The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I

by: Arthur Schopenhauer

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Towering work of genius from the philosopher of gloom

Arthur Schopenhauer is one of the most interesting great philosophers. A misogynist, misanthrope and great lover of music and art, he was kinder to his dogs than he was to people.

Despite his oddities, Schopenhauer provides us with one of the most fascinating philosophical systems a great philosopher has ever produced. Perhaps one of the last philosophers who tried to produce a unified vision of the entire universe, Schopenhauer's universe is as depressing as it is majestic.

Schopenhauer's vision is spelt out at great length in his great masterpiece, the World as Will and Idea. For Schopenhauer, the key to understanding reality is that everything is the product of a blind, unconditioned energy or force called Will. Deeply read in Eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism, Schopenhauer regards the universe as a dark place filled with evil and suffering, caused by the endless activity created in the world by the Will (which as the cause in itself is the One or Absolute as understood traditionally by philosophers East and West) which appears in the world of sense experience in infinitely diverse ways, yet in ways which are perpetually in conflict and war with each other. For Schopenhauer, this dark force shows itself no more truely in the biological and human worlds, in the terrible struggle for existence which relies on killing and destruction of other life along with rapine, greed and war essentially for one being to triumph over the other. Schopenhauer, writing about three decades before Darwin, remarkably anticipates some of the ideas of evolutionary theory and also the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, which sees concious human activity as being the result of deeper unconcious, instinctual drives, especially those of sex and survival. He also anticipates some aspects of physical science which see the universe as a whole being the product of chaotic energy and forces acting at the deepest levels of reality.

Schopenhauer, despite being an idealist, marshals many powerful philosophical arguments as well as quotes from writers, poets, mystics, and also evidence gathered from science and even newspaper reports to support his worldview. He is deeply empirical and believes his idea explains not just philosophical issues but the very way the world is as it is found by scientists and naturalists. Indeed, his close attention to science makes Schopenhauer one of the most astute philosophers of the natural world, along with Aristotle and Descartes.

Schopenhauer also deduces a system of ethics and salvation from his system. His ethics are essentially Buddhist; indeed, Schopenhauer argued that of all the world's religions, Buddhism is the best because it accords most closely to the truth (salvation comes through renouncing the world and through a selfless ethic of compassionate love for suffering) although he also greatly admires the Hindu sages who wrote the Upanishads, a work he quotes very frequently. He also admires Christian mystics, especially Eckhart and Boehme.

Schopenhauer like Plato is a great writer as well as Philosopher. Unlike many German philosophers who wrote very obscurely, Schopenhauer believed strongly in expressing ideas clearly and very often he uses many rhetorical and literary tropes to create beautiful concrete illustrations of his philosophical ideas. This is especially so in his brilliant and witty essays, which earned him more fame than his true magnum opus ever did. He also viciously attacks Hegel and his school, feeling they have betrayed the legacy of Kant (of whom Schopenhauer claimed he was a true disciple) through obscure sophistry designed to reintroduce the metaphysical bugbears Kant had properly banished forever from Philosophy. For Schopenhauer, clarity was always central, unfortunately something many later German philosophers did not learn.

Schopenhauer's work had a massive influence on many leading lights in European thought. People influenced by his ideas and who quoted him readily included Goethe, Joseph Conrad, Nietzsche, Wagner, Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, Schrodinger, Wittgenstein, Thomas Mann, and many others. Today he remains a fascinating philosopher to study and his relevance remains, particularly as his ideas seem to have anticipated some of the ideas of modern evolutionary biology and physical science, and also for his keen interest in Eastern philosophical and religious thought, which is starting to strongly impact the West today. He is certainly one of the greatest philosophers Germany ever produced after Kant.

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