Suffering is a theme throughout Nietzsche's writings. His views are often controversial and challenging. He explores ways of understanding suffering not as an 'objection to life', but as something that can enhance life. This Element examines Nietzsche's views on suffering from different angles: his early claim that the representation of suffering in the art form of tragedy enabled the ancient Greeks to affirm life, his analysis of cruelty as an expression of will to power, and his critique...

This book brings together fourteen essays by Christopher Janaway on the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. They illuminate central philosophical issues in the work of these thinkers - the death of God, the meaning of existence, suffering, compassion, the will, Christian values, the affirmation or negation of life. Some of the essays concern Schopenhauer in his own right, focusing on his concept of will to life, an underlying drive which constitutes our inner essence, but which traps...

With the publication of the Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851, there finally came some measure of the fame that Schopenhauer thought was his due. Described by Schopenhauer himself as 'incomparably more popular than everything up till now', the Parerga is a miscellany of essays addressing themes that complement his work The World as Will and Representation, along with more divergent, speculative pieces. It includes his 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life', reflections on fate and clairvoyance, ...

Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, first published in 1790, was the last of the great philosopher's three critiques, following on the heels of Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788). In the first two, Kant dealt with metaphysics and morality; in the third, Kant turns to the aesthetic dimension of human experience, showing how our experiences of natural and artistic beauty, the sublime magnitude and might of nature, and of pu...

Schopenhauer is the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will - a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behaviour as that of a natural organism governed by the wi...

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is something of a maverick figure in the history of philosophy. He produced a unique theory of the world and human existence based upon his notion of will. This collection analyses the related but distinct components of will from the point of view of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, ethics, and the philosophy of psychoanalysis. This volume explores Schopenhauer's philosophy of death, his relationship to the philosophy of Kant, his u...

'my philosophy is like Thebes with a hundred gates: one can enter from all sides and through each gate arrive at the direct path to the centre' Schopenhauer's two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morals form his complete system of ethics. Their doctrines, continuous with those in his major work The World as Will and Representation, are presented here in more accessible, self-contained form. Schopenhauer argues, in uniquely po...

Schopenhauer is considered to be the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will—a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behavior as that of a natural organism gove...

What is the meaning of life? In today's secular, post-religious scientific world, this question has become a serious preoccupation. But it also has a long history: many major philosophers have thought deeply about it, as Julian Young so vividly illustrates in this thought-provoking second edition of The Death of God and the Meaning of Life.Three new chapters explore Søren Kierkegaard’s attempts to preserve a Christian answer to the question of the meaning of life, Karl Mar...

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was 'a happy man' and in good health - yet life had lost its meaning. In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away ...

One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on religion, ethics, politics, women, suicide, books and many other themes is taken from Schopenhauer's last work, Parerga and Paralipomena, which he published in 1851. These pieces depict humanity as locked in a struggle beyond good and evil, and eac...

Originally published in 1813, this early work by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. Originally published as his doctoral dissertation and then later re-published, it outlines his cornerstone arguments on the subject of knowing. This fascinating work is highly recommended for anyone interested in 19th century philosophy and its development. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now...