The epistemological side of Nietzsche's philosophy was de veloped in the "fictionism" of Vaihinger's Philosophy of "As If" (191I, Eng. trans. 1926). Ontologically Nietzsche agrees with Schopenhauer in identifying all reality with will. "It is will that struggles for existence in animate and inanimate nature." For Nietzsche, however, this will is not merely a will to live, but a "will to power." "This universe is a monster of energy, without beginning or end." Nietzsche accepted "will to power" as ulti mate reality because his experience convinced him of the reality of desires and impulses as of nothing else; and he considered these a sufficient guide to philosophical construction. Like Scho penhauer, he frequently paints the world in sombre colours. But the shortcomings of the world stimulate him instead of depressing him. And far from accepting Schopenhauer's ideal of a Buddhist saint, he regarded the world as a kind of Greek tragedy affording ample opportunity for heroes to show their mettle. Hence his gospel of energetic life, and his ideal of a "superman" who shall surpass the present type of man as much as man surpasses the ape. (See NIETZSCHE.) Wundt (1832-1921) begins by insisting that human experience consists of ideas in which subjective and objective factors are inseparably combined. These factors may be distinguished by abstraction. And in physical science the objective factors, or objects, are so habitually abstracted that they come to be re garded as independent things. But this is an error, for "the whole world exists for us only in our ideas," and all that reason posits behind or beyond phenomena must be regarded as transcendent "ideals." Again, the basic reality in experience, "the most proper being of the individual subject," is will, though it is never en tirely divorced from feeling and ideas. There are two grades of will, namely, impulsive will and voluntary will. Even impulsive will needs feeling directed to an end, and therefore an idea, but not conscious adoption of a motive, which pertains to voluntary will. He attributes impulsive will to all organisms, and conse quently maintains that in organic evolution teleology precedes mechanism, final causes precede and originate mechanical or efficient causes. Wundt describes not only attention but also thinking as will. For it is activity, and all activity is will. (The conception of this "will to believe" was elaborated by William James.) Wundt, in fact, regards the soul as "activity," not sub stance—it is the entire mental activity associated with a system of bodily activities. The body itself is only an object distin
guished by abstraction from the complete experience, of which soul is the subjective factor. There is consequently no psycho physical opposition or interaction, only a psychophysical paral lelism. Human knowledge is limited to experience, or phenomena, or ideas. Reason does indeed transcend experience. But it can only posit "ideals," which are matters not of knowledge but, at most, matters of faith. One such "ideal" is God, conceived as the world-will. (See WUNDT ; PSYCHOLOGY, HISTORY OF.) Neo-Kantianism.—The attempt to correct at once the ma terialism of the time and the absolute idealism which had partly provoked it led to a revival of interest in the philosophy of Kant and a concentration on the problems of knowledge. The move ment was initiated by 0. Liebmann (1840-1912). In his book Kant and die Ekigonen (1865) every chapter ends with the re frain, "we must therefore return to Kant." F. A. Lange (1828 75) advanced the movement by means of his History of Material ism (1866) in which he attempted to refute materialism by means of arguments based on Kant's theory of knowledge and its repu diation of all knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality, or things as they are in themselves. He insisted that the "matter," "atoms," "forces," etc., by means of which materialists try to account for all things, are not ultimate realities but only auxiliary conceptions of science. In 1871 H. Cohen (1842-1918) published his book on Kant's Theory of Experience, and soon became the leader of the whole movement. He was joined by P. Natorp (1854-1924), his colleague in the University of Marburg, where Lange too had been professor, and the movement consequently came to be known as "the Marburg School" of philosophy. The chief representative of Neo-Kantianism at present is E. Cassirer (1874– ). It cannot be said that the Neo-Kantians are agreed on all points. Far from it. What is common to them is the recognition of the importance of understanding Kant and devel oping his transcendental method. Cohen in particular attempted to do without Kant's aesthetic, to dispense with the assumption of a given sense material, and to begin at once with the transcen dental logic. There is no object then to be known; what becomes known only becomes an object in becoming known. Nothing is independent of thought. For thought and being are identical, and the judgment is the unit of both. (See NEO-KANTIANISM.)