Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer, born on 22 February 1788 and dying on 21 September 1860, earned the nickname “Philosopher of Pessimism.” This German thinker and writer is most famous for *The World as Will and Representation*, first published in 1818 and expanded in 1844. In that book, he argued that everything we experience is just the surface appearance of a deeper, blind, and irrational force he called the “will.” He built his atheistic, metaphysical, and ethical system on Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism, but he completely rejected the German idealism popular in his own time. His philosophy is often held up as a classic example of philosophical pessimism.

Schopenhauer was one of the first major Western philosophers to embrace key ideas from Indian thought, including asceticism, self-denial, and the view that the world we perceive is merely an appearance. During his life, his work attracted very little attention. After his death, however, it had a major influence on many fields—philosophy, literature, and science alike. His ideas about aesthetics, morality, and psychology shaped a wide range of later thinkers and artists.

Schopenhauer was born in Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, now Gdańsk, Poland) at Heiliggeistgasse (today Św. Ducha 47). His father, Heinrich, and mother, Johanna (née Trosiener), came from wealthy German patrician families. Both were Protestant but not devout; they supported the French Revolution, held republican and cosmopolitan views, and admired English culture. When Prussia took over Danzig in 1793, Heinrich moved the family to Hamburg, a free city with a republican constitution, though his business continued operating in Danzig, where most of their relatives stayed. Arthur’s only sibling, Adele, was born on 12 July 1797.

In 1797, Arthur was sent to Le Havre to live with Grégoire de Blésimaire, a business associate of his father. He enjoyed the two-year stay, learned French, and formed a lifelong friendship with Jean Anthime Grégoire de Blésimaire. By 1799, he had started playing the flute.

In 1803, Arthur joined his parents on a European tour through Holland, Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Prussia. Though the trip was mainly for pleasure, Heinrich also used it to meet business contacts abroad. Heinrich gave Arthur a choice: stay home to prepare for university, or come along and continue a merchant education. Arthur chose to travel. He later deeply regretted this decision, finding the merchant training tedious. During the tour, he spent twelve weeks at a school in Wimbledon, London, where he was bewildered by the strict, intellectual Anglicans, whom he considered shallow. Despite his general love for England, he continued to criticize Anglican religiosity for the rest of his life. His father also put heavy pressure on him and grew very critical of his academic progress.

In 1805, Heinrich drowned in a canal near their Hamburg home. Though an accident was possible, both his wife and son believed it was suicide. Heinrich had struggled with anxiety and depression, which worsened over time. He became so fussy that even his wife doubted his mental health. One account says there was “some dark and vague source of fear” in the father’s life that later drove him to throw himself from the attic of his house in Hamburg. Arthur himself showed similar moodiness as a youth and often said he inherited it from his father. There were other serious mental health issues on his father’s side of the family. Still, Arthur liked his father and later spoke of him positively.

Heinrich left a significant inheritance, split three ways among Johanna and the two children. When Arthur came of age, he gained control of his share. He invested it conservatively in government bonds, earning annual interest more than double a university professor’s salary. After quitting his merchant apprenticeship, encouraged by his mother, he began studying at the Ernestine Gymnasium in Gotha, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. There he enjoyed a social life among local nobles and spent freely, worrying his frugal mother. He left the Gymnasium after writing a satirical poem about a schoolmaster. Arthur claimed he left voluntarily, but a letter from his mother suggests he may have been expelled.

To honor his dead father, Arthur spent two years working as a merchant. During that time, he doubted whether he could ever become a scholar. Most of his earlier education had been practical merchant training, and he struggled to learn Latin—a prerequisite for an academic career.

His mother moved with Adele to Weimar, then the center of German literature, to enjoy the social life of writers and artists. Arthur and his mother parted on bad terms. In one letter, she wrote: “You are unbearable and burdensome, and very hard to live with; all your good qualities are overshadowed by your conceit, and made useless to the world simply because you cannot restrain your propensity to pick holes in other people.” Johanna was generally described as vivacious and sociable. She lived another 24 years.

Arthur moved to Hamburg to live with his friend Jean Anthime, who was also training to be a merchant.

He then moved to Weimar but did not live with his mother. She even tried to discourage him from coming, explaining they would not get along. Their relationship worsened further due to their temperamental differences. He accused her...