With equal attention to both the life and work of his subject, Safranski places the visionary skeptic in the context of philosophical predecessors and contemporaries like Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and explores the sources of Schopenhauer's profound alienation from their "secularized religion of reason."

This is the first comprehensive biography of Schopenhauer written in English. Placing him in his historical and philosophical contexts, David E. Cartwright tells the story of Schopenhauer's life to convey the full range of his philosophy. He offers a fully documented portrait in which he explores Schopenhauer's fractured family life, his early formative influences, his critical loyalty to Kant, his personal interactions with Fichte and Goethe, his ambivalent relationship to Schelling, his contempt for Hegel, his struggle to make his philosophy known, and his reaction to his late-arriving fame.

This is a new release of the original 1949 edition.

Volume 1 of the definitive English translation of one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement in one important stream of post-Kantian thought.

Arthur Schopenhauer made the momentous decision to become a philosopher when he was approximately 22 years old. Prior to that decision, he had been studying medicine at the university in Göttingen. By that age, however, he had concluded that life was a troublesome affair. So he resolved to spend his life reflecting upon it. Schopenhauer was doggedly determined to persevere in what he considered his mission in life, to reflect on the “ever-disquieting puzzle of existence,” to ascertain the meaning of living in a world steeped in suffering and death. He was confident that eventually his work would be recognized, a confidence that enabled him to weather laboring in relative philosophical obscurity for some forty years. What initiated the dawn of Schopenhauer’s fame was a review of his philosophy that appeared in a British journal in 1853, and ever since that time, Schopenhauer drew a readership, one broader than most Western philosophers. He is read not simply and solely by professional philosophers, but also by the wider learned world. Indeed, some have claimed that he is the most widely read Western philosopher. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on all of Schopenhauer’s books, significant philosophical ideas and concepts, as well as entries covering significant figures in his life and those influenced by this thinking.. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Arthur Schopenhauer.

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is usually remembered for his pessimism. His most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, concluded that no human desires can ever be fully satisfied. But as Peter B. Lewis shows in this new critical biography, Schopenhauer in fact advocated ways—via artistic, moral, and ascetic forms of awareness—to overcome the frustration-filled and fundamentally painful human condition. Offering a concise introduction to the life and work of this German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer explores a man who devoted his life to articulating a philosophy that would benefit mankind by providing a solution to the riddle of human existence. Lewis situates Schopenhauer’s principal doctrines of his philosophy into the context of his life, explaining how major events like his father’s apparent suicide led to his ideas on the meaning of life and the nature of art, religion, and morality. He also relates Schopenhauer’s thoughts to the intellectual and cultural world of early nineteenth-century Germany, where his philosophy was ignored for most of his life. Illustrated with images of Schopenhauer, his family, and his contemporaries, this book will engage anyone interested in music, literature, and the arts, as well as those who ponder the eternal questions of life’s meaning.

The Anglo-Saxon reception of Schopenhauer has a long and valuable tradition. An early reaction to Schopenhauer's thought from outside the German-speaking world was the appearance in the Westminster Review for 1853of "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy", an insightful essay of apprecia tion written by John Oxenford. A gratified Schopenhauer was able to remark: "my philosophy has just set foot in England" (To Lindner, 27. 4. 1853). It remained there and spread throughout the English-speaking countries. In the following decades Schopenhauer's works were translated into English: carrying on the task of translation begun in the nineteenth century there stands out, particularly, the masterly achievement of Eric F. Payne. No less active, however, has been the philosophical discussion devoted to Schopen hauer in books and journal-articles. In 1890Wallace published the first biog raphy of Schopenhauer in English, and the monographs by Caldwell (1894) and Coppleston (1946) are cornerstones of a continuous, if not widespread, concern with Schopenhauer's philosophy in the English language. An in creased interest in Schopenhauer in the Anglo-Saxon countries has mani fested itself in the last twenty-five years (Gardener (1963), Hamlyn (1980), Fox (ed.) (1980), Magee (1983) inter alia). The present study carries on this tradition. Its distinctiveness consists in its explicit connecting of Schopenhauer's work to the philosophy ofKant. The author's intimate knowledge of both thinkers has already been estab lished in previous studies.