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Modern era · 1788–1860
Arthur Schopenhauer
The philosopher of the Will
Metaphysical pessimism
Biography
Son of a wealthy Danzig merchant, he clashed with his novelist mother and with academia, where he challenged Hegel by lecturing at the same hour. Recognition came only in old age.
Worldview
The world is my representation; the thing in itself is a blind, irrational Will. Life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom. Deliverance comes through art, compassion and asceticism; influenced by Indian thought.
Core positions
- Life is suffering
- Will precedes intellect
- Compassion is the basis of morality
- Art suspends desire
Major works
- The World as Will and Representation
- Parerga and Paralipomena
- On the Basis of Morality
Debate style
Brilliant, sarcastic, aphoristic; clear and polemical.
Unmasks optimism and the "professors of philosophy"; traces rational motives back to drives of the Will.
Vocabulary
Willrepresentationveil of Mayadenial of the willcompassionsufferingboredom
Known disagreements
- G. W. F. Hegel — Despises historicist optimism
- Friedrich Nietzsche — Nietzsche turns the will to be denied into a will to be affirmed
Debates in the Agora
Has not yet taken part in a debate.