So, I typed this all out and went over the comment character limit - I'm not spending like an hour on this with nothing to show so relevant thread is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/schopenhauer/comments/bwk8gz/help_with_understanding_the_ideas/

​

Ok, So. To really understand how Schopenhauer thinks art (and aesthetic experience) relieves us of the will and allows us to experience eternal being there's some background to work through.

​

First - Schopenhauer's system can be understood as a series of metaphysical priorities that exist in the world as he understands it.

The first major distinction is the distinction between two fundamental states of the world as:

​

Will, and,

Representation.

​

Leaving behind the world as will (for now) he divides the world as Representation into:

​

Subject, and

Object

​

"Subject" he defines as (paraphrasing) 'that which knows, but which itself is unknowable'. It follows that anything the mind can comprehend - tables, chairs, mathematical formulae, sounds, the disposition if it's own body etc are part of the 'world as object'.

​

'Object' therefore is an incredibly inclusive notion, but can be divided further into:

​

The world as object not subject to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), or the Ideas you are asking about, and,

The world as object subject to the PSR.

​

The PSR can be roughly summarized as the notion that 'everything must have a reason, cause or gound' (though this is not how Schopenhauer summarizes it. For Schopenhauer the PSR applies to the world as object in four distinct ways. Only the last two of these directly pertain to the discussion, all four are listed below:

​

1 - The PSR of 'Being' - or the PSR as it applies to time and space. For Schopenhauer this version of the PSR governs Geometry (for space) and Arithmetic (for time)

2 - The PSR of Knowing - The PSR as it applies to factual or propositional knowledge. This is the form of the PSR which is functional in argument, and which is studied by logic. It's what grounds the rules of inference from one set of facts to another.

3 - The PSR of Becoming - This is the PSR as it applies to cause and effect. It's the version of the PSR that governs the causal relationships between objects in the world. For an intuitive grasp think about mechanistic causality - billiard balls on a table or particles colliding in space or heat, oxygen and fuel coming together to make fire to make smoke.

4 - The PSR of Willing - This is a special variant of the PSR for Schopenhauer. It is what governs the effect that you as a personal being experience on your will when acting, when presented with a motivation to act, when scratching an itch, running in fear, when doing anything. This is a privileged version of the PSR for Schopenhauer as it lets you experience the will as Object (in a sense) in a personal and intimate way, and it lets you learn what your typical reactions are when faced with different stimuli and motives.

​

Now with all that laid out let's take look at how motivation functions with special reference to PSRs 3 and 4. For Schopenhauer human motivation is a complex but deterministic result of lower level causes. Human motivation is different in degree but not in kind from the causal laws that make those billiard balls bounce of one another the way they do. In fact - human motivation is just as causally determined as those balls; it just sometimes doesn't seem like it as it's much harder to predict. For Schopenhauer causality exists on a continuum of complexity at the inanimate, plant, animal and then finally human levels. From least to most complex we have: Mechanistic cause and effect (think billiard balls), changes in plants as a result of stimuli (think leaves reaching toward the sun or roots seeking deeper into the soil for water), a lower animals motivated response to a stimuli or motive presented to them in immediate experience (a dog going after food or a mouse running from a hawk), and final a humans ability to form ideas and plan toward an abstract goal, when the end of that goal is not immediately present (think of someone saving up money to buy a house or car).

​

Importantly - a human has all of these present - mechanistic forces act on the human body, the human body responds to stimuli like a plant, human beings respond to threats and rewards presented in immediate experience and finally human beings can form a goal in their minds eye and act on it.

​

Now, remember that Schopenhauer regards all of these different types of cause and effect as essentially the same. They are all different types of PSR 3 - the law of causality. In fact - and this is important - Schopenhauer believes that knowledge is fundamentally subordinate to the PSR because it developed in nature as an expression of that causal system which PSR 3 governs. This is because knowledge is developed specifically to allow us to conceive a goal and reason out the most effective means of achieving it. Knowledge is an instrumental tool that is the medium for causal influences at the highest-order level: the level of human motivation.

​

Schopenhauer makes a further critical step to complete this picture. In the main he wants to know - what is the world other than object? What is it if I'm not around to see it? His answer is interesting and critical for the discussion: He thinks that, as objects existing in the world among other objects, we have privileged access to the fundamental nature of objects like ourselves. Because human motivation and all other causal phenomena are the fundamentally the same, he reasons that the same Will that underlies our actions must underlie all other causal and worldly phenomena - that is because human motivation and mechanical cause and affect are fundamentally the same the same Will that we experience in ourselves must also be present in the rest of the World as Object.

​

There is one more piece to add before we can really say why Schopenhauer thinks art fills the role it does. For Schopenhaur the Ideas (capital I, the Ideas in question here) represent the ultimate realisation of particular natural phenomena. The Idea of a wolf is the thing every wolf is striving to be, the Idea of a whale is the thing every whale is striving to be - and so on. Now, the world is so full of these beings competing to realise their own perfect expression of their Idea, that they can't help but interfere with one another. In fact PSR 3 - the PSR governing cause and effect - is the very basis of their interference. Worldly objects in time and space are constantly struggling against one another to achieve their own ultimate expression and they do so in accordance with the laws of causality.

​

To bring the discussion full circle - this is why the Ideas for Schopenhauer are not subject to the PSR - the essence of the will is struggle and the Raison D'Etre for the PSR is to perpetuate this struggle in the world as object. Ideas have no role to play, they are objects of struggle, but not participants in it. So - the Ideas stand above the PSR, and exist independently of all of it's forms - that is they exist independently of time, space, causality and rational knowledge (if they did not then they would be possibly attainable, which would undermine their entire reason for being as objects of neverending struggle). The PSR on the other hand is entirely subordinate to the Will and acts as its arena for suffering.

​

And now - for Art. For Schopenhauer aesthetic perception is the means by which human beings can become acquainted with the Ideas. When we admire the beauty of nature what we're admiring, according to him, are the Ideas that nature continues to strive to fulfill. The role of the artist is to capture and distill this aesthetic perception so that the rest of us can more readily engage in contemplation of the Ideas.

​

And herein lies the ultimate value of Art and the Aesthetic for Schopenhauer: Knowledge is ultimately subordinate to the PSR and therefore the Will, and the Ideas are fundamentally outside the purview of the PSR Ideas are therefore fundamentally not subject to the Will - when we engage in Aesthetic contemplation we are removed from the Will - we no longer find ourselves subject to it, we are relieved. We are also outside Time (and space - though that requires some more discussion) and so we experience the Ideas as eternal Will-less subjects, as pure knowing subjects of the object.

​

This is the value that S ultimately thinks comes from Art and the Aesthetic - the ability to offer us a reprieve from the Will and its constant pull on us, and to allow us respite from the world. Art allows us to step outside ourselves and forget ego and individuality, offering us peace.

​

I hope that was clear - this is definitely one of his most beautiful ideas and I always thought it is much better if you really understand the groundwork.

​

Source - I'm a Schopenhauer nerd.