Abstract

As far as Schopenhauer’s philosophy sees the world as representation, and deals with the way of knowing and the relation between subject and object, it is consistent with the Kant’s philosophy and epistemology. Both Schopenhauer’s Dissertation and the first part of his famous work The Word as Will and Representation reflect the Kantian epistemology. Schopenhauer himself has admitted that his philosophy is based on the Kant’s philosophy. In epistemology. he accepts the Kant’s Copernician revolution. Even though the epistemology aspect of his philosophy is based on the Kant’s philosophy, But he never likes thoroughly to follow Kant's philosophy. Uniting the causality with the matter, reducing the twelve categories of understanding to one category, considering time, space and causality as the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, etc. are his innovative cases versus Kantian view. Then it can be said that, he intended to go beyond the Kant’s philosophy. On the other hand, Schopenhauer’s philosophy is idealistic. He considers the object as the representation of the subject. But the idealistic aspect of his philosophy is considered only in the structure of the world as representation rather as will. In other words, idealism contains only the phenomenal aspect of the world. This paper tries to illustrate the epistemological and idealistic status of Schopenhauer’s philosophy from the perspective of Kant’s theoretical philosophy.