ABSTRACT

Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher who lived from 1788 to 1860, is famous amongst students of philosophy as the ‘philosopher of the will’, who said that underlying the world of experience was an incessant, striving ‘force’. He is likewise famous as the ‘philosopher of pessimism’ or the ‘philosopher of disenchantment’ because of his account of the suffering and misery in the world.1 Finally, he is also famous as having been a philosopher who was ‘militantly atheistic’ when it was not the done thing to be so open about such things. Schopenhauer, we are told, did not believe in any god and thus his worldview offers little hope for humanity. Indeed, so wretched did he view existence that he argued it would be better for us not to be, at all. This book seeks to examine and, where necessary, challenge the accuracy of each of these descriptions.