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The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

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If you're new to Schopenhauer, this probably isn't the best place to start. Although most of these essays merit a read, some are utterly blighted by an academic pomposity & inscrutability that makes them all but unreadable.

Granted, some philosophers who were guilty of transgressions of style (such as Kant), were still truly deep thinkers. But there is no excuse for the academic wretchedness displayed in this gem from the book's first essay:"Such purported intimate knowledge of the ultimate reality behind or beneath the appearances seems to transgress the critical interdiction against seeking knowledge of the unknowable things in themselves and therefore to constitute a relapse into pre-Kantian dogmatism or transcendental realism, thus turning Schopenhauer's work into a puzzling conjunction of transcendental philosophy and transcendent metaphysics of the will." And this from a book that claims to purportedly "dispel the intimidation ... readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker"!

Along with such drivel, there is much that is good. All of Christopher Janaway's essays are excellently written, perceptive, and a pure joy to read. Along with Bryan Magee, I consider Janaway the most reliable authority on Schopenhauer.

Although Schopenhauer probably would have resented this, some of the best essays in the volume were written by women. I found the essays on Schopenhauer's Eastern influences by Moira Nicholls and the Nietzsche/Schopenhauer/Dionysus connection by Martha Nussbaum to be especially interesting & insightful.

If you're new to Arthur Schopenhauer, it would be best to start with Schopenhauer-A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Janaway, and then move on to Bryan Magee's The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Then move on to The World as Will & Representation. It's truly a breeze to read when compared to Kant...or some of these essays.

Why would anyone want to become acquainted with a philosopher as clear as Schopenhauer through the distorting lens of academic exegeses?

And distortion is what you are guaranteed to find given that Schopenhauer's bleakly profound message has been generally trivialized or dismissed by academics for many generations now. This despite the fact that, for instance, modern cosmology amply substantiates his pronouncements on the vanity of existence.

My advice is to follow Schopenhauer's own advice:
"A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones - for life is short."

"Statt der selbsteigenen Werke der Philosophen allerlei Darlegungen ihrer Lehren [...] zu lesen, ist wie wenn man sich sein Essen von einem Anderen kauen lassen wollte." Thus spoke Schopenhauer. But as he probably knew himself, the savouring of regurgitated food is not an uncommon practice in the animal kingdom. Schopenhauer was a master of clarity, and sensitivity to beautiful prose should help one a long way towards understanding the philosophy of someone who was also a master of the German language. Nevertheless, there are two obstacles of which one should be wary. (i) A full understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy requires familiarity with the philosophy of Kant. (ii) One should have read and understood his doctoral dissertation dealing with the four varieties of objects qua representations - viz., real objects, concepts, space-time, selfhood - and the laws by which their becoming is governed. Owing to these two obstacles, introductory texts are likely to prove worthwhile. Unfortunately, the collection of essays on hand fails to serve its purpose. The ultimate objection to this collection is that its editor seems to have failed to understand that the contributors must be asked to do their utmost to maintain their focus on the subject matter: the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Anything that may prove disruptive to such a focus must be treated as anathema. Furthermore, the most difficult themes must be identified - for instance the immutability of the human character - and treated of in a rigorous manner. The latter demand is met in an admirable fashion by Günter Zöller, David Hamlyn, and F.C. White, whereas most of the remaining essays can be said to oscillate between the silly and the irrelevant. And finally there are essays dealing with themes which are less than challenging, viz., an intelligent reader is in need of no assistance when it comes to understanding these particular aspects to the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Silliness and its cases in point: Moira Nicholls's crude understanding of Nibbana - her main source in this regard is the catechism of Sri Rahula, available in all New Age bookstores - proves less than helpful in terms of comparing Schopenhauer's doctrine of salvation with its Eastern counterpart. Christopher Janaways's essay entitled "Schopenhauer's Pessimism" is an instance of theoretical exercise in the quest for eudaimonia: (A) Strive toward X (B) Attain X and rejoice (C) If not, pout. This is sure to bring back memories of philosophy courses at high school. Another point of criticism is the appalling myopia of these Anglo-Americans. A survey of their footnotes reveals a great deal. The only contributor who is not active in the Anglo-American domain, is Günter Zöller. An examination of his footnotes shows that he is familiar with both English and German sources on Schopenhauer. As for the others, they seem to be relying almost exclusively on Anglo-American sources. One is tempted to ask the following question: is no relevant research on Schopenhauer being carried out in his own country? There are several excellent books on Schopenhauer in the German language, which should have been listed in the bibliography section. The most elementary texts on Schopenhauer in the German language, keep track of things that seem to have bypassed these Anglo-American experts on Schopenhauer. For instance, Sebastian Gardener writes about "Schopenhauer's frequent asylum tours" (p. 386) and refers to an essay by R.K. Gupta in which it was, according to Gardener, "claimed" that Schopenhauer used to visit mental asylums (n. 59, p. 412). Incidentally, Schopenhauer does write about these visits himself in his Handschrifliche[m] Nachlaß (I:87) and in WWV (I:3:36), as pointed out by Klaus-Jürgen Grün in his rather unpretentious introduction to the philosophy of Schopenhauer (p. 121). If Gardener's lack of familiarity with the corpus of Schopenhauer is in any way representative of the level at which the other contributors find themselves, then there is every reason to shun this collection. Schopenhauer's philosophy views the world as a riddle, it attempts to account for all the contradictions to the human existence, and it culminates in mysticism; precisely for these reasons it does not lend itself to analytical hair-splitting: Schopenhauer's "methodische Drehen und Wenden der Standpunkte umeinander und gegeneinander - in der Sekundärliteratur häufig übersehen oder als Widersprüche im Denken Schopenhauers, als Denkfehler abgetan - sucht die dogmatische Festschreibung einer einzelnen Betrachtungsweise zu verhindern" (p. 10). The follies against which we are warned by Volker Spierling, are committed again and again in this collection, not least by the editor himself. One is justified in asking for something more edifying from the publishing house of a university that blessed the world with legends like Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Anthony Blunt.