Product Description

Schopenhauer is the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will - a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behaviour as that of a natural organism governed by the will to life, Schopenhauer developed radical insights concerning the unconscious and sexuality which influenced both psychologists and philosophers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101548 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
Christopher Janaway is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birbeck College, University of London.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction to Schopenhauer
This is a neat little book that actually summarises Schopenhauer's work really effectively. I'm currently wading my way through 'The World as Will and Representation', and this book is a very good shortcut straight to Schopenhauer's central ideas. It's actually better than some longer commentaries like Magee's. It even gives a clear idea of why there is no 'School of Schopenhauer' in the way you get say Kantians and Hegellians and how even though he had few followers Schopenhauer was very inflential, primarily in Philosophy to Nietsche and Wittgenstein and in music to Wagner.
Highly Recommended.

A splendid introduction to an influential thinker
Schopenhauer, a German philosopher of the early 19th century, is a greatly neglected thinker today, despite being hugely influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most notably on the thought of Nietzsche, Wagner and Freud. The latter in particular, although he denied it, was greatly influenced by him. Janaway convincingly extends the list to include Mahler, Jung, Mann and others. In fact, if you have not yet delved deeply into the work of Freud or Nietzsche, I would strongly recommend that you tackle Schopenhauer before doing so, and Janaway's is the perfect introduction. It is a well-informed, readable and balanced account, neither an apology nor a savaging. Schopenhauer's metaphysics have not stood the test of time, but his worldview, essentially pessimistic yet with promise of redemption, is still very relevant, and in many ways strikingly modern. If you are at all interested in the development of modern thought, especially that of the various German and Austrian schools, then you need to acquaint yourself with Schopenhauer, and I doubt you will find a better introduction than this book.

The world as will
Schopenhauer: A very short introduction by Christopher Janaway, Oxford, 2002, 152 ff.

The world as will
By Howard A. Jones

This is another excellent little monograph in the Oxford University Press series. Unlike one reviewer, I did not find Schopenhauer the easiest of German philosophers to study, even in translation. I did find Bryan Magee's book equally readable as this, but it is three times the length and is therefore obviously more detailed, as is Hamlyn's book for Routledge. The author here is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton and is an expert on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

This book begins with a synopsis of Schopenhauer's PhD thesis work, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason - a ubiquitous principle in philosophy and science since Aristotle that everything must have a cause. His best known work is On the World as Will and Representation (WWR) that was much inspired by eastern mysticism: Janaway tells us how this came about and how it expands on Plato's world of Ideas, on Berkeley's `reality in perception' and on Kant's view of the numinous: `only the will is thing in itself . . . It appears in every blindly acting force of nature'. The identification of Wille with Kant's Ding-an-sich is one of Schopenhauer's great insights; but while Kant's ethics is an ethics of duty, Schopenhauer's ethics is an ethics of compassion.

The compatibility of Schopenhauer's ideas with the Noble Truths of Buddhism is illustrated by a quote: `as long as our consciousness is filled by our will . . . we never attain lasting happiness or peace.' Schopenhauer believed that transcendence of the material world was possible through aesthetic experience, and the role of art and music are discussed in Book III of WWR and the whole of Chapter 6 in Janaway.

Schopenhauer was hugely influential on Nietzsche, on composers like Mahler and Wagner, on novelists like Thomas Mann and on C.J. Jung. Other commentators see Schopenhauer as anticipating Freud in his idea of the role of the unconscious rather than influencing him. This highly readable book provides an excellent introduction to and summary of the main points in Schopenhauer's thought.

Dr Howard A. Jones is the author of The Thoughtful Guide to God (2006) and The Tao of Holism (2008), both published by O Books of Winchester, UK.

The Philosophy of Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer (Arguments of the Philosophers)