Wooden iron
Encyclopedia
- Distinguish from ironwoodIronwoodIronwood is a common name for a large number of woods that have a reputation for hardness. Usage of the name may include the tree that yields this wood...
, various species of tree with very hard wood.
Wooden iron (Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
: σιδηροξύλον sideroxylon, German: hölzernes Eisen) is a polemical term often used in philosophical rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
to describe the impossibility of an opposing argument. The term is a German proverbial oxymoron
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...
, which synthesizes the concept of the "wooden", which is organic, with the concept of "iron" which is inorganic. Such a contradictio in adjecto
Contradictio in adjecto
Contradictio in adjecto is Latin for "a contradiction in itself" or a "contradiction in terms". It is "the characteristic that is denoted by the adjective stands in contrast to the noun." It is a kind of oxymoron, for example, "There was a deafening silence in the room."...
is a logical inconsistency. It occurs when a modifying adjective opposes its noun, as in "square circle," "freezing fire," "boiling snow," or "hard liquid."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
used the term in The World as Will and Representation
The World as Will and Representation
The World as Will and Representation is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in December 1818, and the second expanded edition in 1844. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann....
(1819) in his critiques of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
. For his argument against absolutes he wrote "... the categorical imperative leaps into the world, in order to command there with its unconditioned ought—a scepter of wooden iron." (See Payne's trans., WWR 1:523.) His chapter titled "On the Fundamental View of Idealism" further describes his position on subjectivity
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
by using the term to demonstrate the difference between "the representation of the intellect" and the "subject" itself. In this imaginary dialogue between intellect and matter he wrote, as intellect speaking to matter: "Whoever thinks me away, and then believes he can still think of you, is involved in a gross delusion; for your existence outside my representation is a direct contradiction, a wooden-iron." (See Payne's trans., WWR 2:17.)
Friedrich Nietzsche, who was an avid Schopenhauer scholar, continued to employ the term throughout his writings in the latter half of the 19th century. Nietzsche's experience with philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
also brought new meaning to the term. He attacked Moritz Carrière
Moritz Carrière
Moritz Carrière was a German philosopher and historian.After studying at Giessen, Göttingen and Berlin, he spent a few years in Italy studying the fine arts, and established himself in 1842 at Giessen as a teacher of philosophy...
's so-called "real idealism" (see Notebooks Fall 1873—Winter 1873-74 30[16]). He used it to describe Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's "infinite melody" (see Notebooks Fall 1881 11[198]). He also considered "unegoistic actions" and "unegoistic drives" to be examples of Wooden Iron (see Notebooks Summer-Fall 1884 26[224]). He similarly dismissed philosophical concepts of "pure knowledge" and "thing in itself" (see Notebooks Summer-Fall 1884 26[413]). The term was also employed in his poetic attempts to criticize socialism and the building of a "free society" (see Book 5 of The Gay Science
The Gay Science
The Gay Science is a book written by Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, in 1887. This substantial expansion includes a fifth book and an appendix of songs...
, §356).
See also
- Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
- Arthur SchopenhauerArthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
- Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
- Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
- OxymoronOxymoronAn oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...
- Sideroxylon