# Arthur Schopenhauer

## Biography

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher born in Danzig on February 22, 1788, to a prosperous merchant family. Though initially intended for a career in commerce, his father's death allowed him to pursue academic studies. He enrolled at the University of Göttingen, later moving to Berlin, where he studied philosophy, influenced deeply by Plato and Immanuel Kant.

Schopenhauer’s seminal work, The World as Will and Representation, published in 1818, posits that the fundamental reality underlying the phenomenal world is a blind, irrational "will" that drives all existence and is the source of endless suffering. His philosophy developed into a unique system of metaphysical pessimism, emphasizing intuition and aesthetics while rejecting the prevailing idealism of his German contemporaries like Hegel and Fichte. Often an outsider to academic circles, his ideas initially garnered little attention. However, late in his life, particularly after the 1850s, his work began to receive significant recognition, profoundly influencing later thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, and many artists and writers. Schopenhauer died in Frankfurt am Main on September 21, 1860.

## Books

- [Essays of Schopenhauer](https://samolit.com/books/96342)
- [The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)](https://samolit.com/books/95998)