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Single Idea 4191

[filed under theme 16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self ]

Full Idea

What we know in ourselves is never what knows, but what wills, the will.

Gist of Idea

What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will

Source

Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.VII)

Book Ref

Schopenhauer,Arthur: 'The World as Will and Idea', ed/tr. Berman,Jill and David [Everyman 1995], p.274

A Reaction

An interesting slant on Hume's scepticism about personal identity. Hume was hunting for a thing-which-experiences. If he had sought his will, he might have spotted it.

The 29 ideas with the same theme [directly acquiring knowledge of our Selves]:

8147 We have an apparent and a true self; only the second one exists, and we must seek to know it [Anon (Upan)]
18463 Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry]
21861 Self-knowledge needs perception of the affections of the body [Spinoza]
19362 We know the 'I' and its contents by abstraction from awareness of necessary truths [Leibniz]
5570 Self-knowledge can only be inner sensation, and thus appearance [Kant]
7543 We gain self-knowledge through action, not thought - especially when doing our duty [Goethe]
4191 What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer]
21367 I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer]
19249 'Know yourself' is not introspection; it is grasping how others see you [Peirce]
20242 Things are the boundaries of humanity, so all things must be known, for self-knowledge [Nietzsche]
20249 Our knowledge of the many drives that constitute us is hopelessly incomplete [Nietzsche]
20378 Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche]
4551 Great self-examination is to become conscious of oneself not as an individual, but as mankind [Nietzsche]
22214 We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl]
22162 There is an everyday self, and an authentic self, when it is grasped in its own way [Heidegger]
7117 How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre]
7123 Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre]
22225 My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre]
5322 Self-consciousness is not basic, because experiences are not instrinsically marked with ownership [Ayer]
3073 We see ourselves in the world as a map [Harman]
8129 Anti-individualism may be incompatible with some sorts of self-knowledge [Burge]
5671 Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam]
5672 Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam]
5675 Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam]
20218 The self is known as much by its knowledge as by its action [Zagzebski]
18421 Proprioception is only immune from error if you are certain that it represents the agent [Cappelen/Dever]
18422 Prioprioception focuses on your body parts, not on your self, or indexicality [Cappelen/Dever]
18425 We can acquire self-knowledge with mirrors, not just with proprioception and introspection [Cappelen/Dever]
23519 The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG]