This is a new release of the original 1949 edition.

As composer Richard Wagner noted, with Schopenhauer one may finally give voice to the secretly held belief that the world is bad. This blunt honesty was Schopenhauer's trademark. Perhaps no philosopher equaled him in relatinf metaphysical speculation to the seemingly random events of everyday life. This volume includes " On Thinking for Oneself," "On the Affirmation of the Will-to-Live," "On Suicide," "The World as Will: Second Aspect," "On the Fundamental View of Idealism," "On the Metaphysics of Music," "The Foundation of Ethics," and other essential writings.

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.

Schopenhauer's two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morals form his complete system of ethics. Their doctrines are here presented in more accessible, self-contained form than in his larger work, and in a new translation, introduced by Christopher Janaway, that preserves Schopenhauer's style in modern English.

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.

This book is an introduction to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, written in a lively, personal style. Hannan emphasizes the peculiar inconsistencies and tensions in Schopenhauer's thought--he was torn between idealism and realism, and between denial and affirmation of the individual will. In addition to providing a useful summary of Schopenhauer's main ideas, Hannan connects Schopenhauer's thought with ongoing debates in philosophy. According to Hannan, Schopenhauer was struggling half-consciously to break altogether with Kant and transcendental idealism; the anti-Kantian features of Schopenhauer's thought possess the most lasting value. Hannan defends panpsychist metaphysics of will, comparing it with contemporary views according to which causal power is metaphysically basic. Hannan also defends Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion against Kant's ethics of pure reason, and offers friendly amendments to Schopenhauer's theories of art, music, and "salvation." She also illuminates the deep connection between Schopenhauer and the early Wittgenstein, as well as Schopenhauer's influence on existentialism and psychoanalytic thought.

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."