Schopenhauer

a história e a lei da motivação

Abstract

The aim of this text is to analyze the law of motivation as organum of historical knowledge in Schopenhauer's philosophy. We will deal with the law of motivation as a reason that determines the limits of the historical way of knowing. In this sense, our investigation is based on the understanding and description of the law of motivation in Schopenhauer's conception of history. We understand that history has "the human facts that occurred as a whole as a problem, and the law of motivation as an órganon" (Schopenhauer,, 2005, p.73). To the statement that the way of knowing provided by history is subordinated to a previous law, is countered to some extent the idea that history does not have a schematic organization. Schopenhauer says that "there is no system of history, as there is of any other branch of knowledge" (SSchopenhauer, 2019, p. 118). It was in this context of tension that we understood the importance of analyzing the law of motivation and its relationship to the object of history that remains within the scope of understanding human experience in time. In order to clarify our work, we list two specific objectives that contribute to the elucidation of this tension between the law of motivation and the object of history. The first consists in understanding the law of motivation circumscribed to the fourth class of objects of the principle of reason. And the second, consists in the question of why the historian in his exposition acts under the shelter of this law that, strictly speaking, determines the limits of his way of acting on historical knowledge. To achieve the goals proposed by this work, we understand that: The world as will and representation, volume I, paragraph 51, as well as, chapter 38 of Volume II, are of great relevance to our exposition. Regarding the link between the law of motivation and the principle of reason, we will seek to analyze the Schopenhauerian thesis “On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason”. This important text serves as an "introduction to the study The World as Will and Representation [...] without familiarity with this introduction and propaedeutics it is completely impossible to understand the present writing properly" (Schopenhauer, 2005, p. 21).

Keywords: History. Law of motivation. Schopenhauer.