The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I [Paperback]

Arthur Schopenhauer (Author), E. F. J. Payne (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1966

Volume 1 of the definitive English translation of one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement in one important stream of post-Kantian thought. Corrects nearly 1,000 errors and omissions in the older Haldane-Kemp translation. For the first time, this edition translates and locates all quotes and provides full index.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 694 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (June 1, 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486217612
• ISBN-13: 978-0486217611
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Modern

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 83 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of Philosophy January 3, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you are clever enough to shave away the nagging scientific details which have expired with time (as they all do), as well as the great philosopher's personal opinions, you will find this to be one of the greatest works ever written. For me, it was the end of philosophy; good answers to the questions I have always wrestled. An important thing to remember about Schopenhauer is that, as far as I know, he is the last great system-builder, the last philosopher in the traditional sense, who set out to create an entire picture of the world. His concept of the will, when fully grasped, is powerful and very simple. He is simply saying that there is one reality within all phenomenon, a "blind, irresistible urge" in his words, manifesting itself as the world. It is a mind-blowing concept: that the hungers and desires that push and pull you along are actually the stirrings of the same "force" (for lack of a better word) that also reveals itself in such phenomenon as gravity, magnetism, and the very energy that composes all matter; and that this restless and indestructible power is your true being. The downside is that it is insatiable and forever striving, with no goal being final, and satisfaction an eternal delusion.

The hardest part of this book to grasp is Schopenhauer's acceptance of transcendental idealism, which states that you only know the world through your five senses and your brain, and that therefore the objects you think you know directly have been conditioned by the process of perception, and are not things-in-themselves (this was Immanuel Kant's contribution to philosophy). It is not quite as difficult as it reads, and it may sound rather mystical until a proper understanding of what he is talking about strikes you unexpectedly one day. When it struck me I immediately re-read the book, and it was like reading it for the first time. Anybody familiar with "The Matrix" will be ahead of the crowd here, for the creators of that film were very familiar with Schopenhauer (in "The Matrix Reloaded," it is Schopenhauer's book (with the title in the original German) that the Persephone character pulls to open the door to the Keymaker). Just keep in mind that the world you percieve around you is most assuredly a mental construct (or mental picture) that is created by your brain from data conveyed by the nerves. It is not the world directly, it is a "representation" of the world. The only thing which is known to you directly (at least in part), is yourself, and therein lies the will, forever hungry, all of your emotions being its acts within the field of time. To properly grasp the idealistic half of his work (the world as representation), I strongly suggest the essay in vol. II called, "On the Fundamental View of Idealism."

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A readable German philosophy that's worth reading!!! November 30, 1998

By dionysus

Format:Paperback

Schopenhauer proves that a German philosopher does not have to be nearly unintelligible to appear profound. Unlike Hegel and Heidegger, Schopenhauer does not hide behind ambiguous words or phrases. To the reader, Schopenhauer's views are as profound as they are clear. Starting where Kant left off, he gives new meaning to the word will; he makes will the thing in itself. Both volumes are essential reading. The first offers his entire system. From epistemology to metaphysics, to a great essay on where his philosophy differs from Kant's, the first volume is the foundation for the second. The second volume is classic Schopenhauer; this is the acid-tongued curmudgeon most people think of when they bother to think of him at all. The sections on death and the metaphysics of sexual love are mind-blowing. As it is expressed in his masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer's genius and originality of thinking tower over the views of most thinkers being pushed in universities today.

127 of 142 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The vision of a giant mind. August 1, 2000

By TheIrrationalMan

Format:Hardcover

Although the scientific premises of his philosophy are now considered outdated, Arthur Schopenhauer's contribution to modern philosophy continues to be an enduring and endearing one. Despite the fact that he wrote in the framework of Kantian idealism -- (with its dual-world metaphysics of "phenomenon" and "thing-in-itself") -- his thought has branched out into several directions, proving to be influential on some of the literary and philosophical luminaries of the nineetenth as well as the twentieth centuries. In his metaphysics, he was a voluntarist, propounding the nonrational, universal will as the ultimate reality (the "thing-in-itself") and the driving force behind all the manifestations of organic life as well as inorganic nature. The voluntarist doctrine of the will to power of Nietzsche was evolved from Schopenhauer, as well as the metaphysical vitalism of Bergson and, most patently, Freud's theory of the unconscious. In his epistemology, he was a phenomenologist and idealist, following the footsteps of Berkeley and the critical idealist Kant. In his aesthetics, he was a Platonist, holding the ontologically originary Form, or what he terms the "Platonic Idea" to be anterior to the aesthetic representation. In his ethics, he argued that to live means to desire and desire entails nothing but suffering. His reasoning was that desire induces suffering when it is frustrated from acquiring its object; upon overcoming its hindrances and realising its object, desire results in boredom since it has a new object in view and the cycle continues indefinitely. As such, desire leads inevitably to suffering. Schopenhauer's answer is asceticism ("the denial of the will-to-live"). The wise man does not commit suicide, but abstains from this life of useless striving and hopes for an annihilating death. In the meantime, he will look with compassion and pity upon his suffering fellow creatures. This element of Schopenhauer's philosophy reflects his unremittingly melancholy and pessimistic temperament, culminating, according to his biographer, in intense paranoia and the habit of sleeping at night with a loaded pistol tucked under his pillow. His ascetic morality is unique in modern Western philosophy. Being an atheist, Schopenhauer was arguably the first philosopher to effect a thorough break with the Judaeo-Christian tradition and to introduce strong elements of Eastern religion in his thought. (His voluntarism and asceticism have Hinduist and Jain Buddhist roots in the doctrine of reincarnation "metempsychosis" and the application of austerities upon oneself to liberate the soul from the karmic matter which magnetises it and causes it to be painfully reborn into the world of pain.) In terms of his style, he was an undisputed master of German prose style, writing in a lucid, witty and jargon-free Romantic "essay-style". He has exerted an influence on a number of key modern literary figures, such as Mann, Conrad and Hardy. His stress on style anticipates contemporary philosophising and its emphasis on literary form, as can be seen in the works of figures such as Derrida, Baudrillard, Heidegger, Deleuze et al. In addition, the unaffected purity of his philosophy is an indication of the great extent to which it approximates his own difficult and powerful personality. Only someone like Schopenhauer, whose character combined such a vehemence of desire along with such a brooding sensitivity to suffering, could have produced such a philosophy which argues for the most extreme restraining of desire. Altogether, "The World as Will and Idea" is a fascinating encounter with one of the most impressive thinkers of all time. Imagine it as an intellectual dialogue, an after-dinner debate in which you are challenged and entertained with the insights of a truly giant mind. Even if one does not share his assumptions, or agree with his conclusions, he still provokes those who read him with admiration and respect for his insight and genius.