The Essential Schopenhauer: Key Selections from The World As Will and Representation and Other Works

By Arthur Schopenhauer

“We should be grateful to Schopenhauer for managing to express the truth about life so beautifully.” —Alain De Botton, author of The Consolations of Philosophy

 

“Schopenhauer’s philosophy has had a special attraction for those who wonder about life’s meaning, along with those engaged in music, literature, and the visual arts.” —Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

The Essential Schopenhauer delivers the first comprehensive English anthology of the seminal philosopher’s writings. Edited by Wolfgang Schirmacher, president of the International Schopenhauer Association, this indispensible collection affords readers a uniquely accessible gateway into the monolithic thinker’s prodigious body of work. Just as the Harper Perennial Basic Writings series renders the work of Heidegger and Nietzsche accessible for English readers, The Essential Schopenhauer gives us unprecedented access to the complex ideas of this profound and influential thinker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9780062036247

Arthur Schopenhauer

Nació en Danzig en 1788. Hijo de un próspero comerciante, la muerte prematura de su padre le liberó de dedicarse a la actividad comercial y le procuró un patrimonio que le permitió vivir de las rentas, pudiéndose consagrar de lleno a la filosofía. Fue un hombre solitario y metódico, de carácter irascible y de una acentuada misoginia. Enemigo personal y filosófico de Hegel, despreció siempre el idealismo alemán y se consideró a sí mismo como el verdadero continuador de Kant, en cuya filosofía encontró la clave para su metafísica de la voluntad. Su pensamiento no conoció la fama hasta pocos años después de su muerte, acaecida en Fráncfort en 1860. En esta misma Editorial han sido publicadas sus obras Metafísica de las costumbres (2001), El mundo como voluntad y representación I (4.ª ed., 2022) y II (5.ª ed., 2022), Parerga y paralipómena I (5.ª ed.,2023) y II (4.ª ed., 2023), Dialéctica erística, o El arte de tener razón en 38 artimañanas (2023), Diarios de viaje. Los Diarios de viaje de los años 1800 y 1803-1804 (2012) y Sobre la visión y los colores (2.ª ed., 2024).

Reviews for The Essential Schopenhauer

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea describes a philosophical world view which shares various aspects of thought with Kant and Plato, among others. The first volume consists of four books, and is around 530 pages. The first book describes the world as consisting of idea. This gives a very idealist interpretation of reality, but one which is more sophisticated than the Idealist philosophy of Berkeley, for example. The second book describes the world as being will, will being found in objects as well as living beings, but differing only in magnitude and not nature. This in places sounds mystic, giving inanimate particles a striving that sounds like a weaker version of our own; this can equally be read from the opposite angle, that human and animal life can be explained in a reductionist manner by movement of particles. The will of Schopenhauer is in some respects similar to the ?lan vital of Bergson.The third book mainly concerns Idea, and discusses aesthetics, relating art to the Platonic Idea. This has been done in a similar fashion before, but it is treated well, and integrates with the rest of the system. Music is also discussed, but this reaches us directly through will, not involving idea. This I found to be the most convincing book of the four.The fourth book is mainly on will, and discusses the implications of the philosophical system on ethics. His system is found to be compatible with the Buddhism and Hinduism, and also Christianity, but not Judaism or Islam. The first two books are used to present to the reader the philosophical system, and the last two books give the practical implications of this. I found the book to be more engaging and readable than Kant, and an improvement on earlier Idealist works. Matter is hardly mentioned at all throughout the book, though it isn't denied, ?the-thing-in-itself?, (a borrowing from Kant), is used to refer to what lies behind what we see, and is described as only being knowable through its two forms ? will and idea.