THE PASSAGE FROM INTUITIVE TO ABSTRACT REPRESENTATIONS IN SCHOPENHAUER

• Main Author: Pimentel Beluzio, Igor Henrique
• Publication Date: 2023
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Pólemos (Brasília)
• Download full: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/polemos/article/view/48069
• topic: Entendimento. Representação. Razão. Conceito.; Understanding. Representation. Reason. Concept.

For Schopenhauer, reason determines a fundamental difference between man and the animal. The ability to abstract the particular into a general concept is something that only man can do. The philosopher was not the first to demonstrate this truth; but his considerations about the constitution of the human cognizing apparatus and how it can know what is its object break, in fact, with the current thinking of some of his contemporaries, such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. In the course of this study, we will investigate (1) the atypicality of Schopenhauer's idealism in relation to the models of knowledge developed until then; (2) what is the constitution of our cognitive apparatus that allows us to know the empirical world; (3) under which modalities objects become representations for the subject; (4) finally, what allows man to abstract and, thus, give rise to the general concepts that name the world.