Schopenhauer: The Principle of Intuition and the Will as Essence of the World
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume I, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Anti-Hegelian Philosophy and Its Foundations
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) developed the sharpest and most polemical critique of Hegel’s logic in the 19th century. His critique arose from an alternative systematic approach diametrically opposed to Hegel: the essence of the world is not reason but will - an irrational, blind striving. Intuitive representation is the primary source of knowledge; concepts are secondary, derived, and must always be referred back to intuition.
Schopenhauer’s main work, The World as Will and Representation (1818, expanded second edition 1844), develops a dual understanding of the world: the world as representation is the world as it appears to us - ordered by space, time, and causality, the forms of the principle of sufficient reason. The world as will is the essence of the world in itself - an irrational, aimless striving without ground and without end. Whereas Hegel conceives reality as the self-unfolding of reason, Schopenhauer sees the will as the metaphysical first principle. The will is not rational, not purposive, not good - it is blind striving. “The will is the thing in itself.”[1] Everything that exists - from inorganic nature through plants and animals to humans - is an objectification of this one will.
For Schopenhauer, intuitive representation is the primary source of knowledge. Concepts are “abstractions from abstractions” - they move away from reality instead of grasping it. The highest knowledge is not conceptual but intuitive - in art, especially in music, which expresses the will itself directly. This privileging of intuition becomes the basis of his critique of Hegel.
The Specific Critique of Logic and Its Sharpness
Schopenhauer’s basic critique is directed against the dialectical method itself. “All the phantasms of the Hegelians, with their becoming, passing-over, being-in-and-for-itself, are nothing but empty words devoid of all sense.”[2] Dialectic is “confusion of sense” and “charlatanry” - instead of grasping contradictions as the motor of development, they are signs of mere appearance. A genuine contradiction is logically impossible; an apparent contradiction dissolves through differentiation.
The systematic critique is more precise than the polemic. Schopenhauer distinguishes four different applications of the principle of sufficient reason: ratio essendi (ground of being - why does A exist?), ratio cognoscendi (ground of knowledge - how do I know that A is?), ratio fiendi (ground of becoming - how does A come to be?), ratio agendi (ground of action - why do I do A?). His fundamental critique of Hegel: the systematic conflation of these different levels of justification. Hegel mixes what must be kept separate - and then claims to be able to develop metaphysical truths from pure logic.
The critique of the identity of logic and metaphysics is fundamental. For Schopenhauer, logic is a formal discipline - “the technique that teaches us to draw correct inferences”[3] - not a source of metaphysical truths. Hegel’s attempt to develop the structures of reality from pure logic is “sheer nonsense.” Logic can clarify formal relations of consequence, but it cannot ground why anything exists at all.
What Hegel Actually Says: Intuition and Concept as Moments
Schopenhauer’s fundamental charge is: Hegel sacrificed intuition for the sake of the concept. But is that true? In the Phenomenology of Spirit, cognition begins with “sense-certainty” - the immediate intuition of “this, here, now.” But this intuition proves to be empty: one cannot hold onto the singular without determining it conceptually. Sense-certainty means “here” - but when it wants to utter it, the “here” is already another. It means “now” - but the “now” is already past in the uttering.[4] Intuition is not false - it is abstract. It must develop into the concept.
In the Science of Logic, thought begins with “pure being” - the wholly indeterminate immediacy. But this immediacy is identical with nothing. It must mediate itself in order to become determinate. This does not mean that immediacy disappears - it is sublated: negated, preserved, raised to a higher stage. For Hegel, the concrete is not the immediately intuited but the mediated. The “thing” is more concrete than mere sensation, because it contains more determinations. The “concept” is more concrete than the thing, because it makes its structure transparent. Our interpretation of Hegel makes explicit: abstract means one-sided, isolated, poor in determinations. Concrete means mediated, rich in determinations.[5]
Intuition and concept are not opposites but moments of a unified process of cognition. This insight is not our invention - it is Hegel’s position. The Phenomenology shows the development from sense-certainty through perception to understanding. The Logic shows the development from immediacy through reflection to the concept. Schopenhauer’s critique thus hits a caricature. He attributes to Hegel a position Hegel never held: that concepts could dispense with intuition. In fact Hegel shows: intuition without concept is empty, concept without intuition is blind - to borrow Kant’s formulation. The integration of both is the task.
The Legitimate Insight and Its Absolutization
The legitimate insight is twofold. First: not everything is completely mediable through concepts. Intuitive representation - the immediately given of experience - has an independence that does not dissolve into concepts. Music expresses something no concept can capture. Pain is an immediate feeling, not a deduction from premises. This “resistance of experience” is real and is explicitly taken into account in our interpretation.[6]
Second: the conflation of different levels of justification is a systematic problem. What counts as a ground of being need not also be a ground of knowledge - and vice versa. That something is does not yet explain how I know that it is. That something has come to be does not yet explain why it ought to be. These distinctions are philosophically necessary. In our interpretation, these distinctions are made explicit through the three circles:[7] the performative circle asks how cognition arises in enactment (ground of knowledge). The chronological circle asks how something has developed over time (ground of becoming). The systematic circle asks about logical structure (ground of being). These three circles are distinct - but they converge in enactment without being identical. Hegel does not distinguish them explicitly enough, which invites misunderstanding. Schopenhauer’s critique here touches a sore point - but his solution, strict separation, is just as one-sided as the conflation he alleges.
The absolutization is equally clear. Schopenhauer polarizes: either intuition or concept, either will or reason, either irrational driving force or rational mediation. His philosophy becomes a negative philosophy - a systematic devaluation of reason in favor of blind will. The will is not to be affirmed but negated. The ascetic negation of the will to live is the only redemption from the suffering of existence. Life is suffering, suffering arises from the will, therefore the will must be negated. Schopenhauer’s principle of intuition grasps the resistance of experience - the moment that cannot be completely dissolved into concepts. But he absolutizes this moment into an anti-system. The will as blind striving is itself still too abstract - it is the reverse side of absolute spirit, not its overcoming.
The question is not: intuition or concept? Will or reason? But rather: how do both mediate each other? Schopenhauer poses the question as if Hegel had chosen one side. In fact, Hegel shows the mediation - even if not explicitly enough to avoid misunderstandings. An integration must show that intuition and concept, will and reason, are moments of a unified process. The will is not the Other of reason but its foundation - and at the same time its product. Reason develops out of the living - but it transforms it at the same time.
Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1 (1818/1844), in: Sämtliche Werke, ed. Arthur Hübscher, vol. 2, Wiesbaden 1949, § 21, p. 142. ↩︎
Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2 (1844), chap. 13, in: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 3, p. 147. ↩︎
Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, appendix: Critique of the Kantian Philosophy, p. 565. ↩︎
Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit, Werke 3, pp. 82-92 (Sense-Certainty). ↩︎
Hegel’s Science of Logic (in preparation), Ch. 10.4, Abstract/Concrete. ↩︎
Hegel’s Science of Logic (in preparation), Ch. 25 and Hegel’s Science of Logic (in preparation), Ch. 24.1. ↩︎
Hegel’s Science of Logic (in preparation), Ch. 25.3, The Three Circles - Performative, Chronological, Systematic. ↩︎