Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.
Schopenhauer in 1855
Schopenhauer's birthplace house, ul. Św. Ducha (formerly Heiliggeistgasse)
Schopenhauer in his youth
Schopenhauer in 1815. Portrait by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl.
The World as Will and Representation
The World as Will and Representation, sometimes translated as The World as Will and Idea, is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in late 1818, with the date 1819 on the title-page. A second, two-volume edition appeared in 1844: volume one was an edited version of the 1818 edition, while volume two consisted of commentary on the ideas expounded in volume one. A third expanded edition was published in 1859, the year prior to Schopenhauer's death. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann.
The title page of the expanded 1844 edition
Schopenhauer in 1815, second of the critical five years of the initial composition of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
The phrase "Tat Tvam Asi" ('thou art that'), one of the Mahāvākyas of the Upanishads, displayed on an Indian temple. Schopenhauer uses this Sanskrit phrase to express a foundational tenet of his ethics: 'the will is the in-itself of every appearance, and as such is itself free from the form of appearance, and thus from all multiplicity' (Book IV, §66).