Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation'

A Critical Guide

Judith Norman, Alistair Welchman

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108804363
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation is one of the central texts in the history of Western philosophy. It is one of the last monuments to the project of grand synthetic philosophical system-building, where a single, unified work could aim to clarify, resolve, and ground all the central questions of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, religion, aesthetics and science. Poorly received at its initial publication, it soon became a powerful cultural force, inspiring not only philosophers but also artists, writers and musicians, and attracting a large popular audience of non-scholars. Perhaps equally importantly, Schopenhauer was one of the first European philosophers to take non-Western thought seriously and to treat it as a living tradition rather than as a mere object of study. This volume of new essays showcases the enormous variety of contemporary scholarship on this monumental text, as well as its enduring relevance.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Texts, Translations, and Abbreviations
• Introduction: Schopenhauer in the Time of Pandemic
• Chapter 1 Different Kinds of Willing in Schopenhauer
• Chapter 2 Resignation
• Chapter 3 Appreciating Nature Aesthetically in The World as Will and Representation: Between Kant and Hegel
• Chapter 4 The Hour of Consecration: Inspiration and Cognition in Schopenhauer’s Genius
• Chapter 5 Experiencing Character as a Key for a Present-Day Interpretation of Schopenhauer
• Chapter 6 Schopenhauer in Dialogue with Fichte and Schelling: Schopenhauer’s Critique of Moral Fatalism and His Turn to Freedom from Willing
• Chapter 7 Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Religion: (Hopeless) Romanticism?
• Chapter 8 Maja and Nieban in The World as Will and Representation
• Chapter 9 Schopenhauer, Universal Guilt, and Asceticism as the Expression of Universal Compassion
• Chapter 10 Seeing Things: Schopenhauer’s Kant Critique and Direct Realism
• Chapter 11 The Sciences in The World as Will and Representation
• Chapter 12 Pushing Back: Reading The World as Will and Representation as a Woman
• References
• Index