Abstract
Abstract
This paper compares Schopenhauer’s subject of representation in
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
(hereafter WWR) and Wittgenstein’s metaphysical subject in
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
(hereafter TLP). While Wittgenstein’s affinity with Schopenhauer is often discussed through solipsism, ethics, or the mystical, the structural comparison of their conceptions of the self has remained underdeveloped. In Schopenhauer, the subject of representation is the transcendental condition of representation and never an object within the world it conditions. In Wittgenstein, the metaphysical subject is likewise not a part of the world, but is its formal limit: it cannot be encountered, represented, or stated propositionally, but only shown. To compare these heterogeneous positions without collapsing their differences, the paper develops a quasi-formal method of heuristic mapping and structural-role analysis. The comparison shows that the deepest analogy between the two thinkers lies in the relation between field and frame: in both systems, the subject functions as a non-objective boundary condition of worldhood. Yet the analogy remains partial rather than exhaustive since the two systems diverge in their treatment of the internal organization of what appears within the field. The result is a weak architectural correspondence that clarifies both the Schopenhauerian background of Wittgenstein’s early thought and the limits of that comparison.