tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5294547523454259081.post3344825917769742376..comments2023-12-13T23:36:17.126-05:00Comments on Philosophy, lit, etc.: Cheer up, Arty! It's your birthdaypraymonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799593980838361293noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5294547523454259081.post-77098822898081244502013-02-24T11:16:27.085-05:002013-02-24T11:16:27.085-05:00Thanks! I had forgotten the details, but this all...Thanks! I had forgotten the details, but this all sounds right. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5294547523454259081.post-24429316793658263532013-02-24T05:48:19.165-05:002013-02-24T05:48:19.165-05:00Duncan -- On reflection, I think 'intelligible...Duncan -- On reflection, I think 'intelligible character' is what you have in mind in your 2nd paragraph when you speak of the will. Granted, he takes bodily action to express the will (as opposed to being a causal effect of the will). Still, he treats the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) as covering just the phenomenal domain, and causation, for him, is only one form of the PSR. Any relation of explanans to explanandum (of ground to whatever gets explained by it), regardless of whether the relation in question is causal, is an instance of the PSR. I can't see how Schopenhauer can get more specific about the relation between, on the one hand, intelligible character (or anything noumenal for that matter) and, on the other hand, empirical character or bodily action (or anything phenomenal) without taking the former as some sort of <i>basis for</i> the latter -- in short, without bringing the noumenal within the scope of the PSR (as something that constrains and so explains the phenomenal).praymonthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799593980838361293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5294547523454259081.post-5376980808052165412013-02-23T23:20:03.027-05:002013-02-23T23:20:03.027-05:00Hi Duncan. Thanks for your comment. Schopenhauer d...Hi Duncan. Thanks for your comment. Schopenhauer distinguishes between 'intelligible' and 'empirical' character. The former is character as it is in itself; the latter is character as it appears in the phenomenal realm (he says this distinction is rooted in Kant). Intelligible character cannot be changed and it determines one's phenomenal responses to events. So, one's empirical character is established gradually via one's choices, which reveal the true (intelligible) character one has always had. Choices afford an opportunity to discover one's true character, but one can't change intelligible character (since it's character-in-itself it's beyond time and hence immune to change). Some of this appears on p. 378 of the Haldane-Kemp translation at Gutenberg books: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38427/38427-h/38427-h.html#toc19<br /><br />The putative fact that intelligible character cannot be changed is one reason why Schopenhauer denies that philosophy can make any fundamental change to one's life. For that last point, see Julian Young's book <i>Schopenhauer</i>, pp. 158-65).praymonthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799593980838361293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5294547523454259081.post-45190093675314555852013-02-23T13:49:50.683-05:002013-02-23T13:49:50.683-05:00I'm no expert on Schopenhauer, but I didn'...I'm no expert on Schopenhauer, but I didn't think he regarded character as noumenal. Character is empirical, after all, so it would be weird to consider it also noumenal. Maybe that's your point.<br /><br />I think of Schopenhauer as thinking of people as embodied will. So the will does not cause our actions any more than the body does. The body performs the actions. Its doing so is a manifestation, but not an effect, of the will. And through one's actions one's character is revealed. Or something like that. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.com