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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.
| 4187 | 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer] |
| 4190 | All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer] |
| 4189 | Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer] |
| 4191 | What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer] |
| 4192 | All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer] |
| 21368 | The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer] |