6. Arthur Schopenhauer

The view that the will that man encounters in himself is a "thing in itself" is also Schopenhauer's view. He, too, is of the opinion that in our knowledge we have given only the images produced by us, but in our will we have given a being independent of us. The will must remain when knowledge is extinguished. The active will shows itself through the actions of my body. When the organism does something, it is the will that drives it to do it. Now I also learn about the actions of my body through my knowledge, which creates a picture of it for me. Schopenhauer says, according to the expression into which he has put Kant's basic view (cf. p. 245): I imagine these actions. This imagination of mine corresponds to a being independent of me, which is will. What we know of the activity in our own bodies, Schopenhauer also seeks to prove of that of the rest of nature: that it is, according to its being, will. This view of the will is the second of the links that make up Schopenhauer's philosophy.