Is, has, idk - It's strange to me that the essence thing made perfect sense to you in one context, but not in another.

Anyway, feel like we're still back at the same spot. The will changes, evolves, takes on all sorts of forms, before organisms capable of representation come on the scene. And that doesn't make much sense, if there can be no time without representation. Yet that's precisely what Schop suggests.

The will changes — csalisbury

You literally just admitted that it didn't.....................

Does the will take on different forms?
Does taking on different forms imply change?

Does the will take on different forms? — csalisbury

Expand on this statement.

Does the will manifest itself in different ways? (This is almost rhetorical. I know you've read WWR)

The will objectifies itself.

ok, objectify works for me too

It seems tautologous to me that something that objectifies itself in various ways is something that takes on different forms, so, regarding my 'query,' I still feel like we're back in the same spot.

What are you trying to say?

We're not in the same spot if you admit it doesn't change.

Does the will take on different forms?
Does taking on different forms imply change?

I'm not trying to be rude, I just have no idea what you're trying to say.

Does taking on different forms imply change? — csalisbury

If by this you mean the objectification of the will, then no.

Is there a difference between one objectification and another?

In one sense, yes. When the will affirms itself, this affirmation takes the form of different degrees of self-intelligibility. These degrees are the Platonic Ideas, which are outside of time, space, and causality yet still representational because they are objects for a subject. These Ideas are then kaleidoscopically multiplied when they come under the aforementioned forms of knowledge.

If there is a difference between objectifications or affirmations, then there is change (note that this doesn't require the introduction of change into the realm of platonic ideas, if you're concerned about that)

I don't think there's a difference. The affirmation of the will just is the world as representation. Now, you could then ask if there was a time when the will did not affirm itself or whether the denial of the will constitutes a change. These questions have no answers, owing to the fact that we cannot speak non-temporally about such things. We are imprisoned by the forms of knowledge, with which we are now employing. What can be said is that the will, being outside of time, is absolutely free, free, in other words, to affirm or deny itself.

Oops, phrased that poorly. Not a difference between objectifications and affirmations. A difference between this or that objectification. Between this or that affirmation.

Again, the thing is Schop explicitly discusses the will affirming itself in different ways before the debut of representation-forming animals.

If the will affirms itself in different ways, then there is change. And somehow, for Schop, there's change before time. Which doesn't make any sense at all (though you can paper it over with vague generalities about the will and atemporality which ignore the problem altogether)

Again, the thing is Schop explicitly discusses the will affirming itself in different ways before the debut of representation-forming animals.

If the will affirms itself in different ways, then there is change. And somehow, for Schop, there's change before time. Which doesn't make any sense at all (though you can paper it over with vague generalities about the will and atemporality which ignore the problem altogether) — csalisbury

Yes! This is exactly the point I am trying to make in the Illusion thread.

the thing is Schop explicitly discusses the will affirming itself in different ways before the debut of representation-forming animals. — csalisbury

Yes, as he is obliged to do when taking an objective perspective. No one apparently read my comment at the beginning of this thread. Transcendental philosophy employs a strange loop structure, whereby one starting place leads into another and vice-versa. In the present case, there can be no object without a subject and no subject without an object. They mutually presuppose one another, such that empirically speaking, the horizon of our knowledge extends back to the big bang and follows a sequence in which inanimate matter is formed, then single-celled organisms, then multicelled, and finally representation-forming organisms. Yet from a transcendental perspective, the knowledge of this whole history of objects depends upon a knowing subject, without which, nothing can be said to exist.

Yet from a transcendental perspective, the knowledge of this whole history of objects depends upon a knowing subject, without which, nothing can be said to exist. — Thorongil

Hence the oddity of an ever present organism.. If all is Will, and there is nothing but Will, the organism for which representations exist such that time exists must also always exist as causality itself cannot exist before representation (which only organisms apparently have).

You say that from an empirical perspective, and are correct.

Yes, as he is obliged to do when taking an objective perspective[...]Yet from a transcendental perspective, the knowledge of this whole history of objects depends upon a knowing subject, without which, nothing can be said to exist.

The account Schopenhauer gives, of the will objectifying in different grades, is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a mere 'empirical' account, describing the change of matter in space. He explicitly presents it, in BOOK II, as a narrative about the will itself, striving in this way, then that, battling itself in ever more complicated ways.

The objectification into different grades (Platonic Ideas) is not empirical, no. But these grades are not in space and time to begin with, so of course they don't change. What changes are individual objects that are in space and time, generalized as matter if you like, which are objectifications of the Ideas by means of the forms of knowing. Don't confuse the two.

I wasn't suggesting the 'Platonic Ideas' change.
What I'm saying is that book II presents a narrative about a pre-representative will striving, expressing itself, in ever new and more complicated ways. It explicitly discusses this as a progression.

There is no mode of expression that doesn't include progression. Language has verbs in it.

Then Book II is essentially one long nonsensical metaphor.

Language itself is metaphorical.

ok. My point is only that book II presents itself as the true account of the will's adventure and it does so in terms of a striving that grows in complexity as it clashes with itself. It doubles down on progression. It seems like an exceptionally bad metaphor for something that has nothing to do with change, progression or time.

Language itself is metaphorical. — Thorongil

Existence itself is metaphorical for Will. But there is still Will and Metaphor (representation). What I fear is that Will is being used as a magical device that wipes away the problem. Will is atemporal/ aspacial striving. The existence we are used to is that of representation.. temporal/spacial/causal there is a subject for an object. Things arise in this side of things, things don't arise on the Will side of things. You can only maintain this if we lose the idea of "objectifying" because Will- being aspacial and atemporal does not do "causality-like" things.. this is what @csalisbury is getting at.

What I fear is that Will is being used as a magical device that wipes away the problem.

Truth be told, everytime Schopenhauer starts talking about the indivisible unity of the will, outside the principium individuationis, I get the sense he's not really sure himself what he's talking about. It's basically a somber and confused oscillation between negative theology and ontotheology. The diversity of the world, its conditioned multiplicity, must, its felt, rest on some unified unconditioned (Why? this is the ontotheological impulse accepted unquestioningly). But how's the unity of something inherently eristic supposed to work? What does that even mean? Well...(& then we get the negative theology)