Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The world is my representation.”
Arthur Schopenhauer · Philosophical pessimism · Modern · 1818
What does it mean?
The world is my representation. Whatever is an object is an object for a subject. He begins as a Kantian, with the world as appearance, before he argues that the inner nature of that world is will. A rival reading hears solipsism: only my mind exists, and other people are props. The 'my' is any subject, not a boast that Arthur Schopenhauer dreamt the street. Another reading thinks the sentence is already his pessimism. The pessimism needs the will, blind striving, which §1 has not yet asserted. Payne's 'representation' translates Vorstellung.
Did Arthur Schopenhauer really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Payne's English of the opening sentence. Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung. Representation is not a political claim and not a private fantasy. It means the world as it appears for a subject. The will is the second claim of the book, not this sentence.
Where it comes from
The World as Will and Representation, volume 1, §1, in E. F. J. Payne's translation
Approximate date: 1818.
How to use it
Two people on a train out of Paddington argue as if the landscape were being stubborner than it is, when part of the argument is two ways of representing one delay. The sentence does not say the delay is unreal. It says an object is always an object for someone. The practical point is modest. The metaphysical point, which he will not leave modest, comes later, when representation is said to be the veil of the will.
A mindset reading
Open the book at the first sentence and you have not yet got his ethics or his gloom. People who quote the will and the pessimism without this sentence float free of the Kantian frame he thought he was completing. He was not completing it in a way Kant would have signed.
Understand the philosophy
Volume 1, 1818, with a second edition later. Payne is the English to name. Section 1 is the representation. The title's other half, will, is the claim that makes the book his rather than a footnote to Kant.
- knowledge
- mind
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The world is my representation. Whatever is an object is an object for a subject. He begins as a Kantian, with the world as appearance, before he argues that the inner nature of that world is will. A rival reading hears solipsism: only my mind exists, and other people are props. The 'my' is any subject, not a boast that Arthur Schopenhauer dreamt the street. Another reading thinks the sentence is already his pessimism. The pessimism needs the will, blind striving, which §1 has not yet asserted. Payne's 'representation' translates Vorstellung.
Did Arthur Schopenhauer really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Payne's English of the opening sentence. Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung. Representation is not a political claim and not a private fantasy. It means the world as it appears for a subject. The will is the second claim of the book, not this sentence.
Which work is it in?
The World as Will and Representation, volume 1, §1, in E. F. J. Payne's translation Approximate date: 1818.