Cause and effect are to be used only as pure concepts, conventional fictions for designation and communication, not explanation
One should use "cause" and "effect" only as pure concepts, that is, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication, not of explanation.
man soll sich der "Ursache", der "Wirkung" eben nur als reiner Begriffe bedienen, das heisst als conventioneller Fiktionen zum Zweck der Bezeichnung, der Verständigung, nicht der Erklärung
one should use "cause" and "effect" only as pure concepts, that is, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation, of communication, not of explanation
The second half of the first sentence of the passage, after the semicolon; the first half, against reifying cause and effect »wie es die Naturforscher thun«, is in the passage and not in the statement. »Nur« is kept. The sentence is a »soll«, a prescription, and the statement keeps it as one. Schopenhauer's Anhang has the law of causality known a priori and »eine Funktion unsers Intellekts« (c-schopenhauer-causality-sensation-and-space-are-subjective, ZA II 534), and § 19 has it hold inside representation only (c-schopenhauer-causality-never-leads-beyond-representation); Kant's B xxvii has it apply only to things as objects of experience (c-kant-causality-applies-only-to-things-as-objects-of-experience). The sentence is a »soll«, a prescription on how the two words are to be used, and asserts nothing of the law's origin that Schopenhauer's statement asserts, that it is known a priori; a prescription to use a concept as a fiction does not deny a statement that the law is a function of the intellect, and none of these statements says that cause and effect explain, so no attack link is set; the comparison x-thing-in-itself sets the three side by side in its paragraph on causality.