Sensation and intuition: a study on the world as representation in Schopenhauer

• Grant number: 25/00931-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Ana Carolina Soliva Soria
• Grantee: Igor Henrique Pimentel Beluzio
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is about understanding how the construction of the objectivity of empirical knowledge is constructed in Schopenhauers philosophy. His theory of knowledge reveals a thorny relationship with that of Kant, as it praises the achievement of the apriority of the principles that condition all possibility of experience, yet denies eleven of his twelve categories of understanding. Even mo radically, it attributes to this faculty a completely different function: that of intuiting the object. For Schopenhauers proposal, Kants transcendental method must be combined with the method of natural sciences to establish its proper empirical correlation. Starting from the distinction between sensation and intuition, the philosopher present us with a theory of knowledge that is not only critical, but also physical, complementing the investigation that proceeds from the intellect to the object with another that moves from the object to the intellect. However, as some commentators note, the difficulty of harmonizing Kantian methodology with certain physiological discoveries is the main source of the greatest problems in Schopenhauers work. What we propose here is precisely to conceive how his theory of knowledge was able to incorporate both a transcendental and a physiological analysis in a complementary and unified way. So, the question here is: how is it possible to transition from the simple and weak sensations of the senses to the consciousness of the representation of the physical world.