“On the path of objective knowledge […] we shall […] remain on the outside of things; we shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature, and investigate what they are in themselves. […] So far I agree with Kant. But now, as a counterpoise to this truth I have stressed that […] we ourselves are the thing in itself. Consequently, a way from within stands open to us to that real inner nature of things to which we cannot penetrate from without. It is, so to speak, a subterranean passage, a secret alliance, which, as if by treachery, places us all at once in the fortress that could not be taken by attack from without. Precisely as such, the thing in itself can come into consciousness only quite directly by itself being conscious of itself […].”
— Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation (translated by E. F. J. Payne) (via fuckyeahphilosophy) 2 years ago
