Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer
	Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher of pessimism and the will
Tradition	Continental philosophy, German idealism, Pessimism
Influenced by	Immanuel Kant, Plato, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Upanishads, Buddhism
Lifespan	1788–1860
Notable ideas	The world as will and representation; primacy of the will; pessimism; influence of Eastern philosophy on Western thought
Occupation	Philosopher, Writer
Influenced	Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Philosophy of pessimism
Wikidata	Q38193

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was a German philosopher best known for his unique blend of Western idealism and Eastern mysticism. He argued that beneath all appearances lies a single, blind “will” – a universal striving force – making existence intrinsically painful. In his major work The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer developed a strikingly pessimistic view of life, maintaining that endless desire leads inevitably to suffering. His ideas anticipated later developments in psychology by emphasizing unconscious drives and instincts. Although he was largely ignored for much of his life, Schopenhauer’s thought eventually influenced many writers, artists, and thinkers – notably Sigmund Freud and other psychologists – and remains an important reference for debates about desire, art, and meaning.

Early Life and Education

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788 in the city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) to a wealthy merchant family. His early years were comfortable and cosmopolitan: as a child he traveled throughout Europe with his parents and lived two years with a French family (age 9–11). These travels made him fluent in several languages and exposed him to different cultures from a young age. When Arthur was five, the family moved to Hamburg. His mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, became a successful writer and salon hostess in Weimar, associating with figures like Goethe and the Schlegel brothers. Arthur detested many of her friends but benefited intellectually from her circle – he met Johann Gottlob Fichte and the Sanskrit scholar Friedrich Majer there, and through them he developed an interest in Eastern philosophy (e.g. the Upanishads of India).

Schopenhauer’s father expected Arthur to join the family business, but Arthur preferred scholarship. After his father’s death (likely a suicide) in 1805, Schopenhauer left his commercial apprenticeship in favor of university studies. He enrolled at the University of Göttingen in 1809, initially studying medicine but soon switching to philosophy. At Göttingen he was influenced by Gottlieb Ernst Schulze, who introduced him to Plato and Immanuel Kant. He then studied in Berlin (1811–1813) under professors like Fichte and Schleiermacher. He followed Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason closely, but became increasingly critical of his German Idealist contemporaries (especially Hegel and Schelling).

In 1813 Schopenhauer completed a doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the foundations of how we justify knowledge. After two years of drafting ideas in Dresden, he published his major work The World as Will and Representation in 1818 (dated 1819). The book met with little attention at first. In 1820 he tried teaching philosophy in Berlin, even scheduling his lectures opposite Hegel’s to compete for students – a scheme that failed and led him to abandon academia. Schopenhauer spent the next decades living mostly alone in cities like Dresden and Frankfurt, continuing his writing and revising his ideas. He had a notoriously prickly personality: he returned to Berlin in 1822, clashed with rival philosopher Hegel, and sued a neighbor over noise (a lawsuit he lost). In 1851 he published Parerga and Paralipomena, a collection of essays and aphorisms aimed at a broader audience. It was a success, finally bringing him recognition in his seventies. Schopenhauer died in Frankfurt in 1860. By then he had been hailed (especially in literary circles) as a major thinker, even if academic philosophers continued to debate his views.

Major Works and Philosophy

Schopenhauer’s philosophy is centered on the distinction between the world as representation and the world as will. He adopted the Kantian idea that what we perceive – objects, events, space and time – is a representation constructed by our minds. In this sense, the familiar world of physical things and human consciousness is the only world we can directly know: it is the world of appearances. But Schopenhauer went further than Kant by asking: what is the ultimate reality behind these appearances? He concluded that it is a single, underlying force he called the will. The will is not the human will to choose, but a metaphysical, will-like essence of all existence. He wrote that each of us, in a deeper sense, is the same thing-in-itself: our own striving body. From our own perspective, we see our bodies acting and wanting things; this inward experience, he argued, reveals the nature of the “thing-in-itself.” If our body is an object in the world of representation, we simultaneously feel it from the inside as will. By analogy, Schopenhauer proposed that every object in nature is another manifestation of the will. In short, for Schopenhauer the world-as-we-experience-it is representation, and the inner reality of all things (the true essence) is the will.

This idea can be illustrated simply: when you decide to raise your arm, you see the arm (a representation) moving, but you also feel the desire and effort from within; that inner urge is the will. Schopenhauer boldly generalized this – not just human actions, but the pull of gravity, the attraction between particles, even the life force in plants are all expressions of the same blind will. Unlike a rational purpose or a directed goal, this will is “a blind, timeless, pointless urge” that drives existence without awareness or morality. It is “unconscious and amoral,” he stressed, before we add any thinking or reasoning (ndpr.nd.edu). Only creatures with brains and bodies (like animals and humans) lucidly experience this will; everything else is its manifestation in different forms.

The philosophical consequence of equating the thing-in-itself with will is that nothing in nature happens without necessity. Schopenhauer adopted the idea of the principle of sufficient reason (everyone who is moved is moved by a reason), so every action or event follows inevitably from the forces and conditions of the will. This meant he believed in a form of determinism: human decisions are caused by motives (inner states and desires) rather than free choice. Schopenhauer explicitly rejected any idea of free will in the sense of a free-floating ego; he saw decisions as the body moving under the compulsion of the will acting through motives. In that sense, he was consistent with a scientifically minded, cause-and-effect universe where nothing is spontaneous without a reason. In his view of knowledge, we are tied to explanation by causality or logic; but the will itself stands outside those rules. It is the ground of reality, not explained by anything else but simply is.

The World as Will and Representation

The culmination of these ideas is the book The World as Will and Representation. In it Schopenhauer organizes his system: first, we know only the world of representation (the familiar world of objects and phenomena, which depends on mind and categories like space, time and causality). Second, looking for the “thing behind” representations, he turns inward. He observes that he has a special kind of awareness of his own body – he experiences the beating of his heart, the urges in his limbs, the striving to live – that his intellect treats differently from outer objects. To him, his body is both an object among objects and the living source of will. He concludes from this perspective that the inmost nature (“das Innerste”) of all things must be identical with this will. All entities – from stones obeying gravity to animals seeking food and, most intensely, humans craving happiness – are expressions of one, unitary will.

He famously summarized this by saying the world is at once will and representation. Representation is how the world appears: segmented into many things in space-time, governed by logical relations. Will is what the world is in itself: an indivisible striving presence. Because everyone experiences themselves as willing creatures, Schopenhauer asserted we have insight into this noumenon that Kant said was unknowable. Thus he believed he had completed Kant’s project by identifying the thing-in-itself – our will – and thereby giving a metaphysical explanation for nature.

Pessimism

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics led him to a strikingly bleak outlook on life, making him famous as a philosopher of pessimism. His basic argument was simple: if existence is driven by an endless will – a desire without fixed purpose – then existence is essentially suffering (iep.utm.edu). The will constantly strives, but the moment one need is (temporarily) satisfied, another immediately takes its place. Every fulfilled desire vanishes as new desires emerge; hence sustained satisfaction is impossible. Nature itself is in perpetual conflict: forces and creatures endlessly struggle to obtain resources or mate, with little respite. As Schopenhauer put it, from gravity to plant growth to human appetite, everything shows “insatiable striving.” The natural world, including living beings, is a battlefield of wills competing for being.

Satisfaction is only a brief relief: achieving a goal brings a moment of contentment, but it quickly fades. Moreover, reaching one goal often creates a vacuum, causing further boredom or fresh wants. In this cycle, frustration is just as constant as fleeting happiness. Because of this, Schopenhauer believed that life is marked more by want and pain than by lasting joy (iep.utm.edu). Human beings suffer especially intensely because we recognize our plight. Our intellect heightens awareness of disappointment and our own mortality: we remember past pain and anticipate future pain. In Schopenhauer’s view, reason does not rescue us from suffering; on the contrary, it often amplifies it by making us ponder our misery. Thus ordinary pursuits – wealth, ambition, love, art – turn out to be, in his words, “fruitless” and even “illusory” when seen against the background of insatiable will (iep.utm.edu).

From this analysis, Schopenhauer drew several radical conclusions. First, he believed that existence is worse than nonexistence. If life means perpetual desire and suffering, then not being alive would logically be preferable. He provocatively wrote that supposedly non-being was in some metaphysical sense preferable to the will-driven being we experience. However, he did not call for suicide. Schopenhauer argued that death only changes the form of suffering; the will itself persists, and self-destruction is just another manifestation of the will-to-live. Rather, he claimed that the only rational response to the problem of suffering is to curtail desires. One must try to stop identifying with the will. In practical terms, this means cultivating asceticism – voluntarily reducing wants – and even adopting compassion for others (since others suffer too) (iep.utm.edu). These solutions echo Eastern teachings: Schopenhauer explicitly drew parallels to Buddhism and Hinduism, noting that renouncing desire is akin to Nirvana or brahman realization. He saw ethical and spiritual value in eastern ideas about overcoming desire: salvation comes from quieting the will, not from indulging it.

Aesthetics and Ethics

Besides metaphysics and pessimism, Schopenhauer made notable contributions to aesthetics (the philosophy of art) and ethics. His aesthetic theory is an attempt to find a haven from the will’s demands. Schopenhauer argued that through art we can temporarily transcend our personal will. In moments of purely contemplative perception – for example, when listening to great music or admiring a painting – we stop caring about our own survival or desires and simply observe. We become a “pure, will-less intellect,” appreciating things for themselves. He believed a true genius (artist or thinker) has an intellect that can detach from individual needs and so perceive the timeless Platonic Ideas behind phenomena.

Music held a special place for him as the most profound art. Because it does not directly mimic the material world (unlike painting), he said music expresses the will itself. A symphony, for instance, embodies emotional currents of life, giving us intuitive insight into the will’s inner nature. This theory influenced artists and composers: Richard Wagner, for example, cited Schopenhauer’s ideas about music as metaphysical truth. In general, Schopenhauer thought art offers a temporary relief from suffering – a glimpse of unity in the Idea or a suspension of selfish striving – and is thus spiritually valuable. Even ordinary people benefit: by contemplating a beautiful landscape or a novel, one gains a break from personal worry.

In ethics, Schopenhauer’s key idea was that compassion (German Mitleid, “suffering with”) is the foundation of morality. Since all living beings share the same will, we ultimately experience the same hunger, pain and fear. Recognizing this, feeling pity for others becomes our highest moral sentiment. He rejected strict rational moral systems (like Kant’s duty-based ethics) because they overlook the emotional bonds between people. Instead, Schopenhauer claimed that our instinct to alleviate others’ suffering is innate and more fundamental. He famously said the basic duty of a truly moral person is to refrain from cruelty because everyone, in their inner being, is itself suffering. The virtue of compassion – helping strangers in need, caring for animals – arises from perceiving that others are also manifestations of the will. In practical terms, he counseled kindness, vegetarianism (to reduce animal suffering) and generosity as ways to counterbalance the general misery of existence.

Thus, even within his bleak outlook, Schopenhauer offered a positive ethical path: turn your empathy toward others, reduce personal desires, and practice will-less awareness through art or ascetic discipline. In his view these were ways to diminish agony. It is often noted that surprisingly, despite his stern philosophy, Schopenhauer had a softer side with animals and the unfortunate, precisely because of this ethic of compassion. (He kept pet poodles and believed suffering should be minimized.) One of his well-known aphorisms goes: “A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.” This captures his conviction that our highest moral effort is not to impose our twisted will on others.

Influence on Psychology

Schopenhauer is sometimes called a forerunner of modern psychology, especially the psychoanalytic tradition. Long before Freud publicly formulated an unconscious mind, Schopenhauer had already described something very similar: the powerful underlying drives and desires of which we are hardly aware. Many psychologists have noted that Schopenhauer’s concept of the blind, irrational will anticipates Freud’s “id” and the unconscious. Freud himself acknowledged the parallels. In his late memoir Freud remarked that psychoanalysis and Schopenhauer’s philosophy “coincide” in fundamental ways – both emphasize the dominance of strong unconscious impulses (sex and aggression) and even repression (habib.camden.rutgers.edu). Freud claimed he did not consciously learn from Schopenhauer early on, but he admitted reading the philosopher in middle age and being struck by the similarities. Indeed, Schopenhauer wrote about how suppressed or unfulfilled desires can distort one’s thoughts, which anticipates Freud’s ideas of neurosis and repression (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). For example, Schopenhauer explained that the will creates an endless stream of wanting, so unfulfilled wishes accumulate and cause misery – much like Freud’s notion that repressed sexual or aggressive urges build up and lead to anxiety or illness. Schopenhauer also discussed dreaming and creative imagination as outlets for the will, somewhat foreshadowing Freud’s work on dreams, although Schopenhauer did not develop a full psychological method of interpretation.

Carl Jung, Freud’s one-time disciple, also saw Schopenhauer as an important influence, though Jung steered psychoanalysis in a different direction. Jung admired Schopenhauer’s incorporation of Eastern thought and his emphasis on the irrational depths of the mind. Jung’s ideas of the collective unconscious and archetypes are not direct copies of Schopenhauer, but both thinkers shared a sense that human nature has deep, non-rational foundations and that individuals project inner forces onto the world. Jung’s interest in spirituality and symbolism can be linked to Schopenhauer’s bridging of philosophy with things like Indian mysticism.

Beyond Freud and Jung, Schopenhauer’s impact on psychology is more diffuse. His idea of instinctual forces influenced later thinkers like Alfred Adler (will to power) and Wilhelm Reich (body-embedded energies), who extended Freud’s ideas in various ways. More broadly, Schopenhauer helped shift Western thought away from pure rationalism toward a focus on emotion and drive. This emphasis resonates in existential and humanistic psychology. Therapists who value understanding personal meaning or destiny often trace a line through Nietzsche back to Schopenhauer’s concept of striving will. In modern behavioral science, notions like that of an innate “will to live” or intrinsic motivation echo his perspective that people act not because of logic but because of deeper impulses.

In summary, Schopenhauer anticipated many key themes in psychology: the unconscious motivation of behavior, the conflict between desires and rational goals, the dynamics of repression, and the importance of early impulses (for instance, he linked sexual drive to the will of life). While not a psychologist in the formal sense, he helped lay an intellectual groundwork. By highlighting how unseen drives shape perception and action, Schopenhauer raised questions that later became central in psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, and even neuroscience. Today he is often credited with having given a philosophical explanation for things we now study scientifically – for example, the human tendency to perseverance despite hardship or the cyclical nature of satisfactions and cravings.

Critiques and Controversies

Schopenhauer’s philosophy has attracted both admiration and criticism. One major critique is that his extreme pessimism is one-sided. Critics argue that he exaggerates the suffering of life and neglects genuine human joys, love, accomplishments and progress. In our everyday experience, not all individuals feel life is intolerable; critics say Schopenhauer paints with too broad a stroke. His claim that nonexistence is preferable can seem negative to many, especially given modern evidence that people often adjust well to life’s changes (a concept known as the “hedonic treadmill” in psychology). Some philosophers also question his metaphysics: if the will is claiming to be the unknowable in-itself, one might ask how we really can know anything about it. Kant had insisted the noumenal world is forever beyond our direct knowledge, whereas Schopenhauer asserted we get a glimpse of it through introspection of our own will. Detractors say this move is questionable or even contradictory to Kantian limits on knowledge. In technical debates, it has been argued that Schopenhauer’s “argument from analogy” (we know our own will so other things must have a will too) is weak. Others note that he took a Kantian epistemology (the forms of knowing) and extended it metaphysically in a way Kant would likely have rejected. These subtle points are often raised in academic critiques: for instance, studies of Schopenhauer’s reasoning point to internal tensions in how he combines determinism with an ethics that seems to require free choice (academic.oup.com). In plain language, if everything is caused, what sense does it make to praise or blame people? Critics like philosopher Bryan Magee say that Schopenhauer undermines his own ethics by denying autonomy – a longstanding issue in discussions of his work.

Perhaps more significantly to a broader audience, Schopenhauer’s personal views have drawn controversy. He is infamously known for his harsh opinions on women. In essays such as “On Women”, he described women as intellectually inferior, frivolous and suited only to household roles. He even said that in some respects beloved pets were “far superior” to women. These and similar statements have angered readers for decades. Modern commentators widely condemn Schopenhauer’s misogyny. While some scholars try to contextualize his views historically, most agree that such attitudes are indefensible today. His skepticism about democracy, class prejudice, and occasional anti-Semitic asides (he once complained about politicians he disliked) also tarnish his image. These personal biases stand in stark contrast to his otherwise insightful critique of human nature, and critics often point them out to balance any praise of his philosophy.

Finally, some critics object to Schopenhauer’s ethical prescriptions as impractical. A few find his renunciation of desire a recipe for passivity and fatalism, rather than a positive solution to life’s problems. Others think he underestimates the role of positive emotions and social bonds. In the 19th century he was ignored by most colleagues (who found his style abrasive and his ideas too morbid), and in the 20th century continental philosophers often used his work more for inspiration than for logical guidance. In short, Schopenhauer is admired for his literary talents and bold ideas, but many still debate the soundness of his conclusions and the trustworthiness of his evidence.

Legacy and Influence

Despite mixed criticism, Schopenhauer’s legacy is significant. He helped usher in a new direction in Western thought by insisting that human life is not primarily rational or progressive, but driven by irrational forces. This vision influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, who called Schopenhauer “the educator” of modern times. Nietzsche praised his depth but broke with his gloom; he borrowed Schopenhauer’s concept of a fundamental will but transformed it into the “will to power” and emphasized life-affirmation. Later existential philosophers (Sartre, Camus, Heidegger) and psychoanalysts acknowledged Schopenhauer’s role in challenging optimistic rationalism.

Schopenhauer was also remarkably influential in literature and the arts. Poets and novelists often echoed his sense of life’s drama. Creations by Samuel Beckett, Thomas Mann, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov, among others, show Schopenhauerian themes of longing and futility. In music, composers like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler found resonance in his view of suffering and redemption. Schopenhauer is especially noted for marrying ideas from Indian religions with Western thought – he was perhaps the first major Western philosopher to treat texts like the Upanishads seriously. This opened a philosophical bridge to Eastern schools, indirectly shaping later thinkers interested in meditation and consciousness.

Today Schopenhauer is often listed among the classic philosophers. His writings still appear as assigned reading in philosophy and humanities courses. New translations and commentaries are published regularly, indicating a sustained interest. In popular culture his name sometimes surfaces in discussions of pessimism or willpower (the rock band “The Doors” took their name from an Aldous Huxley reference to The Doors of Perception, which itself alludes to Schopenhauer discussing Plato).

Though he once predicted history has “no meaning” and saw progress as illusory, readers continue to find Schopenhauer thought-provoking. His sharp prose and vivid metaphors (e.g. life as endless yearning) keep his philosophy accessible. As a result, Schopenhauer remains influential not as a system builder with settled points of view, but as a provocateur who highlighted uncomfortable truths about desire, art and empathy. His legacy lies in encouraging generations to question the sunny assumptions of humanism and to consider the hidden depths beneath everyday consciousness.

Selected Works

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813) – Dissertation on the basis of knowledge and causality.
On Vision and Colors (1816) – A short work expanding Goethe’s theory of color.
The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1818/1819; 2nd ed. 1844) – His philosophical magnum opus, introducing the ideas of will and representation.
On the Will in Nature (1836) – Essay examining parallels between will and natural science.
On Freedom of the Will (1839) and On the Basis of Morality (1841) – Two essays on free will and ethics, later published together.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) – Collection of essays and aphorisms on many topics (philosophy, art, ethics, psychology). Contains the essay “On Women and Their Relation to Men.”
The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II (1844) – Second volume of his magnum opus, developing ethics and aesthetics.

Each of these works is available in English translation. They together present Schopenhauer’s system: from his argument about how we perceive the world (1813), through the declaration of will as essence (1818), to later reflections on living, suffering, art and redemption.

Conclusion

Arthur Schopenhauer stands out in the history of philosophy for his darkly original vision of reality. By asserting that an irrational will underlies all existence, he challenged Enlightenment optimism and raised deep questions about desire, freedom, and suffering. His dictum that human life is fundamentally tormented by ceaseless craving has earned him the title “philosopher of pessimism,” but he coupled it with stirring accounts of art, compassion and Eastern wisdom as ways to cope. In retrospect, many recognize Schopenhauer as a key bridge between classical German idealism and modern ideas about psychology and existentialism. His influence on thinkers like Freud, Jung and Nietzsche helps explain why concepts of the unconscious and innate drive remain central today.

While some of his views – especially on gender and politics – are rightly rejected, his core insights continue to provoke thought. His eloquent writing remains popular in both scholarly circles and general readerships. In short, Schopenhauer’s work endures because it addresses universal human concerns: Why do we suffer? What is the source of our desires? And how might we find meaning or peace in a world that seems determined to disappoint us? Whether one regards his answer (renounce the will and embrace compassion) or not, Schopenhauer’s philosophy remains an influential landmark in the ongoing quest to understand the human mind.