The thing in itself: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche

The passages

What the three say, in their own words

Kant, B xxvi: we can have cognition of no object as a thing in itself, »sondern nur so fern es Object der sinnlichen Anschauung ist, d. i. als Erscheinung«; nevertheless it is always reserved »daß wir eben dieselben Gegenstände auch als Dinge an sich selbst, wenn gleich nicht erkennen, doch wenigstens müssen denken können. Denn sonst würde der ungereimte Satz daraus folgen, daß Erscheinung ohne etwas wäre, was da erscheint« (AA 3:16.30–17.07). The thing in itself is kept as what must be thinkable, and the ground is the absurdity of appearance without anything that appears (a-kant-appearance-requires-thing-in-itself). What it is remains »gänzlich unbekannt« (A 42 / B 59, 3:65.17–19), and the noumenon is to be understood »nur in negativer Bedeutung« (B 308–309, 3:210.24–34).

Schopenhauer, Anhang: Kant's »Hauptgebrechen« is the introduction of the thing in itself »auf die von ihm gewählte Weise« (ZA II 534); »jedoch auch nur die Art der Ableitung, nicht die Anerkennung eines Dinges an sich zur gegebenen Erscheinung« (ZA II 535). The thing in itself is kept and named: »Ding an sich aber ist allein der Wille: als solcher ist er durchaus nicht Vorstellung, sondern toto genere von ihr verschieden« (§ 21, ZA I 154), and the word will designates »keineswegs eine unbekannte Größe, ein durch Schlüsse erreichtes Etwas; sondern ein durchaus unmittelbar Erkanntes« (§ 22, ZA I 155).

Nietzsche, GD: »Die "scheinbare" Welt ist die einzige: die wahre Welt ist nur hinzugelogen« (»Die ›Vernunft‹ in der Philosophie« 2); to divide the world into a true and an apparent one, »sei es in der Art Kant's«, is »nur eine Suggestion der décadence« (ibid. 6, fourth proposition); and at the last stage of the Fabel, »mit der wahren Welt haben wir auch die scheinbare abgeschafft!« JGB 16: »"unmittelbare Gewissheit", ebenso wie "absolute Erkenntniss" und "Ding an sich"« includes »eine contradictio in adjecto«, and Schopenhauer's »ich will« is named as a superstition.

Where a premise is shared

There is a thing in itself to a given appearance. Kant at B xxvi, »etwas ..., was da erscheint« (3:17.06–07), and Prolegomena § 32, »so gestehen wir hiedurch doch zugleich, daß ihnen ein Ding an sich selbst zum Grunde liege« (4:314.33–315.06); Schopenhauer in the Anhang, keeping »die Anerkennung eines Dinges an sich zur gegebenen Erscheinung« (ZA II 535). The link shares_premise_with is set between c-kant-appearance-presupposes-something-appearing, which asserts it, and c-schopenhauer-only-the-derivation-is-faulty, whose sentence excepts Kant's »Anerkennung« from the defect it finds and so expressly keeps Kant's assertion; the sharing is named in the text, not constructed by the map, and the convention for such a link is in MODEL.md. The premise is worded in the texts' terms, »zum Grunde liege« and »zur gegebenen Erscheinung«, because what it says depends on the reading of Kant: on the two-aspect reading it concerns the same object considered apart from the conditions of our sensibility, on the two-object reading a distinct ground of the appearance; the sharing holds on both only so worded.

Space is given a priori. Kant at A 24 / B 38, space »eine nothwendige Vorstellung a priori, die allen äußeren Anschauungen zum Grunde liegt« (the first sentence of the passage at 3:52.30–53.16, c-kant-space-a-priori); Schopenhauer in the Anhang, »der Raum ... ist eine a priori gegebene, folglich subjektive Form unsers Intellekts« (ZA II 534, c-schopenhauer-causality-sensation-and-space-are-subjective), in a sentence that opens by calling the a priori law of causality Kant's »eigenen und richtigen Entdeckung«. Schopenhauer uses the shared premise against Kant: because space, the sensation and the law of causality are all subjective, the inference he attributes to Kant stays inside representation. The Schopenhauer statement asserts three things; this premise and the next are its third, that space is »eine a priori gegebene, folglich subjektive Form«, in its two parts. The appendix's opening says the same with Kant's name and gives it as the ground of his distinction: the Kantian distinction declares Locke's primary qualities too to belong only to the appearance, »und zwar gerade deshalb, weil Bedingungen desselben, Raum, Zeit und Kausalität, von uns a priori erkannt werden« (ZA II 513–514, c-schopenhauer-kant-makes-primary-qualities-appearance-because-forms-cognized-a-priori); the link is set on that sentence too, and a second entry under this premise names the pair. The sentence's subject is the Kantian distinction, and the map reads its »weil« clause, in the indicative, as expressly keeping Kant's assertion; Kant's word at A 24 / B 38 is »Vorstellung a priori«, Schopenhauer's »a priori erkannt«, and the premise covers what both assert, that space is given a priori, not the faculty each assigns it to.

Space is a subjective form. Kant at A 26 / B 42, conclusion (b), space is »die Form aller Erscheinungen äußerer Sinne, d. i. die subjective Bedingung der Sinnlichkeit, unter der allein uns äußere Anschauung möglich ist« (3:55.09–11, c-kant-space-subjective-condition-of-sensibility); Schopenhauer in the same Anhang sentence, »subjektive Form unsers Intellekts« (ZA II 534). Kant's word is sensibility and »Bedingung«, Schopenhauer's intellect and »Form«; the premise covers what both assert, that the form is the subject's, and not the faculty each assigns it to. The two texts also run the inference in opposite directions: Schopenhauer from »a priori gegebene« to »folglich subjektive«, Kant from the subject's receptivity to how the form »a priori im Gemüthe gegeben sein könne«.

Space is no determination of the thing in itself. Kant at A 26 / B 42, »Der Raum stellt gar keine Eigenschaft irgend einiger Dinge an sich ... vor« (3:55.02–08, c-kant-space-not-of-things-in-themselves); Schopenhauer at § 23, the will as thing in itself »völlig frei von allen Formen« of its appearance, among them »Zeit und Raum« (ZA I 156, c-schopenhauer-will-free-of-forms-of-appearance). The sharing is named a page later, where § 23 says that we shall then understand »den Sinn der Kantischen Lehre ..., daß Zeit, Raum und Kausalität nicht dem Dinge an sich zukommen, sondern nur Formen des Erkennens sind« (ZA I 157). The Schopenhauer statement asserts more, that the thing in itself is will and free of every form including that of object for a subject; the shared premise is the part about space. The same premise is named a second time, with Kant's name, at § 24: »Was auch immer das Ding an sich sei, so hat Kant richtig geschlossen, daß Zeit, Raum und Kausalität ... nicht Bestimmungen desselben seyn, sondern ihm erst zukommen konnten, nachdem und sofern es Vorstellung geworden« (c-schopenhauer-kant-rightly-concluded-forms-not-determinations-of-thing-in-itself), Schopenhauer's »Bestimmungen« being Kant's word at A 26 / B 42, »keine Bestimmung derselben«; the link is set on that sentence too, and a second entry under the same premise names the pair. § 25 restates it, »nur unsere Erkenntnißform, nicht Eigenschaft des Dinges an sich« (c-schopenhauer-plurality-conditioned-by-time-and-space-not-of-thing-in-itself), and no third link is set on it: § 25 asserts it by reference back, »wie oben auseinandergesetzt«, as a restatement of §§ 23–24, and the map sets the link where the doctrine is stated, not where it is recalled; a reader may ask for it.

Space is not dependent on the objects that appear in it. Kant at A 24 / B 38, space »nicht als eine von ihnen abhängende Bestimmung« (c-kant-space-a-priori); Schopenhauer at § 24, the forms »ganz unabhängig von den Objekten, die in ihnen erscheinen« (c-schopenhauer-forms-in-consciousness-independent-of-objects), in a sentence that names its source, »von dem großen Kant gelernt«. Kant's sentence is about a determination's dependence on appearances, Schopenhauer's about the forms' presence in consciousness independently of the objects; the premise covers what both assert, that space does not depend on what appears in it, and the Schopenhauer statement asserts it of time and causality too.

The laws that govern experience are not to be applied beyond it. Kant at A 236 / B 295, »alles, was der Verstand aus sich selbst schöpft, ohne es von der Erfahrung zu borgen, das habe er dennoch zu keinem andern Behuf, als lediglich zum Erfahrungsgebrauch« (3:203.04–09, c-kant-understanding-principles-only-for-experience); Schopenhauer in the appendix, where Kant »zeigte, daß die Gesetze, welche im Daseyn, d.h. in der Erfahrung überhaupt, mit unverbrüchlicher Nothwendigkeit herrschen, nicht anzuwenden sind, um das Daseyn selbst abzuleiten und zu erklären, daß also die Gültigkeit derselben doch nur eine relative ist« (ZA II 516, c-schopenhauer-kant-showed-laws-of-experience-not-applicable-to-derive-existence). Schopenhauer's sentence reports what Kant showed, and »zeigte« keeps the assertion as true; his next sentence names the laws, »Zeit und Raum sowohl als Kausalität und Schlußfolge«, the principle of sufficient reason, and the paragraph's last sentence has Kant show them »als durch die Erkenntnißweise des Subjekts bedingt« (c-schopenhauer-kant-showed-laws-and-world-conditioned-by-subjects-mode-of-cognition). Kant's subject is what the understanding draws from itself, his »Grundsätze des reinen Verstandes«; Schopenhauer's is the laws that rule »im Daseyn«, time, space, causality and inference; the identification of the two is a step the map takes, supported by the Kant claim's second passage, Prolegomena § 57, where Kant says of »Zeit, Raum und alle Verstandesbegriffe« that they have »keinen andern Gebrauch ..., als blos Erfahrung möglich zu machen« (4:350.27–33), Schopenhauer's list less inference, and by Schopenhauer's last sentence, where Kant showed those laws conditioned by the subject. The premise is worded to cover both predicates, Kant's »Erfahrungsgebrauch« and Schopenhauer's »nicht anzuwenden ..., um das Daseyn selbst abzuleiten«, not what each takes the laws to be. A reader who holds the two subjects distinct may dispute the link.

Things cannot be cognized as they may be in themselves. Kant at A 42 / B 59, what objects may be in themselves »bleibt uns gänzlich unbekannt« (3:65.17–22, c-kant-things-in-themselves-unknown); Schopenhauer in the appendix's first sentence, Kant's distinction resting »auf Grund der Nachweisung, daß zwischen den Dingen und uns immer noch der Intellekt steht, weshalb sie nicht nach dem, was sie an sich selbst seyn mögen, erkannt werden können« (ZA II 513, c-schopenhauer-kants-greatest-merit-distinction-of-appearance-from-thing-in-itself). »Nachweisung« is read as »zeigte« is in the entry above, as saying that the thing was shown, so both statements assert it; the Schopenhauer statement asserts more, that the distinction is Kant's greatest merit and that the intellect stands between the things and us, which is the ground and not the premise. A reader who holds that a sentence praising a doctrine for its ground does not assert the ground may dispute the link.

The Transcendental Aesthetic as a whole. Schopenhauer counts its theorems among »den unumstößlichen Wahrheiten« and calls it »eine wirkliche, große Entdeckung in der Metaphysik« (ZA II 536, c-schopenhauer-theorems-of-transcendental-aesthetic-irrefutable-truths); the paragraph then argues, from what a priori means, that »Erkenntnisse a priori« and »selbsteigene Formen des Intellekts« are two expressions for one thing (a-schopenhauer-cognitions-a-priori-are-the-intellects-own-forms, c-schopenhauer-cognitions-a-priori-and-forms-of-the-intellect-two-expressions-for-one-thing). No link is set on either sentence: the endorsement names no proposition of the Aesthetic, and the convention asks that both statements word the one they share; the conclusion is about a priori cognition as such, where Kant's statements in the map, A 24 / B 38 and A 26 / B 42, are about space. The proposition the two come nearest to sharing is that what is cognized a priori is a form of the subject's own, which Schopenhauer's conclusion asserts of all a priori cognition and Kant's A 26 / B 42, conclusion (b), of space (c-kant-space-subjective-condition-of-sensibility); a reader may dispute the absence of a link, and the sharing on space itself is set two entries above.

None with Nietzsche. No Nietzsche statement in the map asserts, in his own voice, a proposition that a Kant or Schopenhauer node states. The nearest are these, and each differs. JGB 16 calls »Ding an sich« a contradictio in adjecto, where Schopenhauer calls only an object in itself, »die keines von diesen Beiden wäre« (neither representation nor will), a dreamt-up absurdity (§ 1, ZA I 30): Schopenhauer keeps a thing in itself and Nietzsche's words hit the term as such. The fourth proposition of »Die ›Vernunft‹ in der Philosophie« 6 names Kant's division of the world, but to name a division as décadence is to diagnose it, not to share or state it. Stage 4 of the Fabel has the true world »als unerreicht auch unbekannt«, which is close to Kant's »bleibt uns gänzlich unbekannt« (A 42 / B 59), but the map frames the stage-4 claims as the positivist stage of a history of an error, not as Nietzsche's own (the reading followed is said on each node), so no shared premise is set on them. The nearest since 2026-10-12 is JGB 21: »Im "An-sich" giebt es nichts von "Causal-Verbänden", von "Nothwendigkeit"« (c-nietzsche-in-the-in-itself-nothing-of-causal-connections), beside Kant's B xxvii, where the principle of causality applies only to things »so fern sie Gegenstände der Erfahrung sind« and the same things as things in themselves are »ihm nicht unterworfen« (3:17.21–24, c-kant-causality-applies-only-to-things-as-objects-of-experience), and Schopenhauer's § 23, where the will as thing in itself is free of the forms that have »ihren gemeinschaftlichen Ausdruck im Satz vom Grunde« (ZA I 156) and »Zeit, Raum und Kausalität nicht dem Dinge an sich zukommen« (ZA I 157). Three sentences withhold causality from the thing in itself, Kant's conditionally, and the map sets no link: Kant's clause stands under »wenn die Deduction ihrer Verstandesbegriffe richtig ist«, Nietzsche's »An-sich« is a term in his own quotation marks whose next sentence says we invented what we read into it (c-nietzsche-projecting-sign-world-as-in-itself-is-mythology), and the convention requires that both statements assert one proposition. Whether anything is asserted of a term set off in quotation marks is the question, and a reader may dispute the absence of the link. A second pair from the same sentence: »Wir sind es, die allein die Ursachen ... erdichtet haben« beside the Anhang's law of causality as »eine Funktion unsers Intellekts, also subjektiven Ursprungs« (ZA II 534, c-schopenhauer-causality-sensation-and-space-are-subjective). Both put the origin of causality in us, and neither statement words that as a proposition: a cause we »erdichtet haben« is not an a priori »Funktion unsers Intellekts«, and the two statements assert the invention and the function, not a common sentence; no link is set, and a reader may dispute that too.

Where they diverge

On the inference to the thing in itself. The ground Kant's text gives at B xxvi for keeping the thing in itself is the absurdity of »Erscheinung ohne etwas ..., was da erscheint« (3:17.06–07): a conditional with an absurd consequent, and the thing in itself as what must be thinkable; that ground is not a causal inference. Schopenhauer's Anhang attributes to Kant a different ground, »wiewohl unter mancherlei Wendungen verdeckt«: an inference by the law of causality from the sensation to an external cause (ZA II 534, c-schopenhauer-kant-grounds-thing-in-itself-on-causal-inference), and his checked argument (a-schopenhauer-kant-derivation-cannot-reach-thing-in-itself) concludes that such an inference never leaves representation (§ 19, ZA I 146–147). The map has no Kant node stating the inference Schopenhauer attacks, and so sets no attack link from Schopenhauer on any Kant node (said on both Schopenhauer nodes). The Kant passages in the map that speak of affection are Prolegomena § 32, »die Art, wie unsre Sinnen von diesem unbekannten Etwas afficirt werden« (4:314.36–315.01), and § 13 Anm. II, where the things we are given are known only through »die Vorstellungen, die sie in uns wirken, indem sie unsere Sinne afficiren« (4:289.03–14): a causal verb, »wirken«, of things as they are in themselves. Whether that is the »Schluß nach dem Kausalitätsgesetz« the Anhang names is a question about Kant that a reader can put to the texts here, side by side, and that the map leaves open. Schopenhauer's own way of raising the question, at § 24, is a conditional of his own: »Sollten nun aber die in diesen Formen erscheinenden Objekte nicht leere Phantome seyn; sondern eine Bedeutung haben: so müßten sie auf etwas deuten ..., das ... keine Vorstellung, sondern ein Ding an sich wäre«, after which the question »ließe sich wenigstens fragen« (c-schopenhauer-objects-not-empty-phantoms-must-point-to-thing-in-itself); the answer, the will, is § 21's and comes by the route of self-consciousness, not from this conditional. Set beside B xxvi, the two conditionals run from different antecedents, Kant's from our being unable to think the objects also as things in themselves to an absurdity, Schopenhauer's from the objects' having a meaning to a thing in itself, and neither is the causal inference the Anhang attributes to Kant; the map sets no link between them, since neither states the other's conditional. § 24 adds what the sciences cannot do: mathematics, however complete, gives only spatial and temporal relation, etiology only why each appearance shows itself here and now, and »so dringen wir mit deren Hülfe doch nimmermehr in das innere Wesen der Dinge« (c-schopenhauer-mathematics-and-etiology-never-penetrate-inner-nature), a claim about explanation that the map keeps apart from § 19's claim about the law of causality.

On causality and the in-itself. The three texts deny causality of the thing in itself and part on what causality is. Kant at B xxvii: if the deduction is right, »der Grundsatz der Causalität« applies »nur auf Dinge im ersten Sinne genommen, nämlich so fern sie Gegenstände der Erfahrung sind« (3:17.21–24, c-kant-causality-applies-only-to-things-as-objects-of-experience), a principle whose application is restricted. Schopenhauer's Anhang has it by Kant's »eigenen und richtigen Entdeckung« that the law of causality is known a priori, and calls the law »eine Funktion unsers Intellekts« (ZA II 534, c-schopenhauer-causality-sensation-and-space-are-subjective), and § 19 keeps it inside representation (c-schopenhauer-causality-never-leads-beyond-representation). Nietzsche's JGB 21 has »"Ursache"« and »"Wirkung"« as »reiner Begriffe ..., das heisst als conventioneller Fiktionen zum Zweck der Bezeichnung, der Verständigung, nicht der Erklärung« (c-nietzsche-cause-and-effect-conventional-fictions), and makes the step the other two do not: »Wir sind es, die allein die Ursachen ... erdichtet haben«, so that to read the sign-world »als "an sich" in die Dinge« is to proceed »mythologisch« (c-nietzsche-projecting-sign-world-as-in-itself-is-mythology). Set beside row 2, the sentence bears, as the map reads it, on Schopenhauer's charge against Kant: where the Anhang attacks an inference by the law of causality to a thing in itself because the law holds only inside representation, JGB 21 prescribes that cause and effect be used as fictions and not for explanation, and on the map's reading an inference by them to anything »an sich« goes with that; the sentence is a »soll« about the use of two words and says nothing of the law's origin, so it does not deny the Anhang's statement that the law is known a priori, and no attack link is set. JGB 15 adds a reductio (a-nietzsche-external-world-not-work-of-organs): if the external world were the work of our organs, the organs would be their own work, on the map's bridge a causa sui, which JGB 21 calls »der beste Selbst-Widerspruch, der bisher ausgedacht worden ist« (c-nietzsche-causa-sui-best-self-contradiction); the row on the subject's work sets that chain beside Kant's subjective condition of sensibility and Schopenhauer's »Vorstellung«, neither of which says what the chain denies.

On what the division is. Kant's conditional at B xxvi supposes that, were there no thing in itself, appearance would remain and would be appearance of nothing, and calls that absurd (c-kant-without-things-in-themselves-appearance-without-appearing). Stage 6 of the Fabel abolishes the true world and denies that the apparent one remains: »welche Welt blieb übrig? die scheinbare vielleicht?... Aber nein!« (c-nietzsche-abolishing-true-world-abolishes-apparent). On the map's reading, set side by side, the two texts agree that the apparent, Kant's »Erscheinung« and the stage's »die scheinbare«, does not stand alone, and part on what is given up: Kant keeps the thing in itself, and stage 6 gives up the predicate »scheinbar«, which on the map's reading of the first proposition of »Die ›Vernunft‹ in der Philosophie« 6 (c-nietzsche-grounds-for-apparent-establish-reality) leaves the world real and undivided. The stage gives no ground of its own, so both readings are the map's; the map sets no link between the two claims, since neither states the other's conditional. Schopenhauer keeps the thing in itself and both terms: appearance »heißt Vorstellung, und weiter nichts« (§ 21, ZA I 153–154), and the world is »einerseits durch und durch Vorstellung, so andererseits durch und durch Wille« (§ 1, ZA I 30), two sides and no third. JGB 34 runs stage 6 the other way: »wollte man ... die "scheinbare Welt" ganz abschlaffen, nun, gesetzt, ihr könntet das, - so bliebe mindestens dabei auch von eurer "Wahrheit" nichts mehr übrig!« (c-nietzsche-abolishing-apparent-world-leaves-nothing-of-truth), the nearest the map holds to a converse of stage 6, if the »"Wahrheit"« of this sentence is the »wahre Welt« of the Fabel, an identification that is the map's and that the texts do not make; the aphorism then asks »was zwingt uns überhaupt zur Annahme, dass es einen wesenhaften Gegensatz von "wahr" und "falsch" giebt?« and whether »Stufen der Scheinbarkeit« would not suffice (c-nietzsche-degrees-of-apparentness-instead-of-true-and-false), questions the map keeps as questions, and calls a valuation the map sets beside the division, that truth is worth more than semblance, »nicht mehr als ein moralisches Vorurtheil« (c-nietzsche-truth-worth-more-than-semblance-a-moral-prejudice). Kant's B xxvi and JGB 34 are not converses of one another: Kant's terms are appearance and what appears, Nietzsche's the apparent world and »Wahrheit«, and the map sets no link.

On immediacy. Schopenhauer's thing in itself is cognized »durchaus unmittelbar« (§ 22, ZA I 155), and the identity of will and body »kann ... ihrer Natur nach niemals bewiesen ... werden, eben weil sie selbst die unmittelbarste ist« (§ 18, ZA I 144–145). Nietzsche's JGB 16 names that belief, »wie es der Aberglaube Schopenhauer's war, "ich will"«, and JGB 19 says Schopenhauer »ein Volks-Vorurtheil übernommen und übertrieben« in holding the will known »ganz und gar«: the two attacks set on c-schopenhauer-will-not-inferred-but-immediately-known. JGB 19's »dass Wille und Aktion irgendwie Eins seien«, as the product of an expected »Wirkung des Befehls«, attacks the identity of act of will and action of the body (§ 18, c-schopenhauer-act-of-will-and-action-of-body-identical). No Kant passage in the map speaks of immediacy, but he is on a side as to the thing in itself: what objects are in themselves »bleibt uns gänzlich unbekannt« (A 42 / B 59, c-kant-things-in-themselves-unknown), where Schopenhauer's § 21 names the thing in itself will and § 22 calls the will »ein durchaus unmittelbar Erkanntes«. The map sets no attack link from Schopenhauer on the Kant claim, because its convention requires the denying words inside one statement and here two statements do it between them; a reader who wants the link may dispute its absence. § 24 places the thing in itself's making itself known »unmittelbar« in »Dasjenige in der Erscheinung, was nicht durch Zeit, Raum und Kausalität bedingt« (c-schopenhauer-thing-in-itself-makes-itself-known-in-what-forms-do-not-condition), a sentence about where, not about a cognition, and the map links it to no § 22 claim and sets no attack from it on Kant's claim that what things are in themselves remains unknown, for the same reason, which a reader may dispute. JGB 34 adds, naming no one, that »Der Glaube an "unmittelbare Gewissheiten"« is »eine moralische Naivetät« and, morality aside, »eine Dummheit« (c-nietzsche-belief-in-immediate-certainties-a-moral-naivete); the sentence judges the belief and does not say what JGB 16 says, so no attack link is set from it. The positive noumenon would need »eine besondere Anschauungsart ..., die aber nicht die unsrige ist« (B 307–308, 3:209.32–210.12); whether Schopenhauer's self-consciousness is an intuition of that kind is not stated in any passage in the map, and the map does not say.

On the will. Kant's will at B xxvii–xxviii is thought »als einem Dinge an sich selbst angehörig« and so »als frei«, and in the appearance »als dem Naturgesetze nothwendig gemäß und so fern nicht frei«, the two »ohne daß hiebei ein Widerspruch vorgeht«, if the critique is right to take the object »in zweierlei Bedeutung« (3:17.18–28, c-kant-same-will-not-free-as-appearance-free-as-thing-in-itself); freedom so thought is not cognized, since I would have to cognize such a being »seiner Existenz nach und doch nicht in der Zeit bestimmt« (3:18.04–05, c-kant-freedom-cannot-be-cognized-by-speculative-reason). The will belongs to a thing in itself; no Kant passage in the map says it is one. Schopenhauer says of the will what no Kant passage in the map says of any object, »Ding an sich aber ist allein der Wille« (§ 21, ZA I 153–154), and his will as thing in itself is »völlig frei von allen Formen« of appearance, even »die des Objekts für ein Subjekt« (§ 23, ZA I 156), groundless and one (§ 23, ZA I 157). Nietzsche's GD has the will among the »Trugbilder und Irrlichter« of the »innere Welt«, »der Wille ist eins von ihnen. Der Wille bewegt nichts mehr« (»Die vier grossen Irrthümer« 3, c-nietzsche-will-moves-nothing), and JGB 19 has willing as »etwas Complicirtes, Etwas, das nur als Wort eine Einheit ist« (c-nietzsche-willing-is-complicated). JGB 36 then makes the matter conditional, »ob wir an die Causalität des Willens glauben: thun wir das ... so müssen wir den Versuch machen, die Willens-Causalität hypothetisch als die einzige zu setzen«, and closes: »Die Welt von innen gesehen, die Welt auf ihren "intelligiblen Charakter" hin bestimmt und bezeichnet - sie wäre eben "Wille zur Macht" und nichts ausserdem.« Whether that is asserted is the map's second contested reading (asserted, not asserted). On the first reading Nietzsche puts a will in the place Schopenhauer's will held, »von innen gesehen«, and the comparison has three answers to the question what the world is in itself; on the second it has two, and Nietzsche's answer to the question is that the question divides the world (»Die ›Vernunft‹ in der Philosophie« 6, fourth proposition). The map does not pick. Kant's will stands apart from both readings: thought free »als einem Dinge an sich selbst angehörig«, it is not offered as what the world is in itself, and what the thing in itself it belongs to is remains, on his other sentences in the map, unknown (A 42 / B 59). Since 2026-10-15 the will has its own comparison, the will, five questions side by side, built from nodes already in the map.

What depends on the reading of Kant

The map holds two readings of »eben dieselben Gegenstände« at B xxvi (two-aspect, two-object), and the comparison changes with them. On the two-object reading, things in themselves are entities distinct from appearances that ground them (Prolegomena § 32, »Wesen, die den Erscheinungen zum Grunde liegen«, 4:315.02–05), and Schopenhauer's § 1 remark that Kant's thing in itself »ihm leider unter den Händen ausgeartet ist« into an object in itself (ZA I 30), together with the Anhang's attribution of a causal inference, has on that reading a target in Kant. On the two-aspect reading, the thing in itself is the same object considered apart from the conditions of our sensibility (A 26 / B 42, 3:55.04–05), there is no second entity to be inferred, and Schopenhauer's target is not Kant's doctrine but a reading of it. Nietzsche's fourth proposition names »in der Art Kant's« without saying which; the claim's node relates it to Kant's appearance and thing in itself (c-kant-objects-known-only-as-appearances) and to the Fabel's stage 3, »königsbergisch«, and the comparison adds nothing to that.

What the map does not yet contain

Kant's chapter on phenomena and noumena (A 235–260 / B 294–315) beyond its opening and B 307–309, and the footnote at B xxvi on thinking and cognizing; Schopenhauer's § 2, § 24 beyond its first paragraph and the three spans of its second that the map holds (the paragraph's middle, between the two stored spans, on the complete cognizability of the forms and the pure sciences a priori, and its close, on necessity and objective content, are not in the map), § 25 beyond its first paragraph's opening, §§ 26–29, and the Anhang beyond the four spans the map holds (the first six sentences of its opening paragraph, ZA II 513–514; the same paragraph's four sentences from »Er zeigte« to »wie das Eichhörnchen im Rade«, ZA II 516, the sentences between the two spans not held (on Kant's subtraction of the brain-functions' share after Locke's subtraction of the sense-organs', the separation of cognition a priori from a posteriori, Kant's threefold relation to Locke, Hume and Leibniz-Wolff, the identity-philosophy, Plato, the Vedas and Kant as the waker of the sleepers); the paragraph at ZA II 534–535 and the first two sentences of the next, ZA II 535, its remainder on Fichte, Schelling and Hegel not held; and the first paragraph on the Transcendental Aesthetic, ZA II 536–537), so neither its theorems on time nor the critique of the categories; Nietzsche's JGB 34 at its opening, on the erroneousness of the world as the surest thing and on those who take this world, with space, time, shape and motion, as falsely inferred, and at its close, on the world as a fiction, the sentence after the passage on degrees of apparentness; JGB 15's sentence on sensualism as a regulative hypothesis, in a stored passage and in no claim; JGB 21 on the free and the unfree will, and GD »Die vier grossen Irrthümer« 7–8. Each would add a row or a cell, and none is needed for the rows above, whose every filled cell cites its passage. JGB 20, once listed here, is struck: it concerns the kinship of philosophical concepts under the common philosophy of grammar, in its own words, and adds no cell on this question; what the map holds of Nietzsche on grammar is JGB 17 and 54. The comparison is checked, with the qualification in its status line: on 2026-10-10 the owner, Andries (BOARD.md), read the claims and readings against the project's translations, Checkpoint 1 of PLAN.md, and the changes he ordered are on the page (CHANGELOG.md). The changes made on his instructions after that reading are the operator's and have not been read by him: the claim and passage on A 26 / B 42, conclusion (b), the two shared-premise paragraphs on space, and the notes of rows 1, 4 and 5; and, added on 2026-10-11 with the nodes on B xxvii–xxix, the row on the will and the sentences on Kant in the paragraph on the will; and, added on 2026-10-12 with the nodes on JGB 15, 21 and 34, the row on the subject's work, the Nietzsche cells added to rows 2 to 5, the paragraph on causality and the in-itself, the sentences on JGB 21 under None with Nietzsche and on JGB 34 under immediacy and the division, this paragraph, and the clause added to the status note saying so; and, added on 2026-10-13 with the nodes on §§ 24–25, the Schopenhauer cells added to rows 1 to 4 and 7 and the sentences added to their notes, the second entry under the premise that space is no determination of the thing in itself and its paragraph, the entry and paragraph on the premise that space is not dependent on the objects, the sentences on § 24 under the inference and under immediacy, the sentence added to the list of what the map does not yet contain, and this paragraph; and, added on 2026-10-14 with the nodes on the appendix's opening and on the Transcendental Aesthetic, the Schopenhauer cells added to rows 2, 4 and 7 and the sentences added to their notes, the second entry under the premise that space is given a priori and the sentences added to its paragraph, the entry and paragraph on the premise that the laws governing experience are not to be applied beyond it, the entry and paragraph on the premise that things cannot be cognized as they may be in themselves, the paragraph on the Transcendental Aesthetic under the shared premises, the sentence changed in the list of what the map does not yet contain, and this paragraph; and, added on 2026-10-15, the sentence under On the will that links the comparison on the will, the first sentence on Kant under On immediacy, reworded to speak of the map's Kant passages and not of Kant (CHARTER.md P1, on the adversarial reviewer's finding of the same fault on the new page), and this paragraph. The translations were not independently verified, and no one has attested the page.