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.

This is the first of a set of three volumes which provide a fresh appraisal of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth century in the West. Some essays centre on major figures of the period; others cover topics, trends and schools of thought between the French Revolution and the First World War. The contributors are among the leading scholars in their field in Europe and North America. They seek to engage their subjects not only in order to see what was said but also why it was said and explore what is of lasting value in it. Readers, therefore, will find the essays not only highly informative about their subject matter but also distinctively personal contributions to the task of re-evaluating the thought of the nineteenth century. Contributions are sufficently clear to be of use to students in religious studies and cognate disciplines but have enough depth and detail to appeal to scholars.

Written in 1839 and chosen as the winning entry in a competition held by the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences, Schopenhauer's Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will marked the beginning of its author's public recognition and is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant and elegant treatments of free will and determinism. Schopenhauer distinguishes the freedom of acting from the freedom of willing, affirming the former while denying the latter. He portrays human action as thoroughly determined but also argues that the freedom which cannot be established in the sphere of human action is preserved at the level of our innermost being as individuated will, whose reality transcends all dependency on outside factors. This volume offers the text in a previously unpublished translation by Eric F. J. Payne, the leading twentieth-century translator of Schopenhauer into English, together with a historical and philosophical introduction by Günter Zöller.

This volume brings together internationally recognised Schopenhauer scholars to develop new perspectives on his moral philosophy. Despite anticipating and engaging with many of the arguments now recognisable in Anglophone moral philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer has often been overlooked as a potential contributor to contemporary discourse within this domain. Not only was he one of the most important 19th-century critics of Kantian deontology, Schopenhauer also developed a plausible moral system of his own grounded in compassion. While interesting parallels can be drawn between his system and the sentimentalist tradition familiar from the likes of Hume and Hutcheson, Schopenhauer’s idiosyncratic metaphysics provide a unique approach to standard questions in moral psychology, the philosophy of action, axiology, and moral epistemology. The chapters in this book draw out the relevance and influence of Schopenhauer’s ethical program, attempting to demonstrate the as yet untapped wealth of conceptual resources for pressing moral problems. They address a wide range of topics, including: the moral status of animals; the moral permissibility of suicide; the possibility of altruistic action; the nature of virtue and asceticism; how Schopenhauer integrated Western influences with various Indian traditions of moral thinking, and more. Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students interested in Schopenhauer, 19th-century philosophy, and the history of ethics.

This book provides a detailed reconstruction of the origins of Schopenhauer's philosophy and its inherent aporias. It is divided into four parts. The first section delves into the pietistic upbringing of young Schopenhauer and his introduction to philosophy through the teachings of G.E. Schulze, as well as his study of Plato, Schelling, and Kant. Faced with the "negative" outcomes of Kant's criticism, particularly the unknowability of the thing-in-itself, young Schopenhauer initially engaged with Fichte and Schelling (this is covered in the second part of the volume). However, Schopenhauer formed the opinion that these two philosophers, instead of upholding and expanding upon Kant's ideas, ultimately diverge from them. That notwithstanding, he implicitly inherited certain pivotal concepts from Fichte and Schelling. The third part explores Schopenhauer's initial endeavor to formulate a new metaphysics after Kant, known as the theory of "better consciousness." In the fourth part, the book demonstrates how the internal contradictions within that theory and Schopenhauer's transformative encounter with Indian wisdom (Hinduism and Buddhism) lead him to abandon his first attempt at a system and develop his metaphysics of will. The last and most substantial chapter of the book focuses on the author's analysis of the inherent aporias within Schopenhauer's mature system, approaching them from a genetic perspective.

This paperback edition of the first of the twelve volumes of A Treatises of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence, serves as an introduction to the first-ever multivolume treatment of all important issues in legal philosophy and general jurisprudence, consisting of a five-volume theoretical part and a six-volume historical part. The theoretical part covers the main topics of contemporary debate. The historical volumes trace the development of legal thought from ancient Greek times through the twentieth century. All volumes are edited by the renowned theorist Enrico Pattaro.