A leading German philosopher and metaphysician of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) exerted an influence far beyond the hermetic world of philosophy, with adherents ranging from Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Mann. Among Schopenhauer's chief contributions to the field of philosophy are his rejection of the idealism of his contemporaries and his embrace of a practical variety of materialism. He jettisons the traditional philosophic jargon for a brisk, compelling style that employs direct terms to express the metaphysics of the will.
In The Wisdom of Life, an essay from Schopenhauer's final work, Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), the philosopher favors individual strength of will and independent, reasoned deliberation over the tendency to act on irrational impulses.
He examines the ways in which life can be arranged to derive the highest degree of pleasure and success, presents guidelines to achieving this full and rich manner of living, and advises that even a life well lived must always aspire to grander heights. Abounding in subjects of enduring relevance, Schopenhauer's highly readable work appears here in an excellent translation.
Arthur Schopenhauer (/ˈʃoʊpənhaʊər/ SHOH-pən-how-ər,[18] German: [ˈaɐtʊɐ ˈʃoːpm̩haʊɐ] (listen); 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will.[19][20] Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.[6][7] He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance.[21][22] His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.[23][24][25]
Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Those who have cited his influence include philosophers Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche[26] and Ludwig Wittgenstein,[27] scientists Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein,[28] psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud[29] and Carl Jung, writers Leo Tolstoy,[30] Herman Melville,[31] Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse,[32] Machado de Assis,[33] Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust[34] and Samuel Beckett,[35] and composers Richard Wagner,[34] Johannes Brahms,[34] Arnold Schoenberg[34][36] and Gustav Mahler.[34]