Origin including the
analogy of the Sun Anschauen or
Anschauung, as a philosophical concept (intuition), has been identified in
Plato's
Allegory of the Cave where it was associated with the terms light, sun, and eye. It was also mentioned in the works of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was referred to as "Phantasie", “Einbildungskraft”, “exakte sinnliche Phantasie” and “anschauende Urteilskraft”. The term emerged into a philosophical concept as it became a component in theoretical discourse. It became a part of
Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of language. It is also cited in
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and
Immanuel Kant's works. There are scholars who maintain that the concept is part of the Kantian terminology, which was developed in
Latin and translated to German. The conceptualization was also used in the Kantian investigation on the immediate cognition of the
existence of God. In this definition, he distinguished Anschauung from
Vorstellung, which pertains to the philosophical concepts (metaphorical or analogical senses) and their dependence on sensory contents.
Arthur Schopenhauer's definition described the term as what transpires once the eye senses an external object, recognizing it as the cause of the vision. Nietzsche defined Anschauung as the projected image of a completely enraptured being. In this definition, there is a rejection of Schopenhauer's version of the concept, as it denies the abstract idealism of the will as well as "its objectifications of the world of representations". For Kant, Anschauung is the same as
sense-data of knowledge. Another analysis cited it as one of the two characteristics that Kant said represented sensibility. These constitute the sense-impressions identified as facts and are inherent in nature, existing prior to ideas, which are constructs of such impressions. In Fichte's doctrine of knowledge, Anschauung plays a role in the perception of the external objects and is united with the notion of
Denken. He used Anschauung in a various ways when he outlined his doctrine of knowledge. In some instances, he described it as "non-thought" as sense qualifies as such. In other works, however, he cited that all thoughts are confined within Anschauung. Particularly, Fichte identified "ordinary" and technical conceptualizations. The former pertains to perception or the objective universe for man, citing that what is visually perceived is ego-stuff in thought-forms. This definition is notable because it was against the Kantian notion of a totally direct perception (
Wahrnehmung). For Schopenhauer, Anschauung is not the common conception of idea since it should be understood as intuition and requires a higher degree of intellect. It is also associated with the thinker's notion pessimism, which was used as part of the
principle of sufficient reason. He maintained that truth is compatible with Anschauung and that it can achieve the same result as from that of pessimism. == References ==