at last, in a flash, under- standing of each blazes up, and the mind as it exerts all its powers to the limit of human ca- pacity is flooded with lights. 21

Conceivably, this view of the epistemic s ta tus of the Platonic Ideas is con- sistent with Schopenhauer 's own declarat ion tha t the abi l i ty of the genius to perceive the Ideas is due to his possession of a "superfluity of knowledge." But it is not a surplus of knowledge of the ordinary type which is involved; for, as

18 Ibid., p. 751. 19 There is some debate as to whether this is an Idea at all, or whether it might not better

be regarded as standing outside the hierarchy of Ideas altogether, as their source and anchor. In my estimation this is a neo-Platonic innovation. I am inclined to the view that the Idea of the Good is an Idea, albeit the highest and most perfect of them, and that there is nothing which lies beyond or is more ultimate (if ultimacy permits of degrees) than the Ideas. Even as the cause of all the other Ideas I should say that the Good remains one of them.

Hamilton and Cairns, p. 1589. Ibid. p. 1591.

SCHOPENHAUER AND PLATONIC IDEAS 139

Schopenhauer indicates with the help of extremely Platonic imagery, the faculty of knowledge for the common man is a "lamp to lighten his path," while for the genius "it is the sun which reveals the world" (Bk. III , ~36).2~

The difference between Plato and Schopenhauer seems to revert to the meta- physical disagreement noted above. The knowledge required of the Platonic philosopher is of an object existing in a realm which is ontologically distinct from that of ordinary experience. This necessitates an appropriate adjustment of his cognitive apparatus or perhaps a whole new set of equipment. But Schopen- hauer's genius need only shift his intellectual gears to apprehend what there is. There is one and only one reality, but the mode of its true apprehension is distinct from the cognitive means employed for ordinary use.

There is a further consequence of this difference, and it is closely correlated to the Platonic insistence upon experience and rational indoctrination. For Plato the Ideas are not immanent in things. I t is only after having been repeatedly re- minded of it by the contemplation of fair forms and fair institutions that the philosopher recalls the Idea of Beauty and then systematically achieves full recognition of it. This would be impossible without breadth as well as depth of acquaintance. But for Schopenhauer the Ideas are present in the realm of ordinary experience. What is more, each Idea or adequate objectification of the Will is present as a whole in each particular member of the species in which it is mani- fested. 2~ This leads Schopenhauer to deny the necessity of wide experience of par- ticulars in order to gain knowledge of the Ideas. On the contrary, he contends that there is more to be gained from intense concentration upon a single thing than from "measuring out the boundless world" (Bk. II, ~25).24

But now we encounter another difficulty common to both Plato's and Schopen- hauer's philosophy, one which, however, thanks to his dualism, is more easily resolved by Plato. Plato and Sehopenhauer are in accord in the belief that things in nature never do achieve the perfection of the Ideas. Plato accounts for the fact that we know this to be the case by means of his doctrine of reminis- cence. All learning, he says, is recollection. Dimly seen half-truths in experience evoke memories of fully grasped realities in a prior existence. Thus, while we may remain ignorant of the standard, we all recognize that our experiences are deficient. Even at best they merely approximate the Ideas; for it is of the very nature of things in the realm of becoming that, being imitations, they fall short of the Ideal model.

Schopenhauer has no more "perfect" realm to spur our memories. For him Ideas are immanent in nature. But they are never totally realized in natural phenomena. He must thus deal with two distinct problems. First, he must explain how this unfortunate state of affairs is possible (i.e., that perfect and immanent Ideas can yet be imperfect in their natural manifestation), and second how anyone could know that this is so.

He addresses himself to the first of these questions by offering an account of Payne, I, 188; Werke, II, 221. The logical difficulties of this position were well known to Plato and are extensively treated

in his discussion of the one and the many in Parmenides (131). uPayne, I, 129; Werke, II, 153.

140 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

the rarity of occurrences of Ideal beauty among natural phenomena. The various levels of objectification of the Will are, he says, by their very nature constantly at strife against one another (Bk. II, ~27).25 And the more complex the entity (the human form being the highest and therefore most complex objectification of the Will), the greater is the number of parts, each with its vita propria, which must be coordinated and subordinated to the whole (Bk. III , ~45).26 Conceiv- ably, then, a very simple entity could be a perfect embodiment of the Idea, but the difficulty of harmonization of parts explains the infrequency of natural beauty among complex entities. Things in nature, we must gather, do not cor- respond to complex Ideas, 27 but rather are composites in which a variety of disparate Ideas are brought together. I t is thus in the process of combination that imperfections appear.

This is the explanation which Schopenhauer provides for the fact of imperfec- tion in nature, but it may be that something else is really at the heart of the matter. I t seems likely that the elaborate account just given is a rationalization of a thesis which Schopenhauer was led to defend on entirely different grounds. Conceivably, the stimulus was an ambiguity inherent in his own terminology.

Schopenhauer uses the expression "Ideal" to refer to and adjectivally to modify that which is perceived by the genius and represented in the work of art. This is sometimes intended in the primary Platonic and evaluatively neutral sense of "intelligible form" or "archetype." But the term as commonly used also has a positive evaluative sense. Colloquially we speak of "the Ideal" as that which would produce the highest moral or aesthetic satisfaction. We succeed or fail to "live up to our Ideals"; we devise "Ideal systems"; and we hunt for and some- times find "the Ideal girl," "the Ideal house," "the Ideal lob." In this sense, "the Ideal" is a natural object of striving, a goal or final cause. I t is a source of motivation and a stimulus to action.

Since Schopenhauer describes the Will as constantly and restlessly striving, one is almost automatically inclined to attribute a goal to this striving or at least to imagine it as object-oriented. Normally one strives ]or something, an Ideal. In fact, Schopenhauer claims elsewhere (Bk. II, ~21) ~s that the Will as thing-in-itself is a blind force, guided by no purpose or knowledge of an end. Yet on several occasions he seems to be swept along by common usage and thus to treat the Ideal objectifications of the Will not simply as grades of reality marking all possible species of things, but rather as high points, objectives which nature vainly seeks to realize.

That such Ideals remain unachieved is also built into Sehopenhauer's philoso- phy. It is of the essence of the Will to be frustrated. For if it were ever perma- nently satisfied, it would cease its relentless striving, and thereby cease to be what it is, or rather, come to an end altogether. Thus, it is that we are doomed to

Payne, I, 143; Werke, II, 174-175. Payne, I, 221 ; Werke, II, 261. If they did, we should be forced to say that the Ideas, being the "adequate" (i.e., most

perfect) objectification of the various gradations of the Will, must be paradigm instances of incompatibility. Their disharmonies must be "built in"; but surely such domestic discord in the realm of Being must be beneath the dignity of the Platonic archetypes.

~Payne, I, llO; WCrke, II, I31.

SCHOPENHAUER AND PLATONIC IDEAS 141

the life of Tantalus, our goals dangling before us as a constant source of painful longing; yet no more to be forgotten than achieved. Nature, if it is to exist at all, is necessarily imperfect.

Granting this to be the case, and also assuming that imperfection, if it is to be worth discussing, must be known as such, Schopenhauer is still faced with the task of explaining how anyone can know that nature is deficient. In order to be aware that x is lacking something, one must, according to the old Rationalist dictum, have some idea of what a perfect x would be. Since Schopenhauer does not attribute a transcendent existence to the Ideas, he cannot, as Plato does, claim that some or all of us have privileged access to that supra-sensible realm in which the unalloyed Ideas abide. And yet someone must be in a position to perceive and constantly remind us of the shortcomings of ordinary experience.

I t is the genius who fulfills this function. He possesses a priori knowledge of the Ideas. I t is not by recollection, but by "anticipation" that he "understands the half-uttered speech of nature." He sees and represents what nature herself never has produced, and thus he "articulates clearly what she only stammered forth" (Bk. III, ~r His ability to do so is gratuitous.

Such knowledge is not essential to the ordinary man. It is not presupposed by daily experience, and without it the common man can live contentedly. He is sufficiently equipped with intellectual powers to serve the needs of his individual wilt, and normally he has no cause to linger over impractical details, l ie sees things restrictedly in a means-end, cause-effect relation, and this is adequate to the demands of daily living. I t is only when he comes in contact with works of art and is touched by the creations of genius that he is enabled to recognize a posteriori the Ideas as represented in nature.

Thus far we have left unquestioned the assumption, apparently made by both Plato and Schopenhauer, that the apprehension of the Ideas is somehow en- nobling and desirable. There is some similarity in their portrayal of what hap- pens to an individual who has the experience. Plato describes the apprehension of the Ideas as entailing an attention to the object devoid of all its relations of time, place and circumstance (Symposium, 211). 80 Such concentration, he says, produces a transfiguration in the viewer, rendering him "a friend of God" and "immortal." In so far as knowledge is a kind of possession, communion or identification with the object, knowledge of the immortal necessarily imparts immortality to the knower.

Schopenhauer describes a similar transformation in the knower. In contemplat- ing the Ideas, "we no longer consider the where, the when, the why and the whither in things, but simply and solely the what" (Bk. III , ~34). 81 "We lose ourselves entirely in this object . . , we forget our individuality, our will, and continue to exist only as pure subject, as clear mirror of the object, so that it is as though the object alone existed without anyone to perceive it, and thus we are no longer able to separate the perceiver from the perception but the two have become o n e . . . " (ibid.). As such, the viewer takes on the characteristics of the

~ Payne, I, 222-223 ; We~ke, II, 262. 3o Hamilton and Cairns, pp. 562-563.

Payne, I, 178; Werke, II, 210.

142 H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y

object and becomes a pure infinite, timeless subject of knowledge, s2 Of Schopen- hauer's concept of the Ideas, one might almost say tha t they are identified by their effect upon the perceiver. They are all but defined as the sort of thing which can be experienced only by a pure willess subject who has laid aside all individual features.

But now what are the consequences of such shedding of individual i ty? Ac- cording to Plato, the contemplation of the Ideas is in itself a source of incom- parable joy, so great tha t the philosopher must be compelled to break off his concentration on the Ideas and to return to the cave to fulfill his obligation to enlighten the remaining inhabitants. While he may be mocked and mistreated upon his return, he knows for himself tha t his labors have been worth the trouble and tha t it is better to suffer injustice than, through ignorance, to do it.

Schopenhauer too speaks glowingly, but qualifiedly, of the satisfaction derived from contemplating the Ideas. The heightened sensitivity which enables the art ist to have this experience also enlarges his capaci ty for suffering. And the excess of intellect which makes possible his insight is counterbalanced by defects of a practical nature. He is thus subject to all manner of indignities with only the small compensation of periodic temporary release. Schopenhauer goes so far as to suggest tha t no one would voluntar i ly be an art is t ; tha t it is only the spontaneous overflow of intellect which produces the works of genius. This contention, however, is difficult to reconcile with his assertion tha t the artist possesses the unique capacity of retaining the obiective vision of the world, "and this not merely for moments, but with the necessary continuity and conscious thought to enable (him) to repeat by deliberate art what has been apprehended, and to fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images tha t float before the mind" (Bk. I I I , ~36).3'~

Plato avoids this incongruity in his depiction of the artist, for whom intuition (however fallacious and far removed from the Ideas) and expression occur in a single, spontaneous and unpremeditated act. 34 Technical training is of little value to the artist on Plato 's view. For, while there are objective standards of aesthetic judgment, there is no such thing as deliberate art. This, according to Plato, is the artist 's worst offense; for the poet creates in ignorance, while in a state of ecstatic inspiration (Ion, 534).35

By contrast, there is no doubt tha t for the philosopher, acquaintance with the Ideas is a positive value to be consciously and deliberately pursued.

Schopenhauer goes on to draw a conclusion which Plato warily avoided, that the knower, becoming aware of himself as pure knowing subject, discovers that he is the condition and hence the supporter of the world and all objective existence. All nature is thus revealed as dependent upon his existence, a mere accident of his being (ibid.). Such solipsistic romanticism is surely foreign to Plato's concept of the universe as rational and real. There is indeed a bit of perverse logic in the claim that of two identical entities (subject and object) one is depend- ent upon the other. The determination of which one is which must be a matter of pure caprice.

~Payne, I, 186; Werke, II, 219. Schopenhauer makes an exception in the case of the com- poser, who "reveals the innermost nature of the world, and expresses the profoundest wisdom in a language that his reasoning faculty does not understand, just as a magnetic somnambulist gives information about things of which she has no conception when she is awake" (Bk. III, ~52). Payne, I, 260 ; Werke, II, 307.

*~ Plato thus appears to anticipate Croce's view, as expressed in his Aesthetic (1909) that "To intuite is to express; and nothing else (nothing more, but nothing less), than to express." Aesthetic, trans. D. Ainslie, (New York: The Noonday Press), p. 11.

Hamilton and Cairns, p. 220.

SCHOPENHAUER AND PLATONIC IDEAS 143

On the whole, the practical consequences of the apprehension of the Ideas are far more affirmative for Plato than they are for Schopenhauer. Acquaintance with the Ideas is, on Plato's view, the most certain means of realizing the good life. And the life of goodness is the life of happiness. Knowledge of the Ideas is that which satisfies man's highest (erotic) tendencies and which, in its comple- tion, achieves his self-fulfillment and well-being. Plato offers some hope that, with adequate education and the help of the enlightened philosopher, a small segment of the population, at least, will reach this peak.

Schopenhauer's representation of the Will as a dynamic force has some ele- ments in common with Plato's discussion of Eros in the Symposium. But there is the major difference that Schopenhauer offers no lasting reward, no gratification of purpose. The genius may gain temporary respite through the contemplation of the Ideas. For a moment he enjoys surcease from the will to live and thus a liberation from reality. By rising above himself and becoming a "pure will-less subject of knowledge" he achieves a kind of blissful annihilation of the indi- vidual, will-tormented self. But inevitably, reality closes in once more upon him, driving him hopelessly onward, nowhere. Since the Will is reality, it is impossible for the genius (or anyone) to turn away from it altogether and deny life. The saint comes closest of all to this state. Through asceticism and suffering he reaches a level of resignation whose total self-denial amounts to an extinction of the Will. 0nly then does he recognize that "this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways--is nothing" (Bk. IV, ~71). 36 For him not even the Ideas are ultimately worthy of contemplation.

It is curious that Plato, whose theories have often been criticized for their other-worldliness, represents knowledge of the Ideas as leading to an increase of satisfaction in this life. No doubt the philosopher would prefer to remain with the Ideas and escape the limitations of Becoming altogether. Thus the true philoso- pher is "always occupied in the practice of dying"; and yet so long as he does occupy the body and must live, his acquaintance with the Ideas enhances his life and that of his fellows. This is not the case for Schopenhauer. The release which the genius gets through his apprehension of the Ideas is brief and is for him alone. Whatever insights are transmitted to other men through the con- templation of works of art are essentially accidental. They gratify men's need for an occasional holiday from life, but they do not refresh and revitalize the beholder. They have nothing to say to him which will enable him to return to life and find there new meaning and value. Just the reverse, they cause mundane existence to appear all the more intolerable by contrast.

Perhaps the basis of Plato's optimism and Schopenhauer's pessimism will be illuminated by an analogy. We may compare Schopenhauer's representation of the Ideas as gradations of the Will objectified to a series of still photographs of a horse race. The Will itself, like the race, is a continuous process, but one may artificially designate static phases of it. In the case of the horse race, such pictures may be of value to someone who wants to see which horse was leading at a given moment, or who wants to prove a point about the gait of a horse (e.g.,

Payne, I, 412; Werke, II, 487.

144 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

whether all four legs are ever simultaneously off the ground). They may enable the cognoscenti to determine something about the peculiar habits of a particular horse or jockey. In other words, the static representation of the race may be interesting in a special way to someone who has an external purpose to fulfill. But for the race enthusiast, the race is in the dynamics of the running. The image is a distortion of that reality. I t is not its object or goal, nor can it, as a deriva- tive falsification of it, be inherently superior to reality. This would be true if there were a final cause guiding the direction of the stream of reality; it is so a ]ortiori of Schopenhauer's system in which the Will is explicitly described as being blindly striving toward no specific goal. If the race itself is pointless, what merit beyond that of a temporary aesthetic enjoyment can there be in lingering over isolated moments of it?

For Plato the situation is quite otherwise. The Ideas for him are not mere stops along the way. They are not crystallized slices of reality nor "bigger than life" representations of it. They are the shimmering goal toward which all things strive. They are the object of all love and hope. And thus to apprehend them is already to have won the race. In so far as a particular thing realizes its Idea, it achieves its purpose and is an object of value. Whoever perceives the Ideas then gains an awareness of the fullest and most perfect expression of reality.

Schopenhauer appears to have retained the positive associations and the affec- tire tone of the Platonic theory of Ideas, but he has stripped the Ideas of their purposive content. One may conclude that the Ideas play by no means as funda- mental a role in the philosophy of Schopenhauer as in that of Plato. They are not the ultimate constituents of reality, They are not presupposed by all human knowledge, nor are they its final object. Indeed, one may survive moderately well without ever having knowledge of the existence of the Ideas. They play no integral part in the ethical well-being of man, and finally, they contribute only infinitesimally to his meager portion of happiness. Perhaps the expression "Platonic Ideas," as employed by Schopenhauer, should, as a historical nicety, be enclosed in quotation marks.

Tufts University