Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Epiphenomenalism

If Schopenhauer had attributed to Kant a concept of Reason as the idea of Totality, not as merely instumental to self-interest, he could easily have accepted it, as he does with Platonic Forms, as a redemptive Idea. Likewise, Nietzsche, under Schopenhauer's influence in Birth of Tragedy, could have classified Reason as 'Apollinian', rather than as 'Socratic', and, hence, as not antagonistic to Tragedy. But, even granting Kant his concept of Reason, what they still could not accept, the essence of their resistance to the Rationalist tradition, in general, is the attribution to Reason of causal efficacy. For, Schopenhauer radicalizes even Hume's denial of motive power to Reason, by denying to even feelings, because, in his System, all phenomena, irrational as well as rational, are epiphenomenal, i. e. only extrinsic appearances of universal Will. Thus, his Pessimism is grounded in his Epiphenomenalism, because the latter implies that the prevailing presumption of the day, that scientific progress is the path to the alleviation of human suffering, is vain, not to mention that it reduces the messianic Rationalism of his neo-Kantian rival Hegel to fiction. Likewise, for Nietzsche, Rationalism is the enemy of Tragedy, because, unlike the Apollinian, Rationalism presumes that Knowledge has the power to thwart even Dionysus. Conversely, though, any triumph of the Dionysian principle would seem to depend on the validity of the Epiphenomenal interpretation of Reason.