Work · Life & Existential Philosophy
The World as Will and Representation
The world is my representation – and its essence is blind will.
Introduction
The first edition appeared in Leipzig in December 1818, dated 1819, and sold poorly. It has four books: the world as representation, ordered by the principle of sufficient reason; the world as will, seen in our own body and in all of nature; art, in which representation is freed from that principle, with music as a direct copy of the will; and ethics, in which compassion and the denial of the will lead towards redemption. An appendix criticises Kant’s philosophy. In 1844 Schopenhauer added a second volume of fifty supplementary chapters. Fame came only in the 1850s; Richard Wagner and the young Nietzsche were among its readers.
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Connections
Builds on
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishadc. 700 BCE · Yajnavalkya
- Chandogya Upanishadc. 650 BCE · Uddalaka Aruni
- The Greatest Secret (Persian translation of the Upanishads)1657 · Dara Shikoh
- Critique of Pure Reason1781 · Immanuel Kant
Taken up in
- The Birth of Tragedy1872 · Friedrich Nietzsche
- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus1921 · Ludwig Wittgenstein
Criticized in
- On the Genealogy of Morality1887 · Friedrich Nietzsche
Appears in
- Journey ‘Asia and Europe in Dialogue’ · Stop 5 of 11
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