Knowing the World 87at the same time perceiving that it appears as move-
ment of the body. The act of will and the action of
the body are not two different, objectively known
states linked by the tie of causality; their relation-
ship is not one of cause and effect; rather, they are
one and the same thing, but given in two altogether
different ways: once quite immediately and once
for the intellect’s contemplation.^4
With this analysis, Schopenhauer feels justified in lo-
cating the “objectivity” of the will in the body. He be-
lieves that one can feel a reality—the thing-in-itselfin
concreto —immediately in the actions of the body.
Against this analysis, we must point out that the actions
of our body only come to our awareness through self-
percepts, and as such have no advantage over other per-
cepts. If we wish toknow their essence, then we can only
do so throughthinking observation; that is, by organizing
them within the conceptual system of our concepts and
ideas.
The view that thinking is abstract, without any concrete
content—that it offers at most a “conceptual” mirror im-
age of world unity, but not this unity itself—is very deep-
ly rooted in naive human consciousness. Whoever
believes this has never become clear about what a percept
without a concept really is. Let us consider the world of
percepts by itself. It appears as a mere juxtaposition in
space, a mere succession in time, an aggregate of uncon-
nected details. None of the things that enter and exit from
- Schopenhauer,The World as Will and Representation.