Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) [Paperback]

Christopher Janaway (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192802593 | ISBN-13: 978-0192802590 | Publication Date: May 16, 2002

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 governed by the will to life, Schopenhauer developed radical insights concerning the unconscious and sexuality which influenced both psychologists and philosophers

Editorial Reviews

Review

`an excellent brief introduction to Schopenhauer's thought - well-written, concise, and pitched at just the right level.' Christopher Norris, University of Wales

About the Author

Christopher Janaway is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birbeck College, University of London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192802593
• ISBN-13: 978-0192802590
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > History > Historical Study > History of Ideas

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb concise introduction to Schopenhauer's thought., September 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Schopenhauer (Past Masters Series) (Paperback)

Concise yet engaging, this book is an excellent introduction to Schopenhauer's life and thought. The author's remarks on the difficulties and limitations of Schopenhauer's metaphysics are highly illuminating. His notes highlighting the important and influential aspects of this philosophy provide a perfect contrast to his critical remarks, and give the reader a sober, balanced view of the subject. All in all, this is a great book to read before and after delving into Schopenhauer's own works.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Rate, November 4, 2006

By 

meadowreader (Sandia Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)

Janaway is a top-notch Schopenhauer scholar, so there is no question that he knows his subject forwards and backwards. The first time I tried to read this Short Introduction, I didn't get very far before setting it aside with the feeling that I just wasn't getting it. A year later, after reading a lot of Schopenhauer and a several longer treatments of his ideas, I found that Janaway's book was clear as a bell, and I read right through it. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I think that I just didn't approach this kind of material with the right attitude and that the fault was therefore entirely mine. See below.

In any case, this is a first-rate introduction to Schopenhauer, and a very well-written one, too. Schopenhauer himself was a very clear and careful writer (no Hegel, by far), and Janaway continues in that tradition. Schopenhauer's metaphysics is, of course, speculative and that can be a problem if, like me, you come to it from an analytic tradition where everything has to be provable to be considered meaningful or taken seriously. In reading Schopenhauer, or a book like this describing his philosophy, you need to suspend those criteria temporarily and to look at his system as one extremely smart man's best guess about the nature of the world. Call it a working hypothesis that is necessarily underdetermined by the possible empirical evidence. The judgment required therefore must be an overall one as to how well you think that picture fits with the world as you experience it, granting that some number of alternative systems are possible that would fit equally well. To some degree, it's an aesthetic judgment, or perhaps a decision about what kind of world view you can be comfortable with; the key question is whether you are willing to entertain the possibility that the empirical world might not be all there is.

If you are shopping around for a congenial view at that level, then Schopenhauer's ideas are well worth considering, and Janaway's introduction would be a good place to start. Or, if you just have a detached curiousity about what one of the giants of 19th-century philosophy had to say, then it's a good book for that purpose, also. One thing about Schopenhauer is that once you understand his view of things, you will have a hard time seeing the world in quite the same way as you previously did.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very short perfect introduction to Schopenhauer, May 3, 2009

By 

greg taylor (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)

Janaway's little volume was the perfect introduction to Schopenhauer for me. I completed a degree in philosophy during the early 1970s. At that time, the academic world of philosophy was still in thrall to analytical philosophy. Continental philosophy was largely represented by thinkers like Merleau-Ponty or Heidegger. Habermas, Gadamer and Foucault were just beginning to be translated. My philosophy classes taught a lineage that went directly from Kant to Hegel to Marx to Husserl. Thinkers like Fichte, Schelling and Schopenhauer were ignored. Others like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were left for personal reading.
So coming into my reading of Janaway's book I had practically no background in Schopenhauer. After reading this book, I feel like I have a sense of the historical context, a grip on the main points of Schopenhauer's philosophy, and both where to go in my reading of Schopenhauer and in the secondary literature. Not bad at all for 127 pages.
The main thing I want to emphasize is that Janaway makes me want to read Schopenhauer himself. I have long had the volumes of The World as Will and Representation hanging around my bookshelf. I have now bought a copy of The Fourfold Root.. as the beginning to my further study.
All I am saying is that you couldn't ask for much more than what this book gives. All in an inexpensive paperback that you can carry around in your back pocket and pull out to read during the odd moments in your day.
The VSI series continues to impress me with their outstanding publications.